Beads of Devotion

In yesterday's post we looked at a tailoring technique taught in Dominican nuns convents in Italy in the '50s. But the skills of nuns can be explored also through works of art: while in the book Heavenly Bodies by Paul Koudounaris (not to be confused with the eponymous Met Museum exhibition) the author explained how nuns covered catacomb skeletons in lavish styles and decorated their fingers and ribcages with pearls, golden thread and jewels donated by people or artificial stones, in Vico Equense, in Campania, the Santissima Annunziata Church preserves an artwork embellished by nuns.

The church is among the few examples of Gothic architecture on the Sorrento coastline, even though the façade is in Baroque style. Inside the church there is a chapel that features a wood altar covered in gold leaf dating from the 1700s. The altar is decorated with intricate floral embroideries made with tiny beads, corals, glass paste and mother of pearl elements, appliqued on fabric.

According to the local historians the altar (restored 18 years ago thanks to a fundraising campaign by the late Susanna Agnelli) was the work of the nuns from the nearby cloistered convent. Considered a bit like a secret gem, the piece is not just an example of devotion, but it shows how a technique derived from fashion (and developed using local materials such as corals) could be applied to architectural features obtaining astonishing results.