The story · Seven chapters
Four centuries on the hill of Sant'Anna
How a convent on a Genoese hill became a pharmacy, how that pharmacy has cared for people for nearly four hundred years, and how its lavender came to support a mission in Africa.
Prologue
A lift climbs out of a road tunnel in the heart of Genoa. At the top lies a quiet square, a Baroque doorway, and a room where the air still smells of herbs, essential oils and rose water.
This is the Antica Farmacia Sant'Anna. In nearly four centuries, it has never changed hands.
I
In 1584 Father Nicolò Doria, son of one of Genoa's great families, came home from Spain, where Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross had renewed the Carmelite order. On the Castelletto hill he founded the convent of Sant'Anna, the first house of the Discalced Carmelites in Italy.
The Doria, Cattaneo, Spinola and Pallavicini families paid for its walls. From the beginning the friars kept a small apothecary, for themselves and for the poor of the hillside, and planted a cloister with medicinal herbs. In time it would be known as the Cloister of the Roses.
- 1584
- The convent is founded
- 1st
- Discalced Carmelite house in Italy
- 4
- Noble Genoese families as patrons
“By tradition, the first potatoes grown in Italy were planted in this cloister, brought back by Father Doria from the court of Philip II of Spain.
II
IIThe motto
Nos medicinam paramus, Deus dat nobis salutem.
We prepare the medicine. God gives the health.
Carried by the small carved angel above the counter
By the middle of the seventeenth century so many sick people climbed the hill that the friars built a separate wing to prepare and dispense medicines. The earliest record of their pharmacy, from 1650, is kept today in the Vatican Apostolic Archives.
Its first great apothecary, Brother Martino of Sant'Antonio, set out every day to gather what he needed for potions, medicines and poultices. The friars still say that his patients recovered as much through his presence as through his remedies.
That idea has never left the house. In the friars' own words, they have always treated illness by caring for the person as a whole, body, mind and spirit.
“Whole attention to the patient is the first cure of the illness.”
Remedies of today
The lavender shelf
III
Walnut shelves, fitted in 1792, climb to the vaulted ceiling. The floor is chequered in white and grey marble. Herb drawers still carry their original labels, an antique coin balance waits on the counter, and the only light falls from tall windows. There is no music. People speak softly.
A library of herbals
Behind the enclosure the friars keep a historic library of ancient volumes, herbals and botanical treatises illustrated with fine miniatures. On the counter, visitors are given a small icon of Saints Cosmas and Damian, the physicians who would take no payment, with a prayer for the sick.
di Padre in PadreKnowledge handed down from Father to Father since 1650
O pilgrim, who has come to this ancient pharmacy seeking a remedy for your bodily health, visit our church too.The sign at the entrance
Scents of the old pharmacy
All soaps
IV
Imperfect, alive, true
The friars describe their laboratory in Genoa as the place where science and tradition meet. It is equipped to today's standards, yet it follows the formulas of the old galenic tradition, the craft of preparing remedies by hand from plants. Their herbal remedies are still made entirely by hand from the old recipes, which is why some appear only in season.
Once, the plants came from the convent gardens. Today, with the city grown up around the hill, the friars source each one from the place where it grows best, choosing for quality and purity. Their products are never tested on animals.
“Every natural product is imperfect, alive, changeable, true.”
Rosa centifolia
The rose
Grown by the friar-apothecaries since the convent was founded, and the heart of their rose water and syrup.
Lavandula angustifolia
True lavender
About two hundred kilos of flowers, cut by hand in July, make a single kilo of essence.
Calendula officinalis
Calendula
A soothing flower of the old herbals, blended into the friars' hand cream and lavender ointment.
Aloe barbadensis
Aloe
Once rolled into the pharmacy's historic aloe pills, today the base of its gentlest creams.
A note on honesty: the lavender essence in our store is 100% pure essential oil with nothing added. The creams, soaps and shampoos are modern formulas built around these plants, and every ingredient is listed in full on each product.
From the herbarium
Every productVChapter five
Four centuries in ten moments
- 1584
Father Nicolò Doria founds the convent of Sant'Anna on the Castelletto hill, the first Discalced Carmelite house in Italy.
- 1650
The earliest record of the friars' pharmacy, kept today in the Vatican Apostolic Archives.
- 1652
Brother Martino becomes chief apothecary, going out each day to gather ingredients for his remedies.
- 1778
The Genoese surgeon Lorenzo Robello is engaged to prepare medicines and to teach the craft to a friar.
- 1792
Brother Giovanni della Croce revives the pharmacy and fits the dispensary with the walnut shelving still seen today.
- 1818
Brother Bernardino of Sant'Anna refurbishes the rooms into the layout that survives to this day.
- 1840
Brother Modesto qualifies as a licensed pharmacist for Genoa and the Kingdom of Sardinia.
- 1933
A lift opens from the Corso Magenta tunnel, carrying visitors up to the convent and its pharmacy.
- 1977
The Carmelites of Arenzano begin distilling lavender essence to support their missions in Central Africa.
- Today
Still on the same square, still in the care of the Carmelite community, and the oldest historic shop in Genoa never to have changed owner.
From the old ledgers
The pharmacy in the early nineteenth century
On the shelves
- Manna
- Cinchona bark, for fevers
- Rosolio cordial
- An ointment of poppy flowers
- A spirit of incense, myrrh and aloe
- Acqua di Sant'Anna descended from the Acqua Mirabilis of the 1600s
At the counter
- The Danish consul a faithful buyer of Elixir Vitae
- The Pammatone hospital for cinchona and dried red roses
- Physicians and surgeons of Genoa
- The convents of the city
- The parish priest of Crocefieschi
VI
For the Carmelites the rose is the flower of Mary, the Rosa del Carmelo. The friar-apothecaries have grown roses since the convent was founded, and in the Cloister of the Roses the bushes still flower each April and May, “a true triumph of scent and colour”, as the friars describe it.
The convent archive holds a recipe for rose syrup from the early 1700s, and it is still made by hand in much the same way. In Genoa it is almost a ritual: grandmothers climb the hill with their grandchildren to buy a bottle.
In the early 1800s even the pharmacy of the great Pammatone hospital came here for dried red roses. Today rose water remains one of the most loved preparations on the friars' shelves.
From the rose shelf
The whole rose line
VII
In 1977 Father Anastasio Roggero, a Carmelite born in Pietrabruna, a mountain village in Liguria where his elders had always grown lavender, asked a simple question. Could that precious flower help the poorest people of the Central African Republic, where his brothers had been living since 1971?
The friars of Arenzano have distilled lavender for the missions ever since. The flowers are cut by hand each July, steam distilled in traditional stills and left to settle, and Sister Caterina bottles and packs the essence in the friars' laboratory. The Antica Farmacia Sant'Anna later created a lavender ointment, hand cream and wipes to support the same work.
Pro missioni
The lavender shelfEpilogue · Why it is in the Omnia store
A chain of care that now runs through Chiswick
Brother Martino believed that the attention we give a person is where healing begins. We believe it too. Omnia's connection with the friars and their missions goes back many years. The Omnia store is a way of sharing it: the friars' preparations come to London, and every pound of profit from the range goes to their missions.
