Putignano - Puglia - Italy

The Municipal Library "Filippo De Miccolis Angelini"

In 1953 the idea of developing a municipal library in the town of Putignano was developed in order to disseminate culture and tradition in greater depth. The project matured in the administrative structure headed by Filippo De Miccolis Angelini, to whom it is today entitled. The formal institution took place with a resolution of the Municipal Council on June 10th 1958, the official inauguration on June 29th 1964.

The former Carmelite Convent dating back to 1568 was chosen as the seat of the library and the initial endowment consisted of about seven thousand volumes from the two conventual libraries of the Capuchins and the Carmelites, from the donation of Prince Guglielmo Romanazzi Carducci, from the circulating library, from a donation of books granted on a perpetual loan by USIS (US Information Service), by the publisher Giovanni Laterza, a native of Putignano, and by mayor Filippo De Miccolis Angelini. The municipal administration provided for the purchase of encyclopedias, of all the works of Benedetto Croce published by Laterza; subscriptions to 10 magazines, 3 newspapers and 4 local periodicals were also signed.

Particularly significant purchases were:

1. The nineteenth-century manuscript on the history of Putignano by Avv. Giovanni Casulli, three ponderous volumes, unpublished and manuscripts, which contain much of the history of Putignano. With facts and events of a political, administrative, cultural and social nature.

2. A copy of the Putignano effemerids, or successes and history of the city of Putignano (1737-1744) by the Dominican Domenico Maria Campanella.

Over the years the library and documentary heritage of the library has increased thanks to purchases and donations and today consists of a total of 58,767 bibliographic units.

The ancient collection consists of about 5,000 volumes worthy of note 395 from the sixteenth century, two of which are printed in Venice by Aldo Manuzio and 710 editions from the seventeenth century. This fund includes around 1,500 volumes from the local Capuchin monastery, all bound in parchment, mainly works of religious subjects. Very rich is the section of Puglia and of local history that attracts scholars from various countries. The magazine includes about three hundred magazines of discontinued and current periodicals, including La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, bound since 1940.

Romanazzi Carducci Principe House Museum

In 1800, the palace, once seat of the bailiff, became the property of the Romanazzi-Carducci family and took on the characteristics of a noble palace.

After almost a century of splendor and decorum, Prince Guglielmo, in 1967 donated the palace and all its furnishings and valuables, to the municipality of Putignano, to transform it into a museum, today identified as a civic museum, more commonly, as the museum of the prince .

The main facade, which always overlooks the square Piazza Plebiscito, is the result of the renovation of the nineteenth century; the side one, has an eighteenth-century body above which opens a terrace with a hanging garden.

From the main entrance, one enters the atrium of the building, characterized by a double loggia façade that leads through a short staircase to the first noble floor, consisting of a series of harmonious rooms with architectural lines, richly decorated and furnished with precious furniture, paintings, books, porcelain tapestries, silverware and glassworks. A large part of the artistic heritage is of Neapolitan origin, which flowed following successive marriages. The most prestigious objects, probably acquired through the marriage with the Princess of Saluzzo of Corigliano, are the paintings made up of masterpieces of various origins and datable between the XVI and the XX century, ascribable to various pictorial schools. We also report a very rich collection of minor arts, created by the most important Italian and French craftsmen between the 1800s and the 1900s, among which table clocks stand out.

Among the many collections, the richest is the collection of weapons.

The heart of the noble floor is the "Yellow Room", once a privileged place for social life, used for conversation and "romantic" dance nights.

The vault still preserves the frescoes, the furniture is composed of four Turkish-style sofas arranged in the corners, a sofa and a gilded console table with a Neapolitan-made velvet top; the walls are embellished with golden yellow damask tapestries also used as curtains on interior doors and windows that blend well with the gilded wooden mirror. The palace still retains part of the Prince's shoe collection and in one of the bathrooms, prints and beauty products.

First Balì palace and then noble house

The palace, which later became the noble residence of the Romanazzi Carducci, was built, with a good approximation in the XIVth Century, by the Knights Gerosolomitani who made it become the residence of the balì who alternated in those centuries. The Balì was the highest able sign of the Knights Gerosolomitani in a territory. The rooms on the mezzanine floor of the building are the small testimony of the permanence of the order of the Knights of Malta. All the furnishings of the ancient seat of the Bailiff dispersed at the time of the confiscation of ecclesiastical property. Below in the photo the plaque that refers to the Bailiwick of Vincenzo Crescimanno from 1660 to 1671.

scritta del bali

HAS CRESIMANNUS FRATER
A PLATIA SICULUS PERFICIT ATQUE NOVAT

These (structures) fra Vincenzo Crescimanno from Sicily of Piazza Armerina

in 1666 it completed and novat (or) transformed for a new use

The Cabreo, which was a sort of collection of the assets of the great ecclesiastical administrations, such as that of the Knights of Malta, and consisted of maps, lists of movable and immovable property, where rights, easement and the value of the property were reported, is the tool that allowed a historical description of the situation at that time. They had to be updated every 25 years and deposited in the archive according to the statutes of the Gerosolimitano Priory

