The timeless charm of the “Casa Santa” in Monopoli

In the historic center of Monopoli, between the old port and the church of Santa Teresa, in a postcard setting, stands the building called Casa Santa, owned by Asp Romanelli/Palmieri, reopened to the public for a few days in December 2017, arousing the interest of citizens and tourists and, above all, arousing deep emotion in the souls of those who spent their childhood in that institution.

But what is “Casa Santa”? It is a convent dating back to the end of the 1500s, to be precise between 1580 and 1588, when some religious members of the order of the Discalced Carmelites received some houses as a gift from some faithful and established the Casa Santa Conservatory. The structure was not immediately defined, but grew with the bequests and purchases of houses that the friars made thanks to donations, especially when around the mid-1600s members of the noble Bandino family joined the order. Inside the structure, a marble plaque from 1609 is still visible today, which refers to the bishopric of Antonio Porzio and the function of the convent, namely to “save young virgins from the jaws of wolves”.

With the economic consolidation of the order, the church of Santa Teresa was built in the early 1700s, a church to which the convent was connected by a door that is now walled up. After the Napoleonic suppression of religious orders, the Convent was managed until the 1980s by nuns who took care of the reception and care of young orphaned or needy girls. This group of girls was joined by those who paid for food and lodging to be hosted in the structure. After the days of opening, the richly carved 17th-century wooden door of Casa Santa closed again, but not without reopening the album of memories and recollections that merged into the initiative called “Frammenti”.