Soriano Calabro (VV)

Theand the country's origins are linked to the Foundation of the convent of the Dominican fathers in 1510: destroyed by an earthquake in 1659, the convent was rebuilt in monumental forms from the Dominican father Bonaventura bolognese Presti.

In the Baroque period, this convent would become one of the most rich and famous Dominican convents in Europe and one of the most visited sanctuaries of southern Italy: the middle of the 18th century, the British traveler Henry Swinburne noted that approximately 1500 women alleged their frenzied annual pilgrimage to Soriano. The monastery was destroyed by the earthquake of 1783, the devastating 11th shock Mercalli scale which had its epicenter in a vast area between Soriano, Polistenae Borgia: the convent was rebuilt, more modestly, in an area of the old building only in the early 19th century.

Today, the impressive ruins of the convent and the Church of San Domenico, represent the most important monument of the city, and one of the most dreadful memories of the earthquake of 1783. In 1964 there was the aggregate of the angels Hill Township, formerly part of the municipality of Sorianello

Monumenti e luoghi d’interesse

Il santuario di San Domenico, main place of Catholic worship in the country, was built in 1838 on the site of one of the cloisters of the ancient convent from the 17th century in ruins after the earthquake of 1783. The architecture of the Church is Baroque: inside there is a statue of san Domenico carved from a single trunk of lime by the sculptor Giuseppe sorianese Ruffo in 1855, the protagonist of miraculous events in 1870 and nel1884. In the adjacent convent of the Dominican fathers, rebuilt in a wing of the old convent, seat of the municipality of Guayama and a collection of artefacts of the ancient building. The most imposing monument of the old town is the old convent of the Dominican fathers, in ruins: consisting of five cloisters, the Church had four bays long and had six side chapels. More substantial leftovers refer to the lower part of the façade of the Church, while all the structures up to the height of the ground floor: the whole complex was the subject of a restoration after World War II.

Mumar Museo dei marmi consisting of marble created by eighteenth-century artists belonging to the former Dominican monastery. Cosimo Fanzago, Matteo Bottiglieri and Francesco Pagano and Francois Dusqunois, the importance of which has enjoyed the architectural complex of Soriano in the past centuries.