Sant’Agostino Church and Convent, Montescaglioso

History

The convent probably dates back to the last decades of the 14th century, when the town was a fief of the Del Balzo family, and it appears in the records of the Augustinian order as early as 1399. The late-medieval church was largely rebuilt in the first half of the 17th century. Damaged by the 1743 earthquake and later restored, the convent was definitively suppressed in 1866. From 1778 to 1823 the church served as the parish church while the Chiesa Madre was being rebuilt.

What to see

• The triportico (triple-arched porch) in front of the façade, added in the mid-17th century but never completed, and the rose window from the 15th–16th centuries.
• The single-nave interior, with eight side chapels, the tuff vault and 18th-century stucco work.
• The high altar in marble with the Augustinian coat of arms, the 17th-century wooden choir and the portal from 1771.
• The artworks, including the Preaching of the Baptist by Pasquale Richi, from the late 16th century, and a Christ at the Column.
• The bell tower from the 17th century, with a bell dated 1608.

Useful information

• From 1823 the church has been run by the Confraternita dell’Addolorata (Confraternity of Our Lady of Sorrows), and it hosts the rites of Holy Week.
• In the refectory of the former convent, now used by the parish, there is a late-16th-century fresco of Saint Augustine enthroned.