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C.so Reginna - Edicola della MADONNA delle CATENE - p.zza D'Amato - Chiesa di S ROCCO - SCALA SANTA/COLLEGIATA -chiesa della MADONA del CARMINE - proseguendo per v Vena MINORI/fraz TORRE
DIFFICULTY: AGEVOLE
TIME: 40 MINUTI

          We are now entering the main road, the heart of Maiori...

          Noisy and full of life, it is the drawing- room of the people of Maiori, for centuries the place favoured by the aristocrats...proud and sustained by their caste the nobles of Maiori became proverbial as rather than take their place in the administration, they choose the easy life...
A young noble of Maiori preferred to get up quite late and take advantage of the pleasant air after mid-day, wearing sumptuous livery, he strolled along the Corso: "MMIEZO MAJURE CAPPIELLO A TRE PIZZE" (on roads of Maiori wearing an exclusive tricorn hat) the young noble made polite conversation and courted ladies, a pleasant life...

          Anarchy reigned in the city for this reason, a sort of laxness and precarity, hence a proverb: "O CUNCIERTO E MAJURE"(the disordered of Maiori), made even worse: "'A LEGGE E MAJURE TRE GGHIUORNE RURA, ADDA ESSE BON PENZATA PE' DURA' QUATTE JURNATE!" (by the resigned conviction that in general states of anarchy nobody obeyed the law for more than three days, four if it was a good law!).
There were attempts to placate the angry population with promises: "T'ADDA ACCATTA' CHI NUN TE SAPE..." a proverb: "IO A MO' CHE TE CONOSCO 'MBRELLINO E SETA!" (Only those who do not know your habits would believe you, we have listened to you for too long, people like you are only good for strolling under a silk-sun-shade...in the current use the proverb has a widen meaning extended to all those who promise everything without giving result)...

          Halfway up the road, the shrine of "St. MARIA delle CATENE", built in the XVI century to give thanks to the Madonna by the people of Maiori. They were miraculously saved from the terrible corsair "Barbarossa" who intended to take them to Constantinople as slaves, devoting themselves to the Madonna, the prisoners managed to escape from the ships. On the steps of the shrine they laid the bonds that had held them captive...

          A few more metres and we are in Piazza D'Amato at the small church of St. ROCCO, founded on the remains of the church of St. Sebastian "Intra Moenia" ("within the walls" of the bastion that gave it its name)...on the altar is the ANCIENT COAT of ARMS of the city...

          A dozen paces, in the space between the palaces we find the "HOLY STEPS " entrance to the Collegiata...

          This entrance by the tradition is reserved for sacred functions and weddings (funerals use the side entrance) and it is of newly weds that we are about to talk, of the gentle sex to be more precise...

          The women of Maiori are said to be the most beautiful on the entire Coast - a fact confirmed by the austere local historian Matteo Camera: "the women, mainly those of population are distinguished by the shape and grace of their forms and could serve a models to painters and sculptors..." - these are splendid creatures have only one fault, a predilection for rich men, all the better if not too bright, who they can trap and in this way guarantee a golden future; so a local proverb was born: "SAGLIUTA A SCALA SANTA TROV'O FESSO CA ME CAMPA" (the last fatigue of an aspiring bride will be to climb the Holy Steps, in church the stupid future husband waits to take her home to keep her in the luxury and comfort for the rest of her life); Playboys are warned!

          We climb the Holy Steps and the eminent

COLLEGIATA di S. MARIA a MARE
          Built on Torina mountain, in the point where the strong hold of St. Angelo arose (destroyed by the Pisans in 1137), the original plan goes back to the chapel inside the fortress dedicated to St. Michael Archangel. Saved from destruction, in the XIII century it was adapted into a Basilica to hold the statue of the Virgin miraculously found on the beach.

           The passing centuries brought a series of transformations and enlargements to the edifice, then in 1836 the Neapolitan architect Pietro Valente gave it the actual disposition of three naves.
The central nave has a splendid and golden lacunas ceiling, executed in 1529 by De Fulco. Worth noting is the SACRISTY with the characteristic form of the greek cross; the monumental PIPE ORGAN, opera of Zeno Fedeli of Foligno; the statue of the "MADONNA of the ASSUMPTION", that the 15th of August each year is taken in a procession that culminates with the statue carried on the shoulders of able seamen who run up the Holy Steps to mime the assumption in heaven of the Madonna; the polychrome statue of St. Mary of the sea; the CRYPT with the remains of St. Clement Martyr and a splendid MAJOLICA PAVEMENT...

          In the Collegiata there is a small MUSEUM of sacred objects, which include:

               * a Collection of MINIATED CODES by Canto Fermo;

               * a PALIOTTO of the fifteen hundreds, of gothic manufacture with sacred figures in bas-relief, the largest in Italy;

               * a RELIQUARY, in ebony inlaid with ivory, dating from the end of the XIV century;

               * Antique PONTIFICAL FURNISHING, with a Mitre set with gems, the cross for processions, a chasuble and cope in velvet.

SANTA MARIA A MARE (ICON)

The statue carved in cedar of Lebanon wood, must be one of the few sacred images to escape the iconoclastic fury of the Byzantine Emperor Leone I Saurico.
Taken from Constantinople by Christian merchants, it was found on the beach of Maiori in 1204, closed in a bale of cotton thrown overboard to lighten a ship in a storm. Tradition has it that at soon as the statue slipped into the water the tempest fell calm, because of the miraculous find the Madonna was called St. Mary "of the Sea".
The people of Maiori are very attached to the antique Madonna for centuries continuing to get up of the third Sunday of November to celebrate the Patron Saint and the escape from the floods of the XVIII century, the first mass for the "MARONNA E NOTTE" (the morning Madonna) is celebrated at the first light of dawn...

On the left side of the edifice, incorporated in the Mother church, please note the small CHURCH OF ST. MARY OF THE CARMINE.
Seat of the like named Archconfraternity of the 1535, inside there is a beautiful wooden CHOIR STALL, four large CANVASES by painter Guerra dated 1879, and an excellent MAJOLICA PAVEMENT.

The other side the steep via Vena leads to Minori (or rather the charming village of Torre and then on to Minori...but more about that later...