LOCATION: Via Santo Spirito
DATING: XNUMXth-XNUMXth century
DESCRIPTION: The entrance to the monastery, called "Bataranni" by the people of Agrigento due to its large size and the great fame it had, is located to the right of the church of Santo Spirito.
Through a portal, via a corridor, you enter a large courtyard where, in addition to the garden, you can admire the suggestive western façade with its simple single-lancet windows and mullioned windows divided by slender columns. The entire monastery is divided into two floors. The ground floor includes, on the left, the chapel, inside which there are fourteenth-century structures and a Chiaramonte arch, the Chapter Hall, which is accessed by a splendid portal flanked by two large mullioned windows, the archivolts of which are decorated in relief by a motif of broken lines, while the central column is decorated with foliage in relief, and finally the large Refectory, whose very simple environment has a ceiling supported by arches resting on corbels inserted into the thickness of the wall.
The first floor is accessed from the large portal located almost in the center of the facade. An internal staircase leads directly to the Dormitory with adjacent rooms intended for the Abbess and the Prioress. Inside the Dormitory you can see a wooden ceiling supported by seventeenth-century pointed arches and a series of niches intended for storage rooms or single chapels. In the northern part of the dormitory, medieval frescoes reminiscent of those of the Steri Chiaramontano of Palermo are visible. The monastery was handed over, in 1916, by the State to the Municipality with the obligation to use it as an institution, to protect its conservation.
Today the monastery is home to the civic museums and in its rooms it is possible to admire a handcrafted nativity scene, reproducing the historic center with objects and crafts in use about a century ago. The Monastery is home to some sections of the Civic Museums
SOURCE: Website of the Municipality of Agrigento: http://www.comune.agrigento.it/index.php/la-citta/monastero-s-spirito
Property bound pursuant to Law 364/1909 (Notification dated 26.06.29)
Institutional website of the Monastery: http://www.monasterosantospirito.com/
Card insertion: Ignatius Caloggero
Photo: Google
Information contributions: Ignazio Caloggero, Web
Audio Sheet: Ignazio Caloggero
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