National Museum of Medieval and Modern Art
National Museum of Medieval and Modern Art.
Kept inside the Palazzo Lanfranchi, the highest expression of the architecture of the seventeenth century in Matera, the building was built as a Seminary, adhering to the Tridentine dictates, at the behest of Bishop Vincenzo Lanfranchi (1665-1676) who entrusted the project to Friar Francesco da Copertino.
The construction, which began in 1668 and completed four years later, incorporated the pre-existing church of the Carmine, whose main façade became part of the scenic facade of the new bishop’s complex, facing the ‘Piano’ on which the expansion of the Città dei Sassi will take place. .
In the very first years of his episcopate Monsignor Brancaccio (1703-1722) decorated the walls of the cloister with the sundial and with five stone busts that reproduce his effigy, that of the three brother bishops Gerolamo, Andrea and Giovan Battista Lanfranchi and his predecessor, Antonio Del Rjos (1678-1702), who had promoted the definition of the square in front with the construction of the Case Nuove district and the Convent of Santa Chiara.
Later Monsignor Zunica (1776-1796) completed the first enlargement of the building towards ‘the painting of the tanneries’ in the Sasso Caveoso; but the enlargement that gave the building its current size can be attributed to Monsignor Di Macco (1834-1854), a great innovator in the field of teaching, who in 1853 raised the building by one floor to equip it with new classrooms.
High school
In 1864, following the subversive laws and the transfer of the Seminary to the Cathedral, the building became the seat of the Liceo Classico, maintaining its important didactic function.
Will welcome Giovanni Pascoli In the two-year period 1882-1884 to his first teaching assignment.
In 1980 the Palazzo Lanfranchi became the seat of the Superintendence for the Artistic and Historical Heritage of Basilicata and since 2003 the National Museum of Medieval and Modern Art has been set up on the first floor.
On the ground floor, in the corridor around the cloister, there is the reception service to the museum with the ticket office, the documentation center, with the Library, Photo Library and Catalog, the Levi Room, in which Lucania ’61 is exhibited and the Pascoli Room, intended at exhibitions and cultural events.
On the second floor of the building is the Sala delle Arcate, the only large room obtained from the classrooms built by Monsignor Di Macco, rooms used for exhibitions, temporary exhibitions, conferences and conventions.
