Convento San Francesco di Policastro

 The town of Policastro has just announced that the local 11th Century convent can now be used for legal civil weddings, symbolic  and  non-Catholic religious weddings  (e.g., Jewish, protestant).   

In 2016, the convent of Santa Marina-Policastro was opened to the public after a renovation that lasted a good year. It was restored  by a historic  and architectural team that has brought much value to the territory. It dates back  to 1200 and it has been founded by the first Franciscan bishop of the history, Monk Gabriele Da Lecce. According to some sources, he was  friends of St. Francesco who was  dedicated to the “poor D’Assisi“.  It seems that it has been place of passing of the same saint. With the  pirates’s arrive, about 300 years after its foundation, the monastery and the annex archive were attacked and the monks abandoned the structure, which lasted abandoned until 800’s.
 
It has been renovated. The restoration of this wonderful structure, never opened to the public. The recovery of the plasters, of the frescoes, and of new information even about the story of Policastro is of great importance. The Convent’s layerst mark the ages from which crossed are different. Inside, at the ground floor, it can see that which was the church used by the Franciscans, where the stones and the stuffed vaults are also evident, and where some frescoes have been unearthed. The oldest is that which represents the baptism of Jesus, dating, according to the experts, to 400’s.
 
 At the upper floor there are the cells of the friars, that, after the renovation, have been united in greater rooms. In these months, they are dedicated to an art show, and, in future, according to the wills of the administration, it will have to be used, as a museum and an exhibition hall where the numerous treasures found during the Bussentine excavation campaigns will be shown. The structure can also be used for conventions and weddings.