Description
The Basilica-Shrine of Saint Anthony of Padua, on Via Santa Cecilia, is the city's great shrine to Saint Anthony, tied to Saint Hannibal Mary Di Francia, the priest of the poor and of orphans. Opened in 1926, it was the first masonry church built in the heart of the city after the 1908 earthquake.
The façade is in Melilli stone, with the large gilded inscription of the Gospel verse “Rogate ergo Dominum messis” at its centre: it is the first church in the world dedicated to prayer for vocations. In the niches on either side of the entrance stand bronze statues of the evangelists Luke and Matthew.
The interior, with a nave and two aisles, is entirely decorated with stuccoes and paintings. On the vaults frescoed by Rosario Spagnoli you can make out Noah's Ark, Judith and Holofernes, Queen Esther and the prophet Elijah on his chariot of fire. The body of Saint Hannibal rests in the crypt.
Next to the church, the museum recreates the Avignone quarter to scale, with its alleys, its workshops and the saint's room. The display cases hold tools from the workshops, mementoes of Father Hannibal and two chasubles worn by John Paul II.
The basilica stands right on the site of the Avignone quarter, a poor and disreputable neighbourhood where in 1878 Hannibal began helping the poorest. After the earthquake Pius X gave him a shack church, which a mysterious fire destroyed on the night of 26 to 27 April 1919.
As the shack burned, a woman of the people cried out that now Father Francia would build one all of gold. Two years later the first stone of today's basilica was laid.
The bond with Saint Anthony comes from “Saint Anthony's Bread”. During a cholera epidemic a widow promised an offering for the orphans' bread if she and her children were spared; when her prayer was answered she kept her word, and Father Hannibal spread the devotion around the world.
On 12 and 13 June thousands of pilgrims file past the statue of the saint, and the following Sunday a float 7 metres high carries it in procession through the city.
The façade is in Melilli stone, with the large gilded inscription of the Gospel verse “Rogate ergo Dominum messis” at its centre: it is the first church in the world dedicated to prayer for vocations. In the niches on either side of the entrance stand bronze statues of the evangelists Luke and Matthew.
The interior, with a nave and two aisles, is entirely decorated with stuccoes and paintings. On the vaults frescoed by Rosario Spagnoli you can make out Noah's Ark, Judith and Holofernes, Queen Esther and the prophet Elijah on his chariot of fire. The body of Saint Hannibal rests in the crypt.
Next to the church, the museum recreates the Avignone quarter to scale, with its alleys, its workshops and the saint's room. The display cases hold tools from the workshops, mementoes of Father Hannibal and two chasubles worn by John Paul II.
The basilica stands right on the site of the Avignone quarter, a poor and disreputable neighbourhood where in 1878 Hannibal began helping the poorest. After the earthquake Pius X gave him a shack church, which a mysterious fire destroyed on the night of 26 to 27 April 1919.
As the shack burned, a woman of the people cried out that now Father Francia would build one all of gold. Two years later the first stone of today's basilica was laid.
The bond with Saint Anthony comes from “Saint Anthony's Bread”. During a cholera epidemic a widow promised an offering for the orphans' bread if she and her children were spared; when her prayer was answered she kept her word, and Father Hannibal spread the devotion around the world.
On 12 and 13 June thousands of pilgrims file past the statue of the saint, and the following Sunday a float 7 metres high carries it in procession through the city.