San Carlo, Erice

The Church and Monastery of San Carlo (Italian: Chiesa e Monastero di San Carlo) is a Roman Catholic church and former monastery in Erice, Sicily.

The church, dedicated to Charles Borromeo, was built in 1617 together with an adjoining monastery^[a] founded by the priest Gianpietro Maranzano as a charitable institution for orphaned girls.^[5] The former monastery is now used as dormitories for the Istituto di Istruzione Superiore Ignazio e Vincenzo Florio hotel and catering school.^[6]

The complex originated in 1617, when Don Gianpietro Maranzano donated the first nucleus of buildings to house orphan girls.^[5] The community expanded through bequests and property acquisitions, and became known for producing sweets and pastries, a tradition that continued into the 20th century.^[5]

After Italian unification, the 1866 law that dissolved many religious orders did not apply to San Carlo, because its members were not a monastic order but enclosed laywomen.^[5] The institute was officially closed in 1970, when the last orphans left, and the final nun departed in 1978.^[5] Thereafter the property passed to the IPAB (Istituto Pubblico di Assistenza e Beneficenza).

The church suffered damage in the 1968 Belice earthquake. After roof repairs in the early 1990s it reopened for worship, but was closed again in 1998 and used to store furnishings from the church of San Pietro.^[5] Following restoration, it was reopened for prayer in August 2003.^[7]

From the 1980s until the mid-2010s, parts of the former monastery hosted exhibitions of the La Salerniana contemporary art collection, which organised summer shows by leading Italian artists; in 2015 the collection moved to Trapani’s Palazzo della Vicaria.^{[8][9][10][11]}

In September 2021 the former monastery was inaugurated as the boarding facility (convitto) of the Istituto di Istruzione Superiore Ignazio e Vincenzo Florio; the Comune of Erice formally delivered the premises the same month as part of a co-financed restoration programme. The dormitory complex—organised as small apartments—accommodates between 20 and 40 beds.^[2][12][13]

The church is a small, single-nave structure with a maiolica floor laid by Neapolitan craftsmen in the 18th century. It has five altars:

• the high altar, with a wooden statue of Nostra Signora di tutte le Grazie;
• the first altar on the right, originally dedicated to Sant’Alessio, now holds a painting of the Crocifisso by Pietro D’Andrea (called Poma);
• the second on the right, once housing a statue of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, contains a panel of San Carlo Borromeo, also attributed to Poma;
• the first altar on the left, dedicated to Saint Joseph;
• the second on the left, formerly of the Crucifix, contains a Madonna del Soccorso of the Gagini school, transferred from the church of San Domenico.^[5]

Additional statues of Saint Vincent and the Sacred Heart of Jesus came from the church of San Pietro.^[5]

The sisters of San Carlo were renowned for sweets and pastries made with pasta reale di Erice, a craft taught alongside embroidery.

Sources record that in the 1930s Suor Petronilla Cammarata gifted visiting relatives small campane—glass-domed wax displays of the Christ Child with floral motifs. They also recall the lay teacher Stellina Rizzo, who taught needlework and pastry making.^[5] After the closure of the Santa Teresa monastery, the last Discalced Carmelite nuns there, Suor Adriana Barbera and Suor Benedetta Calamusa, were transferred to San Carlo, where they continued the confectionery tradition.^[14]

Erice retains the pastry tradition; local pastry shops (pasticcerie) continue the town’s almond-based recipes. Maria Grammatico, who trained with the nuns, runs the Scuola di Arte Culinaria in the old town and offers public pastry classes.^[15][16]