Educating to poverty: the Clares Monastery in Galatina

Abstract

This study of an old female monastic communities, present in Galatina from the early seventeenth century up to nineteenth century, it is proposed to certify as to inside of the flourishing monastery Capuchin Poor Clares, it has been able, for centuries, to educate young girls to a poor lifestyle, through fasting and corporal mortification, as well as through sacred reading and prayer, imitating and celebrating the Sequela Christi. Therefore, in spite of their name Clarisse, which immediately recalls Santa Chiara and her ideal of "absolute poverty", personal and community, will emerge as this privilegium both been married only under a strictly educational profile.