The Convent of the Capuchin Poor Clares

The founder of the Ravenna community of the Capuchin Poor Clares was Sister Chiara Pascoli, who, with her co-founders, pronounced her solemn vows on November 21, 1683. The Poor Clares are members of an enclosed monastic order of nuns dedicated to contemplative prayer. It was the second Franciscan Order to be established, and is named after Saint Clare of Assisi. Each monastery is an autonomous community governed by an abbess elected for a period of time, and belongs to the family of Franciscan orders. The monastery was originally near Santa Maria in Porto, but when the nuns returned to Ravenna after the Napoleonic suppression of all religious orders, in April 1823, Sister Teresa Miani inaugurated a new convent in its current, spacious location in Via Pietro Alighieri. The Monastery and the adjoining church of St Apollinaris in Veclo, still one of the smallest active churches in town, suffered heavy bombing during World War II, when two nuns died. The building houses a painting by G.B. Barbiani dating back to 1605 and representing the Madonna of Loreto, St Francis and St Apollinaris. Corrado Ricci’s Guide to Ravenna narrates that in 1923 the convent also preserved a trunk with the cloths used to hold St Francis’s remains when his tomb was rediscovered in Assisi in 1818. The current Abbess of the monastery, Sister Maria Pia, entered the convent in 1956 as its nineteenth nun. There are four Capuchin Poor Clares in Ravenna today: along with Sister Maria Pia are Sister Agnes, Sister Maria Grazia and Sister Felice.

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