San Giuseppe is not the largest church in Vasto, nor is it the oldest or the most beloved. Nevertheless, it is the cathedral of the city.
It is the oldest parish in the city, but it became so only because, in the early 19th century, the conflict between the two historic churches of San Pietro and Santa Maria had reached a point where it caused disorder among the parishioners on every occasion of the Easter mysteries. For this reason, the King of Naples decided to strip them of all privileges and confer them on the small convent church that was halfway between them.
The church is dedicated to San Giuseppe, not out of devotion to the father of Jesus, but rather in gratitude to the King of Naples, who was Joseph Bonaparte at that time, Napoleon’s brother.
The Church of San Giuseppe is also a historical fabrication today because its Gothic architecture is less than a hundred years old. Yet, it preserves important traces of the previous church of Santa Margherita, built at the end of the 13th century.
The location of the church seems the most relevant one can imagine. It is precisely in the center of the historic city, in the open space that appears to open up in the middle of the Vasto course. And no one imagines that when the church was built, that was not at all the center of the city; in fact, it was an area outside the walls intended for the foundation of an Augustinian monk convent.
Today, the church is an integral part of the urban layout of the historic center, but even the perspective that opens from the Caldoresco Castle towards its facade is a modern creation. Where, until the 1920s, a narrow street passed through a place of artisan shops, the “Corsea degli Scarpari,” the city administration wanted to create a promenade, demolishing an entire row of houses. Only thanks to these works is the facade now visible from hundreds of meters away, whereas before, we would have only seen it upon reaching the square in front, formerly called “Largo de Ferrari” because it was the place of blacksmiths’ work.
The contradictions of this monument, therefore, are many. Nevertheless, San Giuseppe is one of the most interesting places in the city because its walls do not tell of a distant and precise historical period but the many changes undergone by these places and the will of anyone who intervened in the building to tell their own version of “History” through the symbols used.
San Giuseppe, therefore, is the place par excellence where it is not what it seems. This is why it is so fascinating to visit with a keen and informed eye.
Want proof? Stand in front of the church facade and observe what everyone considers its architectural masterpiece, the beautiful stone rose window reminiscent of similar works in L’Aquila. This was also rebuilt in 1928, or rather, to be more precise, it was “built” because there had never been a rose window in the facade of the church.
Yet, this is not the peculiarity I want to tell you about… Look closely at the iconography of the capitals of the small columns. If you can’t see it with the naked eye, use the zoom of a camera or smartphone. Focus on the first column, the one at “12 o’clock”. You would expect a representation of San Giuseppe, or Jesus Christ, or the Madonna. Or perhaps a symbolic animal from a medieval bestiary…
No, none of that. What you see in the capital of the first column is exactly what you can find in many other places in the historic center of Vasto. An axe surrounded by sticks tied together with strips of leather. The fasces, reproduced there at the behest of the financiers of the work, the Genova Rulli barons, who wanted to curry favor with the regime.
San Giuseppe, therefore, is not a place of History but the place of many “stories” that I will now tell you.
