The Church of the Holy Family (Italian: Chiesa della Sacra Famiglia) is a Catholic place of worship located in the territory of the Italian municipality of Barletta, in the province of Barletta-Andria-Trani in Apulia. It is a parish complex built in the 1990s in Via Canosa, replacing the church building erected in the early 20th century in the Borgovilla-Patalini district, more precisely in Via Trento. The original church still exists, although it is closed to the public due to its precarious structural condition.
History
The original location
1908 to 1971
The origins of the parish of the Holy Family are rooted in the early twentieth century, when the expansion of the city beyond the urban boundaries dictated by the railroad tracks to the suburbs prompted a perceived need for a house of worship for the emerging Borgovilla Tempio district. Thus it was that there was the construction of a small church among the alleys and twentieth-century tenements, which had as its primary need a constant physical presence of the church rather than large dedicated areas and aggregative spaces, a factor that was also due to economic constraints that did not allow for further building projects.. In 1908 a first small church was built with its rectory, which would later become the sacristy of the new church building. The only two parishes existing up to that time in Barletta were the Cathedral of Santa Maria Maggiore and the Church of San Giacomo Maggiore: along with them, the church of the Holy Family would be the third to be raised to the title of parish. The actual church would be erected only in 1917 but would never be consecrated. In order to increase primary education in the emerging ward, in addition to the church built on Via Trento, the St. Theresa of the Child Jesus Institute was built in 1930, located along the road leading to Canosa di Puglia and entrusted to the nuns of the same name. The Second Vatican Council induced, at the end of the 1960s, the contribution of changes that on the one hand highlighted the longitudinality and axiality of the space, in compliance with the conciliar dictates, by means of the resurfacing of the pavement, and on the other would highlight the main altar through the replacement of the side ones with respective aediculae, which would contain two canvases depicting the Madonna of Pompeii and the Christ of Warner Sallman, the latter reproduced by a Barletta painter. The two paintings were then moved to the church's new location; ultimately the altar was rotated, so that the celebrant would be facing the assembly instead of his back according to the requirements of the Second Vatican Council.
The new location
1971 to 1990 In 1959 Barletta was struck by the tragic event of the collapse of a building in Canosa Street.. The parish priest, Fr. Tobia Mascolo, while thinking of the possibility of erecting, in a symbolic way to remember the victims of the collapse, a possible new headquarters of the Holy Family in that very place, which had become small in size by then for the ever-growing suburban town, preferred to abandon the intent immediately because of the long bureaucratic procedures that would have allowed its concession. A few years earlier, precisely in 1951 and 1953, testamentary bequests had been made to the Archdiocese of Barletta-Nazareth of a piece of land just off Canosa Street, at Villa Placida. That same year, 1959 an explicit request was made to the diocese to take possession of that land, and so it was that in 1965 the Archbishop was able to grant it for the construction of the new parish. After due procedures to acquire the surrounding land in 1981, work began on the excavation of the parish center and basement auditorium, currently dedicated to Pope Wojtyla, in which the first liturgical services would be celebrated. The work was completed in 1983 with the inauguration of the new parish and the same auditorium.
The foundation stone of the new church was laid on May 6, 1984. In 1985 there was the delivery of the bells with the subsequent blessing solemnized by the performance of a bell concert performed by pianist and musicologist Francesco Lotoro, organist of the same parish. From 1986 to 1988 the construction of a second parish center was carried out, to be used for educational and liturgical purposes.. Once the work was completed, on December 8, 1990, on the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, the consecration ceremony of the church was celebrated. in the presence of Archbishop Monsignor Giuseppe Carata and parish priest Don Donato Lionetti, the initiator and main promoter of the entire architectural work.
From 1991 to the present With the consecration of the new Church of the Holy Family, the phase of temporary splitting of functions between the old and the new location that had taken place until 1990 came to an end. In 1993 the parish center was raised by one level, taking advantage of the substantial foundations and the height of the stairwell tower, which allowed the construction of an additional floor while still maintaining a projecting cornice.. In that same year, moreover, it was planned to use the space of the courtyard, located between the parish buildings and the residential buildings outside the complex, to design and construct an underground auditorium, consecrated to the memory of Archbishop Addazi, who had previously made possible the construction of the church complex by means of the authorization to proceed with the donation to the parish of some land in the possession of the diocese, donated long before by Canon Rizzi, who lived there. In those years a memorial plaque was affixed to one of the two side tribunes of the church commemorating the dedication of the temple, which reads verbatim:.
