Complesso monumentale di Santa Maria di Castello

The Monastery of Santa Maria di Castello, near the port area of the Pier, occupies the top of a hilly area of ancient settlement: the presence of layered Pre-Roman, Roman and Byzantine fortifications, until the building of the episcopal palace, between centuries IX and X, connotes this area as the seat of military and religious power. The present building of Santa Maria di Castello is a Romanesque basilica with three naves with a transept and three apses built in the first quarter of the twelfth century by Antelami craftsmen. The original appearance of the church was altered in part by the restructuring of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. From the second half of the seventeenth century, coinciding with a severe weakening numerical and economic of Dominicans, it alternated disposals and changed often due to the need to rent the areas, while in the church it continued to provide for the decoration of some chapels.
In the first half of the nineteenth century, the convent was in a state of decay, which worsened in 1859, with the occupation army troops of Sardinia-Piedmont and with the expulsion of the monks as a result of law enforcement Cavour-Rattazzi which, in 1855, had suppressed religious corporations: in part forfeited by the State, the convent was added to a program of speculation that is put into effect in 1870, with the raising of the first and third cloister, turned into apartment buildings.
The idea to build a museum in Santa Maria is born from the need to exhibit many works that, following the transformation of the church and the convent, were left without a precise location or were not visible to the public. A first museum was built by Gianvittorio Castelnovi, in 1959.
In January 2001, were inaugurated 12 new rooms that collect, in 400 square meters, furnishings and different collections not only from Santa Maria di Castello, but also from other convents and monasteries Dominicans.