Palazzo dell'Annunziata

The Palazzo dell'Annunziata is located in the central Piazza Vittorio Veneto; it occupies a position a little out of the Foggiali area where, during the Middle Ages, there were different monastic settlements. It was founded as a monastery to welcome the group of nuns coming from Accon who in the thirteenth century had settled near the present St. John the Baptist and who, around the fifteenth century, had been forced to move to another site located near the Cathedral, known as "Annunziata vecchia". As a result of the precarious conditions of the latter, it became necessary to build a new structure to house the nuns. The project was realized in 1734 by Vito Valentino di Bitonto and completed in 1748 by the architect Mauro Manieri di Nardò. During the first years of the nineteenth century, following the suppression of the monastic order, the building was destined to house the Palace of Justice; since 1998, after a long planning and restoration phase, it has been the seat of the Provincial Library 'Tommaso Stigliani'. From an architectural point of view, the facade has cornices and arches on two levels; in the lower part, through the large central arch, there was access to a church built around the mid-nineteenth century but never consecrated: currently this room houses a cinema hall. At the top there is a pediment with a clock, above which is represented the coat of arms of Matera.