Welcome to the site Napoliforme

The art of embroidery is an ancient Sorrentine tradition, widespread along the entire coastline, and popular culture tells us that the women of the sailors' families used to spend the long waiting time embroidering.In Sorrento, refined production and teaching come together in the history of the cloistered monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie (1566), still rich in sacred vestments embroidered by the nuns. The foundation of the monastery reflects the desire of the patron (the noblewoman Bernardina Donnorso) to reserve exclusive access 'to the daughters of the people of Sorrento and its plain', in contrast to the custom that allowed only women from aristocratic families to enter Sorrento convents as novices. Between 1874 (following the suppression of monastic orders in 1861) and the 1920s, the monastery became an "Educational Conservatory" and hosted girls from difficult social conditions, who received an education and learned "some profession, art or trade" in the institute.A 16th-century portal in Vesuvian stone leads into the monastery church (1570, built at the expense of the Dominican nuns), with a single nave and covered with inlaid and sculpted polychrome Baroque marble, which contains important paintings dating from the 16th to the 18th century. On the high altar is the polyptych (1582) painted by Silvestro Buono, with the central panel depicting Our Lady of Grace with Child between Saints John the Baptist and Dominic presenting the founder of the monastery to the Virgin, an authentic portrait of Bernardina Donnorso. In a niche is a wooden statue (first half of the 17th century) of Christ crowned with thorns, miraculous and much venerated: religious tradition recalls that on two occasions (1720 and 1858) the right leg of the sculpture oozed blood. The majolica floor in the apse area, with floral and animal motifs and the Dominican coat of arms in the centre, is still 18th century.