Église Maria Santissima del Carmine, church building in Avvocata, Naples, Italy

The Chiesa di Maria Santissima del Carmine stands on via Fontanelle at the end of the Sanità valley, in the Avvocata district. Its plain facade has simple pilasters and a triangular pediment, with a bell tower slightly taller than the church. Inside is a single nave with a semicircular apse and three small chapels on each side.

In 1872 the Fontanelle cemetery was entrusted to Canon Gaetano Barbati, who set up a chapel inside the complex; a proper church was then built, with works beginning in 1878 in front of the left nave of the cemetery and consecration in 1884. Shortly before construction, women known as 'e maste rearranged the remains on the site, as a plaque on the facade recalls, naming the victims of plague, poverty and prison.

The church is the seat of the Fontanelle parish and serves the cemetery of the same name. A plaque on the facade recalls the "e maste", the women who, shortly before construction, arranged the remains of plague, poverty and prison victims in the ossuary, and commemorates the Asiatic plague of 1836.

The church stands on Via Fontanelle at the end of the Sanità valley, in the Avvocata district, facing the left nave entrance of the Fontanelle cemetery. It is the parish seat of the Fontanelle and gives access to the catacombs and quarries; visits are best timed outside liturgical celebrations.

The facade plaque lists the dead of the 1836 Asiatic cholera epidemic, the poor and prisoners, mostly unnamed, and credits canon Gaetano Barbati as founder and senator Placido as donor. Before the church was built, women called 'e maste' reordered the remains in the ossuary.