Davoli

Davoli borders San Sostene and shares its structure and similar location on the Serre mountain ridges. The village is small but rich in evidence of its noble past, which is said to be of Magna Graecia origin. As early as the 14th century, the church of Santa Caterina appears to have existed and been functioning; only a century later, the churches of Santa Barbara and San Pietro appear to have existed instead. The present Mother Church, dedicated to the Rieti Virgin and Martyr, has a rather remote foundation dating from the late 1400s to the early 1500s although the present layout dates from the 18th-century period, 1795 to be exact. The roof and suspended ceiling are supported by a system of wooden pilasters that independently support the weight. Numerous marble altars, many of which are adorned with pictorial panels, add to the richness of the church’s patrimony: we will recall that of the Pietà, sculpted by Giuseppe Pisani in 1759, that of very fine execution of the Most Holy Rosary, also by Pisani (1782), embellished with fifteen small ovals with the painted Mysteries that crown the statue of the Virgin. There are also many fine wooden works and silverware, such as the eighteenth-century monstrance with St. Barbara and St. Victor on the base or such as the silver-foil reliquary of St. Barbara by the master silversmiths Catello of Naples.
The church of St. Peter houses the marble sculpture of the Immaculate Conception, wisely returned to the Flemish artist David Müller, who finely chiseled its hair, working it with exceptional skill by drill.
Strolling through the town we will find many significant examples of granite workmanship by Serbian stone carvers, in portals especially, often decorated with apotropaic masks or phytomorphic elements, but also in balconies and architectural profiling, a sign of the cultural hegemony that the distinguished school of art had throughout the district. Admire also the sumptuous portal of the ruined palace of the Count of Rajneiro, the mascherone of the portal of the Gregoraci palace, where two splendid wrought-iron goose-breasted balconies also insist, and the double-ring portal of the De Barberis palace, which exploits the alternation of smooth ashlars with those worked in double point to create soft chiaroscuro effects. The deep devotion to the Virgin Mary and to the patron saint, St. Barbara, is expressed through ancient and noble traditions, but one in particular deserves to be recalled in all its suggestiveness. We refer to the Good Friday procession with the image of Our Lady of Sorrows, which by ancient custom is accompanied by dozens and dozens of fir trees, carried almost in the arms of the faithful, from whose branches hang a myriad of wax candles enclosed by colored paper. When the tradition of the Christmas tree did not yet exist in these latitudes, in Davoli the fir tree was already being used in all its beauty to illuminate the night walk of the Sorrowful Mother.