Monastero di San Nicola de la Palma - Salerno, Provincia di Salerno

Attilio Piegari

Il convento Convento di San Nicola della Palma a Salerno fu eretto dall’abate Leone di Cava e dal castaldo Vivo intorno al 1060. I due ottennero da Gisulfo II dei terreni ed un’abitazione nei pressi dell’antica Porta della Palma.
Nel 1639 i frati vi edificano una grande infermeria, per i vecchi religiosi inabili della Provincia, collegata al vicino convento di San Lorenzo. Il convento nel 1653 è citato nel manoscritto Pinto “Salerno assediata dai francesi” che rievoca l’assalto per mare del 1648.
Nel 1818 divenne sede dell’Orfanotrofio che prese il nome di “Reale Ospizio di San Ferdinando”. Nella chiesa del convento vengono celebrati i funerali di Ferdinando I delle Due Sicilie. Con la nascita del Regno d’Italia venne confermata la sua funzione di Orfanotrofio maschile, intitolato in seguito ad Umberto I.

Francesco Pierro

Ora al suo interno si trova un conservatorio di musica e studiosi della bioscienza

Ugo Terzi (Golfo di Salerno)

We have the first traces in a document dated to 1062, where the abbot Leone of the monastery of the SS. Trinità di Cava de' Tirreni and the noble steward Vivo donated two lands in Cava to a church in Salerno that they themselves had founded for the salvation of their souls, adjacent to the gate of S. Nicola, near a spring at the time called " de la Palma“, built on land donated to them the year before by Prince Gisulfo II. From other documents we know that already in 1070 the church became a monastery, and in 1071 the archbishop of Salerno Alfano I legally confirmed it with all his privileges.
It is a monastery of "private" noble foundation, according to the Lombard tradition (even if dependent on the abbey of Cava de' Tirreni), and the steward (later viscount) Vivo and his heirs are invested with the power to choose who among the monks will become priests; furthermore the monks, who follow the rule of St. Benedict, have the right to have their own statute, to bless the Paschal candle on Holy Saturday, visit the sick, receive the dead in the monastery church, bless houses, and other privileges . Furthermore, Archbishop Alfano renounces any right to the monastery and its properties.

Large refectory – S. Nicola della Palma.
A curiosity is that, in the document of 1061 which lists all the properties donated by Gisulfo II to the future monastery of S. Nicola della Palma, a balneum, baths, served by the waters that flow abundantly from the springs of Mount Bonadies, is also listed.
And, in fact, the excavations conducted in the area of the monastery revealed the existence of an almost entirely preserved thermal building, destroyed by a flood between the 4th and 5th centuries AD. and then rebuilt. Real baths, organized around a courtyard, and complete with everything: apodyterium (changing room), frigidarium (cold baths), tepidarium (warm baths), the largest room of the calidarium (hot baths), and two laconic ones ( saunas), in direct contact with the praefurnium (boiler). It is interesting that these baths have an almost direct comparison with the baths of Diocletian in Palmyra, and would suggest that, at least initially, these baths were intended for private individuals or a military outpost, before being absorbed by the monastery during the 11th century. In this period, a vaulted sudatorium was added above the praefurnium.
And they are not simply the "private" bathrooms of the monastery, perhaps close to the cells that act as an infirmary: they are public stoves in all respects, open to the city, and to travelers who come to Salerno from all over Europe for treatment. In the layout of the rooms, we can recognize the dynamic of alternation between a cold bath and a hot bath which ancient doctors already considered essential for the effectiveness of the bath as an ingredient for a healthy life: an ingredient also recommended by the Salerno masters.

Annalaura Giannantonio (Lolli)