The Church of the Madonna del Carmine is said to have pre-Christian origins and to have risen as a pagan temple placed at the intersection of the maximum hinge of the second right decumanus of the Roman centuriation (P. Bonvicini). Over the centuries the building was transformed and became a Christian church, though it retained the characteristics of the original plan. Archival sources attest in 1730 the church took its present form, which consists of a single nave covered by a pitched roof with wooden trusses and beams. In the 1980s the entrance was modified and the floor was changed, the marble altar was removed and replaced with a masonry one, the two side niches were created, and two canvases depicting Saints Peter and Paul (right side to the altar) and Our Lady in Glory among the Saints (left side to the altar) were placed, but basically the church remained the same.
Behind the altar stands the miraculous statue of the Madonna del Carmine with the Child Jesus in her arms, both crowned; the Virgin holds out her right hand and gives a scapular as a sign of a gift. It is a duty to remember and make known the origin and meaning of this Marian iconography. First of all we must say that the Carmine, more precisely Carmelo (in Aramaic garden, vineyard of God), is a mountain near Nazareth where the prophet Elijah lived in the ninth century and in the thirteenth century, following his example, a group of hermit monks called precisely Carmelites.
According to tradition On July 16, 1251 the Virgin, surrounded by angels and with the Child in her arms, appeared to the first Father General of the Order, blessed Simone Stock, to whom he gave the “scapular” with the “Sabbath privilege”, or the promise of salvation from hell, for those who wear it and the liberation from the pains of Purgatory the following Saturday their death. The Virgin thus addressed the old religious: “Take a most beloved son, take this scapular of your Order, a hallmark of my Brotherhood, a privilege to you and to all the Carmelites. Whoever will be clothed in this garment will not suffer eternal fire; this is a sign of health, of salvation in the dangers, of a covenant of peace and of an everlasting covenant “.
Even today many people in Monte Vidon Corrado are devoted to the Madonna del Carmine and on July 16 each year they participate in the party dedicated to her.
