S.S. Annunziata a la Praia

As with many other small chapels in Praiano, there is no historical documentation to help us determine the precise date on which this old church was built, although it is assumed that it dates back to the fourteenth or fifteenth century. The first definite piece of documentary evidence comes from the 1500s. Having witnessed for centuries the intense maritime life of the village and having survived the many pirate incursions on the Amalfi Coast, on March 26th, 1924 the church was completely destroyed by a landslide. Because of rainstorms, which had fallen for more than a month, a massive rock broke away from the mountain top setting off an avalanche of debris that destroyed everything it found along its path, including the church and the cluster of houses that surrounded it. This avalanche claimed the lives of thirteen people, including the church’s priest, father Michele Fusco. Within a few years, with the help of the Praianese who lived abroad, a new church was rebuilt on the same site as the old one. The sacristy floor survives.

Carlo Perindani, a painter from Milan who lived in Capri, volunteered to decorate the interior as soon as the church was completed, and execute a large painting representing the SS. Annunziata to be placed above the altar. During the night between the 22nd and the 23rd July 1931, a group of sailors left the Praia with a sailboat heading for Capri to pick up the painting, a copy of a seventeen-century “Annunciation” from in the church of San Michele in Capri.