CHURCH DOMENICA SANTA [BG]

Exploration #256 Church Domenica Santa. During the period of the Ottoman Empire, many churches were built in Bulgaria. Today, many of them are in a poor state of repair or completely abandoned.

This church is located in a small, semi-abandoned village in Bulgaria. Inside, there are beautiful paintings still adorning all the walls and the ceiling. Especially the latter is striking for the beautiful blue colour still present. However, the roof structure is failing, allowing weathering to penetrate inside and erode the structure. We do not know the history of this little church, but from some documents we find scattered around we note that they bear the date 1915 and that its name is supposedly connected to Domenica Santa.

LA CHIESA BLU [IT]

The Blue Church, named after its beautiful ceiling painted, is part of the San Luigi di Roncovero Institute. The San Luigi di Roncovero Institute was founded by Antonio Ghirardelli, born in 1866 and Knight of the Crown of Italy. Together with Cav. Luigi, he allocated their patrimony to the creation of a small seminary.

Construction work began in the early 1930s. The structure functioned for several decades as a Minor Seminary, then it was joined by the Junior High School with boarding school, which, again under the aegis of the Jesuit Fathers, welcomed boys from various localities. In 1984, the Jesuits left due to the vocation crisis. The structure passed to the Diocese of Piacenza, which in 1986 rented it to the State Police school for about ten years. In 1997, the complex took in about eighty Albanian refugees fleeing their country.

After more than three decades of abandonment, a functional recovery is on the horizon as a hotel home and RSA for the elderly.

SACRUM CONVIVIUM [IT]

Exploration #247 Abandoned church in Italy. This abandoned church is located in an old village in central Italy, now uninhabited and in a state of abandonment. Probably due to difficult access because of a landslide on the small road leading to the village, this church is still very well preserved and untouched by vandalism.

MAUSOLEUM KORCK [DE]

Exploration #239 Mausoleum Korck. The former pastor and scientist Dagobert Schönfeld Korck was buried in this crypt built by him on 8 September 1916.  He was son of Carl Gottfried Schönfeld from Elbing and Marianne Bertha Hacker; the father was also a pastor at the evangelical church in Putzig between 1826 and 1835 and later, until his death, pastor in Jungfer (West Prussia).

Above the crypt rises a small church with a domed ceiling at the apex of which is a circular opening two metres in diameter called the opaion, or oculus in Latin, with the function of allowing light to enter. In order to save weight, the dome is structured by three concentric rings of 22 boxes each, with the boxes of the individual rings becoming smaller and smaller towards the top.

FARAONE ANTICO [IT]

Exploration #229 Faraone Antico. Faraone Antico was a fortified village built between the 18th and 19th centuries around an ancient castle of which almost no traces remain today. It consisted of some 20 houses and a church dedicated to Santa Maria della Misericordia. At one time, it was completely surrounded by defensive walls, now almost entirely collapsed except for the monumental gate, which is still used to reach the village. Since the mid-1960s, the village has been abandoned, mainly following an earthquake in September 1950 that damaged many buildings.

The church of Santa Maria della Misericordia was also seriously damaged by the earthquake, but nevertheless, years later, it still retains its former splendour and is the best-preserved building in the old village of Faraone Antico. Next to the church stands the old rectory, to this day the only house still inhabited in the village.

CONVENTO BLU [IT]

Exploration #210 Convento Blu. The construction of the building, called the Convento Blu (Blue Convent) because of its beautiful frescoed refectory, took place around the first half of the 15th century when Pope Eugene IV gave permission to the order of Friars Minor to erect a convent near the city of Terni. The friars chose as the site for the convent the top of a hill, called, at the time, Colle Lauro. The land was private so the municipality bought it and also provided 100 gold florins for its construction. Work began around January 1443. Besides the convent, a road paved with stones was also built. Over the years, the convent was expanded to include a school for novices, a boarding school for students and a wool factory. The site was able to accommodate up to 80 monks.

In 1928, the municipality decided to use the former convent as a rest home for the elderly, which was inaugurated in 1929 and named after Alessandro Mussolini. The rest home operated until 1989. After this date, the residents were transferred to the USL geriatric centre, together with all the staff.

The facility was later abandoned and in its current state of condition, it is unusable. In 2011, the municipality of Terni put the building up for sale, but all auctions were unsuccessful.

CIMITERO DI STAGLIENO [IT]

Exploration #202 Cimitero di Staglieno (testo italiano a fondo pagina). The monumental Cimitero di Staglieno is the largest burial place in Genova. It is one of the most important monumental cemeteries in Europe and is considered a true open-air museum. Illustrious sons of the Ligurian capital and other famous people are buried there, including one of the fathers of the Italian homeland, Giuseppe Mazzini, the Prime Minister and partisan Ferruccio Parri, and the composer of the music for the Italian anthem, Michele Novaro.

