Lecce, the Augustinian complex opens to the public every day

Lecce, the Augustinian complex opens to the public every day.

From today Wednesday 1st February, the complex of Augustinians which includes the cloister, the church and the garden of All Good it will be open to the public with admission Free every day from 9.30 19.

In one of the rooms on the ground floor there will also be room carriage of the mayors of Lecce, which dates back to the last century and which was kept inside the Castle Charles V.

The opening of the cloister, church and garden adds to that of the Every Good Library which occupies the satellite building of the complex with its specific opening hours: Tuesday from 15pm to 19pm and from Wednesday to Sunday from 9.30am to 12.30pm and from 15pm to 19pm.

The entire complex, therefore, will be usable in all its parts and will increasingly be characterized as a cultural center dedicated to reading and the history of the city.

In the development project of the complex, the first floor of the building is intended to house theMunicipal Historical Archive, for which the procedures that will lead to the next ones officially begin two years to the transfer of two funds that compose it. In fact, on Wednesday 1st February, the activities were started which will lead first to the cataloging of all the documents, then to their digitization and finally to their move to the definitive location, archival services entrusted with a public tender procedure and awarded to the Coop. Soc. Imago.

Financed with the sum of 475mila euros by Ministry of Culture, the project for the protection, conservation, valorisation and use of the Historical Archive has the objective of guaranteeing the conservation of documents, of providing them with an order and an analytical inventory, of allowing citizens to access and consult them also through its digitalisation and to carry out cultural production and promotion activities on the history of the city, with the use of digital techniques and tools. Next to the archive "physicist", stations will be set up for digital consultation and for the immersive use (video storytelling, holographic theatre, image representations) of contents obtained from the documents, while on the ground floor, in the rooms of the church, now deconsecrated, a dedicated multipurpose room will be set up to cultural initiatives, public meetings, small shows. The Historical Archive portal will also be created, which will allow the documents and digital contents to be used even remotely.

“After the inauguration of the Ogni Bene Library in the satellite building, with the choice of theAdministration to open the Augustinian church, cloister and garden to the public every day - declares theCouncilor for Culture Fabiana Cicirillo – and with the launch of the archival services that will lead to the transfer of the Historical Archive, our project to enhance the Augustinian complex, characterized as a center dedicated to reading, socializing and the history of the city, is taking shape. A real cultural hub that already in recent years with the exhibition Augustinian Books, Treccani Festival of the Italian language, Conversations about the Future, Kids and many other initiatives has entered the habits of the people of Lecce. Now I hope that it will do so even more in the wake of the success of Ogni Bene which continues to record extraordinary numbers in registrations for services and loans".

Historical notes:

The Augustinian complex was founded in 1649 and stands on an area of 8.600 m² donated to the monks byUniversity that, ten years earlier, had decided to welcome the Augustinian order to the city. The regulars lived in the convent, named after San Lorenzo, and officiated the church, dedicated to Holy Virgin. Crowned (Our Lady of All Good), up to Napoleonic suppression since 1810. Following the Bourbon restoration the convent passed to Regular Ecclesiastical Heritage and the episcopal curia of Lecce.
The entire complex was then purchased by patrician Giovanni della Ratta from Lecce who handed it over to observant Franciscan minors (1831), who named the church and convent after S. Anthony of Padua, and they established the general study first of philosophy and then of theology, which existed until 1852.
Starting from this date the structure radically changed its function, becoming, over time, barracks, municipal warehouse and then military tailoring until the sixties of the XX century.
In 2017, after a long recovery work by the municipal administration, the structure was returned to the city with the completion of the external spaces and the Ogni Bene garden, a vast green area with an orchard characterized by native tree species typical of the agricultural landscape Salento with oaks, cypresses, fruit species and ornamental gardens with aromatic and flowering perennial herbaceous species.