HERMITAGE St. Conrad Outside the Walls

If you are in the area of Noto, one stop you absolutely must not miss is a visit to the Sanctuary of San Corrado Fuori le Mura , an exclusive, powerfully evocative place, shrouded in religious silence, barely interrupted by the chirping of birds there is a rare atmosphere of Franciscan spirituality and peace. It is a small church located in San Corrado Fuori le Mura, a small hamlet of Noto, nestled in the so-called “Valley of Miracles” near the Cava dei Pizzoni .

In this place, evocative for the beauty of the natural context characterized by the lush vegetation that covers large rocky ridges and the presence of several rocky hypogea, lived his hermitage, from 1322 to 1351, Corrado Confalonieri, a nobleman from Piacenza who, having abandoned the affluence of his state, decided to undertake the monastic life.

Having begun a long journey to southern Italy, the Hermit stopped in Noto, where he lived his monastic life for two years, in a secluded place in the city, together with his friend Guglielmo Buccheri, who had been a squire of Frederick of Swabia. Later Conrad decided to move to an isolated area, precisely to a cave in Cava Pizzoni, and remained there until the end of his life. In these evocative places, which since the death of the hermit, later to become a saint and patron of Noto, had become the destination of votive pilgrimages, the sanctuary that is among the most important in the Syracuse area was built in 1700, in the Baroque style of the time, leaning against the rocky wall of the Valley.

After walking down a long avenue, upon entering the church you can admire on the high altar the 18th-century painting by Sebastiano Conca depicting the Madonna and Child and St. Conrad; on the right, however, embedded in a section of rock incorporated into the structure of the church, is the marble statue of St. Conrad at prayer, the work of Giuseppe Pirrone. On the wall to the left of the altar is an 18th-century wooden crucifix and the underlying shrine with the remains of St. Leonzio Martyr.

Walking down the steep staircase, carved into the rock ridge to which the Sanctuary is flanked, you can reach the so-called Cave of St. Conrad, where, according to tradition, the Hermit Saint used to gather in prayer. The cavity, carved into the rock, consists of two rooms: in the first there is now an altar in the other, smaller, is preserved the large rectangular stone, the bed where the Saint used to rest.