L’Eremo di S. Corrado Fuori le Mura

Useful Information

photography — La Vergine con il Bambino e S. **Corrado** (Madonna and Child with San **Corrado**), dated 1759, by **Sebastiano Conca** (*1680-✝1764). Public Domain.

Location:	Contrada Lenza Vacche, 96017 Noto SR. A18 Siracus-Gela exit Noto, SP59/SP19 to Noto, across the city, main road becomes SS287, to San Corrado di Fuori, after the village turn left, signposted. Car park at the end of the road. (36.9286079, 15.0596557)
Open:	All year daily 7 to dusk. [2024]
Fee:	free. [2024]
Classification:	Cave Church
Light:	Incandescent
Dimension:
Guided tours:	self guided
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:
Address:	L’Eremo di S. Corrado Fuori le Mura, Contrada Lenza Vacche, 96017 Noto SR, Tel: +39-0. E-mail:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1322 to 1351	St. Corrado lives in a cave as a hermit.
1749	church built in Baroque style.

Description

L’Eremo di S. Corrado Fuori le Mura (Hermitage of St Conrad Outside the Walls) is a hermits cave, the Grotta San Corrado di Fuori. It is located at the bottom of a gorge named Valle dei Pizzoni o dei Miracoli (Valley of Pizzoni or of the Miracles), north of the city Noto. The ravine is surrounded on both sides by the village San Corrado di Fuori, and there is even a small river most of the year. The church in the valley was erected in 1749 and has a graceful Baroque façade. It was built at the rock face and is almost a cave church, the right wall is bare rock. Inside is a painting depicting La Vergine con il Bambino e S. Corrado (Madonna and Child with San Corrado), dated 1759, by Sebastiano Conca (*1680-✝1764). An altarpiece depicting San Corrado has the same year, and there is also a marble statue of him, a work of the sculptor Giuseppe Fortunato Pirrone. It is located in front of a second altar which is placed at the rock face on the right side, while the first altar is straight ahead in the apsis. He is shown on his knees praying. In the corner, at the rock wall, there are two dents in the floor, left by the knees of the Saint who spent half his life praying here.

The building also contains a small ex-voto museum with the objects donated by devotees in exchange for a "grace". This includes dresses, mainly wedding or baby clothes, anatomical ex-votos, gold and silver, paintings, sacred furnishings and relics of St. Conrad and the hermit Venerable Pietro Gazzetti. The museum is reached along the rock face and up a staircase.

But the cave related site is a little uphill, the hermitage is a small artificial cave where Corrado Confalonieri lived between 1322 and 1351. He was born into a rich and important family near Piacenza, the city of Calendasco was a fiefdom of his family. According to legend, which actually seems fictitious, he went hunting and ordered a fire to drive out the prey. When a peasant was accused to have caused the fire, he said nothing out of shame. Finally, right before the execution of the peasant, he confessed. He would have been executed, but due to his noble status, only his entire fortune was confiscated, he became a Franciscan and his wife a nun. A nice and instructive story that is most likely fictional. He became a Franciscan tertiary and lived forty years as a hermit, thirty of them here. Conrad died on 19-FEB-1351. It is said that he had foreseen his death, and decided to die while in prayer kneeling before a crucifix.

The cave is signposted from the front of the church, on the right side of the valley a trail leads up stone steps and across terraces. The Patron Saint's grotto is like all the cave houses in the area, a rather small rectangular room which was dug into the limestone. There is a narrow door but no window. It contains a sort of chapel and a statue of Pyrrhon. There is a second, even smaller room, which still contains the rectangular boulder on which San Corrado used to rest. On the walls more ex-votos, especially dresses, mainly wedding or baby clothes, can be seen.

The cliff face is actually full of such cave houses. On the way down you can see a steep staircase carved into the soft rock. It ends on a narrow rocky path at least 10 m above the ground leading to a black hole on the far end. Beneath the church, at the church garden with its fruit and lemon trees, there are more caves, all empty. One is actually located below the church, but it is not a crypt, it houses a nativity scene designes as a cave made of stones.

San Corrado lived here for thirty years, in the small cave house uphill. After his Canonization he became the Patron Saint of the nearby city Noto, and he was quite popular. Paintings of him exist in the Cattedrale di Noto, and all over Europe. And so this place became a pilgrimage destination. Soon the church was built to accommodate all the visitors, and the village above depended economically on the pilgrims.

This site is still a pilgrimage destination, but not as popular as once, and so the village is a little run down. The church is freely accessible as custom with catholic churches in Italy. Please behave respectful, wear appropriate clothes (often a problem with tourists), and be aware that donations are welcome. There is a car park right in front of the cave and church. If you are in the city above, there is also a trail which goes down in serpentines to the church, it's a 5-minute walk downhill. Unfortunately, it is not signposted. It seems this was the normal access before cars, but is now more or less obsolete.