In 2000, a grotto was built near the main entrance of the church, dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes.. In 2008 in honor of the first centenary of the establishment of the parish, a book written by parish priest Fr. Donato Lionetti was published in memory of the events that affected the church of the Holy Family before and during his years of priesthood. On Sept. 6, 2009, after 35 years of priesthood, 34 of them in the same parish, Fr. Donato Lionetti, having exceeded by two years the maximum age limit allowed for the presbyterate at the behest of Diocesan Archbishop Giovanni Battista Pichierri, took his leave, becoming monsignor and parish priest emeritus. On the same day, with a solemn ceremony, the Eucharistic celebration of canonical induction of the new parish priest, Fr. Giuseppe Tupputi, who was also like his predecessor born in Barletta, was held.
Due to its precarious structural condition, the original church of the Holy Family was included in the program agreement for the municipal district contract, which provides for its renovation.
Architecture The parish complex of the Holy Family covers an area of 4500 m². and includes the church and bell tower, the main parish center, the secondary parish center, properly called centrino, and the Addazi auditorium. It faces the main front on the road axis leading to Canosa, while the remaining sides are adjacent to the residential settlement of the town, and have two additional secondary entrances located at the back of the complex: one on De Cesare Street, with dual access, a pedestrian one to the clergy house and a driveway to the atrium, and the other on Canfora Street which is solely a driveway. It is placed in an antinodal position with respect to the urban fabric,. towards which it establishes a relationship of close correlation due to the proximity, and in some cases the adjacency, of the residential complex. The notion of enclosure is tested in this case,. with respect to which the territorial limits of the parish facility are established sometimes by the enclosure proper,. sometimes by the pre-existing settlement with which it establishes a direct relationship. The designers of the work are, in addition to the aforementioned architect Franco Martino, engineers Gabriele Lionetti, Alfonso Laurora and Vincenzo Binetti.
The church
Exterior
The facade The main front of the church faces Canosa Street. The relationship between the parish complex and the main traffic route of the area, as well as the axis from which the SS 93 begins, is mediated by a curtain wall that acts as a visual screen with respect to the built-up area behind. The main front is punctured in three places to leave space for the main arched access to the southwest and a driveway access to the northeast, which is also bordered above by a semicircular arch, alongside which is another smaller entrance for the disabled. The façade, which is 45 meters long,. is vertically distinguished in a white-colored horizontal band of reinforced concrete that runs along its entire length, above which runs a railing with vertical elements interspersed with Greek crosses of the same material; the two bands are interrupted only by the three entrances and slight gaps placed near the pillars to give them greater prominence. Above, the facade, in this case white in color, goes on in a continuous manner from the bottom to the top from the western end to the two secondary entrances to the east, interrupting only to leave room for the bell tower. Along the entire façade, at a height of about six meters, runs a bronze inscription set into the white background of the wall that reads "Let the harmonies of the bells and the organ and the exultant voices of the faithful sing in this holy temple the longing for You O God." The wall portion that continues to the eastern end, though still made of reinforced concrete and white in color, is of a lower height than the adjacent one and slightly detached from it. A circular mosaic depicting the Holy Family is embedded at the top of the curtain wall of greater width, while at the upper end of the wall of lesser height there is a metal cross with a semicircular base carved into the wall.
The churchyard The main entrance is arched and the crossing of two steps leads to a triangular area that offers the possibility of rotating the main axis of the church by 45º. In this way, the liturgical hall is arranged with one of its sides parallel to the velarium, from which it deviates, determining a gap in which is placed an access ramp for the disabled that connects the minor access with the parvise and allows the overcoming of architectural barriers. Accessing instead from the main entrance, past the first two steps there are four more before reaching the churchyard. This serves as the starting point toward the exit for the disabled on one side, the rear of the complex and access to the parish centers on the other, and centrally toward the triple entrance portal that gives access to a room that precedes the actual liturgical hall, placing itself in axis with the altar. The entrance to the assembly hall is thus mediated by an additional room that serves as a narthex.
Interior
The entrance pronaos The entrance is tripartite by four pillars, which will determine and support the roof of the church, between which are three rectangular portals with solid oak doors at the center of which is a glazed cross. This room turns out to be a kind of entrance pronaos, that is, a junction area against which on either side are two tribunes, in communication with the church through a glazed surface. These have the dual function of accommodating the faithful both during Mass and outside the Eucharistic celebration for moments of personal recollection.. From the gallery located to the right with respect to the main entrance there is access to a vertical distribution space, in which by means of a spiral staircase it is possible to reach the upper floor, which serves at the same time as a covering floor for the entrance alone and the side rooms, and from which one reaches the choir loft, located above the triple entrance portal and the bell tower.
The liturgical hall