Where the Belvedere of the historic centre is today stood the old parish church of San Felice Circeo, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel or of Suffrage, next to the village cemetery.
At the present-day belvedere (the “ringhiera”, or railing) stood the old Parish Church of San Felice Circeo with its cemetery. It was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel or of Suffrage and stood in a raised, enclosed area. It was also so named because it was run by the Confraternity of Suffrage. The cemetery consisted of a series of large stones covering mass graves. At first these were divided between dead men, women, children and priests; later a single opening was used for all the dead. It served as the parish church until the end of the 18th century, when the administrators of the time decided to create a new cemetery outside the town walls, because the mass grave gave off foul smells and exposed the townspeople to the risk of epidemics. Later, at the beginning of the 19th century, the church was permanently closed to worship and the local post office was built in its place. Today’s Piazza Marconi, where the building stood, was once called Piazzale della Marina. A valuable document from 1632 (found in the Caetani archive), drawn up inside the church itself, records a meeting of many heads of family of the new inhabitants of San Felice Circeo. It is a solemn deed, in the presence of the Duke of Sermoneta Francesco Caetani, declaring Saint Felix “Advocate, defender and protector”, thus creating an unbreakable bond between the town and the saint.