Chiesa e Convento di Santa Chiara

The Church and Monastery of St. Clare, are the place of cloistered Poor Clares Urbaniste. It was once again the Pope Sixtus V, who had been, before ascending to the throne of Peter, just in the Order of Friars Minor Conventual, who wanted to enrich Montalto of a female monastery, provided with assets from which to draw fruits get in the life of the cloister even women without a dowry. The June 13, 1588 he wrote to the patriarch Fabio Biondi because done to ensure to find on-site land to be purchased for this purpose. Since it would take too long for the new construction of the monastic complex, on the advice of the captain “architect” Pompeo Floriani, the Pope indicated that he had done the purchase of the houses of the noble family Rosati, a place where she lived the diocesan bishop, and the church could be erected in place of the School, near Porta Patrizia. With the death of the Pope, in 1590, the monastery, however, remained only on paper. The will of Sixtus V, however, it was rejected by his successors: September 9, 1608 in fact Pope Paul V issued the Bull of erection of the Monastery. Built adjacent to the existing Church of the Holy Trinity, it was built by adapting the houses and the palace of Sebastiano Franchi, that with this donation gave fulfillment to the wish of his father, Charles, died in March 1608. The houses of the Franks, who were in 1608 adapted to the Monastery of Santa Chiara, they can be dated to the early sixteenth century. Another legacy and for the erection of the monastery was the conspicuous legacy of 2500 shields of the Cardinal Andrea Peretti Baroni. The mid-seventeenth century, being bishop Monsignor Codebò, the monastery was expanded: some were bought adjoining houses that were reduced to vegetable gardens within the grounds of the city walls. The March 25, 1631 marked the beginning of the Community Clarian Montalto with the entry of two nuns from Macerata, while in 1656 the monastic community will be composed of 13 sisters already.