Church of Madonna della Salute in San Francesco

Church of Madonna della Salute

Position: San Francesco

The church has a single nave with a three-arched apse. The eighteenth-century altar, in polychrome marble, is closed by a marble balustrade. In the center of the gallery the Madonna della Salute is depicted, closed in a niche. The Liparulo coat of arms and the epigraph of the foundation of the church are carved at the base. On the walls of the basin, two large paintings depicting the Assumption and the Expulsion of money lenders from the temple.

Two other paintings of Santa Lucia and Santa Caterina are found on either side of the niche. The Chapel of San Francesco has a seventeenth-century altar, in polychrome marble, with the painting of San Francesco to whom it is dedicated. The urn containing the relics of the martyrs of Otranto, a city that in the reign of Ferrante I was attacked and devastated by the Turks, and to whose liberation Massa Lubrense contributed by sending some men on 10 September 1481. On the urn containing the relics it is written “Martyrs Hydruntini MDLXXXIII”.

In front of the chapel of San Francesco there is another altar dedicated to San Onofrio and San Francesco, with the frame of the 1600s. In the walls there are three altars on each side. The 18th-century tiled floor of the church and the sacristy is very interesting, but there are also other works of art. Among which, a wooden statue of the Virgin of the fifteenth century.