Work began in 1844 and the building was opened to the public on 2 January 1851. After various extensions over time, it now covers an area of around 330,000 square metres. Along the hill above it, monumental chapels in Gothic, Byzantine, Neo-Egyptian, Art Nouveau, Mesopotamian and Neoclassical styles can be found.

Genoa’s main cemetery has undergone a decline over time, also due to its size, while retaining its charm. The old tombs and sculptures are now greyed by dust, smog and overgrown shrubs. Although left abandoned, they remain equally full of grace and perfect in structure, remaining one of the best examples of the funerary art with which the Genoese bourgeoisie of the 19th century flaunted its opulence (source: wikipedia).

CERTOSA MOTTA GROSSA [IT]

Exploration #193 Certosa Motta Grossa. In 1903, following laws suppressing monastic orders, the Carthusian women’s community of Bastide Sainte Pierre at Montauban in the French Garonne had to abandon their convent and seek refuge in Italy. The Prior General at the time, Father Michel Baglin, had to buy the ancient medieval castle of “Motta dei Trucchetti” at the request of Father Martin, superior of the seminary of Pinerolo, and a great benefactor of the nuns until his death. The Carthusian nuns thus moved into the ancient castle in 1903.

Major renovation work began in October 1903 and was carried out under the direction of Don Roch Mallet, procurator of the Grande Chartreuse, who made the buildings suitable for the Carthusian monastic rule. Here the religious community respected the Carthusian rule as a house of refuge, and it was only later, in 1936, given the considerable growth in the number of nuns, that it was decided to build an autonomous Carthusian monastery known as Certosa Motta Grossa. The Carthusian nuns of Riva were the second female foundation of the Order in Italy, after that of Buonluogo. They remained there until May 1998, when they moved to the Carthusian monastery of Vedana. The Carthusian Monastery was then sold to the Diocesan Institute of Turin, which has since abandoned it.

These photos date back to 2014. Today the structure has been heavily vandalized.

CHEREPISH MONASTERY [BG]

Exploration #179 Cherepish Monastery. We are in Bulgaria, near the banks of the river Iskăr, in a section where the river winds its way between inaccessible rocks in a gorge. It is a cold spring day and the landscape is made magical by an unexpected overnight snowfall. In this picturesque place, the Cherepish Monastery was built in the 14th century and is still a place of worship today. A few metres away are several other religious buildings, now abandoned.

It all began in 1902, when the Sofia Theological School was founded, an institute that became very prestigious over the years. During the Second World War, the School’s buildings were damaged by aerial bombs, forcing the students to be evacuated to various places in the country, including Cherepish, where until 1947 some classes were temporarily transferred to buildings constructed next to the railway. At the end of the war classes returned to the seminary building in Sofia, but in September 1950 the new communist government decided to use the building for the Ministry of Education and exiled the Theological School to the old buildings in Cherepish Monastery. There the life of the seminarians lasted until 1990, when after the fall of the communist regime, the Theological Academy regained its property in Sofia. Since that year the Cherepish Monastery buildings have been abandoned. A guard was initially posted to watch over the place, but over the years everything has been left to decay.

What we are about to visit is the church built by the seminarians removed from Sofia, dedicated to St. Clement of Ohrid (Св. Климент Охридски). The interior of the church was adorned with many frescoes, while the exterior was enriched by a narthex, decorated with columns, from which the bell tower rises. Since liturgical singing was also studied in the Seminary, a large balcony called ‘emporium’ was reserved for the choristers. The garden around the temple was also very well cared for. In the centre of the garden, a stone spring can still be seen, from which water gushed out to quench the thirst of visitors.

Unfortunately, humidity and water infiltration are slowly destroying the frescoes, and uneven ground is creating dangerous cracks by tilting the main walls. Visiting the abandoned church evokes mixed feelings. On the one hand, the quiet and peaceful silence accompanied only by birdsong. On the other hand, the empty church and the probing glances of the many forgotten saints show that everything is perishable, even the buildings that were meant to serve God.

VILLA CONCHIGLIA [IT]

Exploration #149. Villa Conchiglia, real name Villa Carpeneto, so called because of the beautiful shell-shaped stucco decorating an elaborate staircase, is a splendid former aristocratic residence of baroque and neoclassical appearance, located in the agricultural plains of northern Italy.

In the middle of the last century, it was proclaimed a ‘National Monument’ due to its architectural merit. Built from a pre-existing medieval castle, the residence has changed hands over time, almost all of them belonging to aristocratic families and important political figures. In 1960, the villa was finally acquired by a Swiss company and since then it has been in a state of gradual decay, now sadly abandoned, unfurnished and neglected.

In 2020, the municipal authority expressed its willingness to purchase the historic residence for the purpose of conservative restoration and cultural functions.