Carmine Church in Carrara

The Carmine Church in Carrara was erected at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries and consecrated in 1605. The adjoining convent, completed a few years later, was transformed during the French occupation first into a military district and later into a sculpture workshop for the local Lazzerini family of artists. The church itself, which has now been closed for years, was used as an art gallery for local sculptors: it would be renovated and reconsecrated only after the Restoration.

The single-nave building contains splendid examples of Baroque taste inside. Quite remarkable are the high altar, dedicated to the Virgin of Carmel (in polychrome marble with a 16th-century painting) and the altar dedicated to Holy Mary Magdalene dei Pazzi built in 1685.

The facade, restored in 1853, has four pilasters with Corinthian capitals in the upper part; in the lower part, a tympanum preserves a sculpture of the Blessed Virgin of the Rose, made in the very early years of the 16th century and attributed to the Spaniard Bartolomeo Ordonez.

The church is located in front of the place where the ancient sea gate of the medieval city wall stood, that is, near the current entrance to via Santa Maria. It was conceived as a scenic backdrop of the ancient road that formed, most likely, the ancient core of the city of Carrara.