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The
Main Confraternity of San
Catello, today incorporated in the Main Confraternity of the
Death, in which it transformed
fallowing its aggregation to the Confraternity of Death and Prayer of Rome in
1586; is , after the one of the " Beaters" of S. Antonino, the oldest
Sorrentinian Confraternity. The date of its foundation in fact, goes back to the
year 1380.
Initially the
Confraternity of S. Catello had seat in what today has become the refectory of
the Enclosed Nun of the Covent of S: Mary delle Grazie (S. Mary of the Graces).
In 1568 on suggestion of the Archbishop, Monsignor Giulio Pavesi, the
Confraternity moved to the Church of S. Mark the Evangelist, located in
Bagnagatte Street, today via Pietà (pity street).
The brothers carried out here their work of cult, among those there was also the
pitiful job of accompanying those
condemned to scaffold, of caring for their burial, of giving Christian burial
to the shipwreck victims, died in the sea, or to those who
died outside the town's walls.
The
Main Confraternity of the Death had a unique privilege, which
unavoidably caused
polemics and envy, it was thus, the one of deciding as much as they liked in
which church to bury the dead,
issuing also the so called "faith" of death. In the three years time
from 1863 to 1865, the historic centre of Sorrento went through major changes.
In
fact it is in this time that the Via Nuova (New Street), today Corso Italia, was
built, parallel rectilinear to the street that was then the main street: via S.
Cesareo.
The aim was to link more
comfortably Sorrento to Massa Lubrense.
But
as for every story involving an improvement, the opening of the new road meant
the complete change of Sorrento's aspect.
Besides the remaining part of a castle, located in the central and homonym
square, also other buildings and churches were destroyed, and among those also
the church of S. Catello, that according to the descriptions of several
documents of the time, had to be one of the most beautiful of Sorrento.
The
Confraternity moved, taking furnishings and equipments, to the church of Servant
of Mary, which gave hospitality to the homonym congregation. The
story of these two Confraternities will intertwines several times throughout the
years.
The congregation between the two sodalities had been already created in 1717
when the Main Confraternity of the Death is received to its church the young
"sons or servants of Mary". This hospitality, after a century and a
half, will be exchanged by the brothers of the Servants of Mary.
A tight bond, in fact it was decided that anyone who will have become Brother of
the "Congregation of the Servants of Mary" would have automatically
been accepted as a brother of the Main Confraternity of the Death
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