From an extract from the Cabreo of the Bailiwick of Santo Stefano on 16 - 5 - 1748 a detailed description of the structure built next to the Church of San Pietro is shown:

Palace, cellars, warehouses and loot of the Sagra Religione

They also declare that the same Sagra Religione have owned and possess in the said Land of Putignano a Palace for his home or of the Knights Lieutenants with Magazzini and Cantine to conserve wine with its bottami site and place in the middle of the public square of that Land, border the Prioral Madrice Curated Church of San Pietro da Tramontana, boundary to the public square, shops and warehouses of the Venerabil Convento de 'Carmelite Fathers from Ponente, several shops of particulars and the houses of Mr. Giuseppe di Pinto da Scirocco, the houses of the Monistero delle Donne Monache del Carmine and public road from Levante!

Which palace consists of the inscribed dwelling and members.

First of all from the public square one enters through a large gate inside a rather spacious courtyard where to the right of the entrance there is a large Terraneo warehouse with a vault of Lamia. At the same straight end passed the door of the said Warehouse there is a cistern of rainwater.

In the same courtyard passed the said cistern there are two doors, for which one enters the cellar under the said building and holds said used cask cellar n. 39 of corpse capacity 214. Said the winery exit for inside the workshop of Monte del quondam Don Giambattista Cassone in the scirocco public road where there is a stone staircase since the time of the late Prior Prior Fra Fra Girolamo Marulli and for convenience of said output is paid to the aforesaid Monte ducati four per year for rent.

To the left of the said Courtyard is the Ecclesiastical Prison with the door from inside said courtyard and iron gate from the outside corresponding to the square and atrium of the said Prioral Church of San Pietro. Adjacent to this prison there is a stable likewise in Lamia to be able to comfortably hold eight horses.

Inside the Courtyard itself there are two stone staircases: one is the largest to go up to the Great Hall, corresponding to the Public Square with two balconies Seu Logge and two windows and with three pits in the floor to be preserved provisions and said Hall is located above the mentioned Gate and above the Ecclesiastical and Secular prisons which are proper of said Baliaggio. At the head of this room, in the lower part, there is a room that is really that above the Magazzino and shops of the Carmelite Fathers of Sant'Angelo. Adjacent to this room to the left of the entrance is a door through which one enters a large antechamber with two windows, one corresponding to the Scirocco public road and the other into the Courtyard above the aforementioned Scala.

The other minor scale is located between the door of the stable and the Cellar and for it one ascends in a left-hand discovery of which enters into two Chambers one next to the other, answering with another door inside the greater Hall their ceilings and windows corresponding to the Courtyard and are situated above the said stable and conserve of straw.

From the right of the same man scouted for a large door, one enters the old hall and the old antechamber corresponding to the last of the three chambers described above and for it in a three-chambered arm for the family of the Signori Baglivi which goes straight to to the house that belonged to the quondam Giuseppe Pinto from near the Garden. From inside the aforementioned Old Hall there is a room which is used for the Secretariat, from which three steps descend and there is a narrow place for common needs; then there is the Kitchen and from inside this there is a Door that goes out inside the Sacristy of the said Priory Church of San Pietro, to drop privately or in time of rain the Lords Priors and Knights in the said Church to hear the Mass or attend others Divini Offici. Inside the same Kitchen there is another door, which enters another Room, bordering the same Sacristy and under it there is a small Cellar with a rainwater cistern and with the exit to the public road from Levante and holds used barrels six of capacity corpses twenty-three necks their places of stones. Finally contiguous to said Kitchen, Room and old Anteroom there is a square Giardinello with its columns and above it Grape pergola and there are other bercoca saplings and a small rainwater cistern and it has the exit for a Gate to the aforesaid street from Levante.

Municipal theater, one of the most characteristic and ancient of the south east of Bari

Teatro comunale putignano foto fine 800

Since the early 1600s there has been news of a small hall, located close to an ancient bastion to the right of the Porta Grande, used for theatrical performances open to the public. Until the end of the 18th century, the restaurant, accessible by a winding and open staircase, is managed by two local companies until, in the 1800s, the room was enlarged with the space of an adjacent large room. At the carnival, the theater was transformed into a huge ballroom where large binges and courtships were consumed.

The theater in its current trapezoidal planimetric configuration was designed in 1880 by the engineer Vincenzo Ventrella and completed in 1887 with the main front on Corso Garibaldi, on the corner of Corso Umberto I.

Teatro comunale putignano interno

In 1894 the interiors were completed with three tiers of boxes, a gallery and the stalls with wooden structures decorated with gilded stuccos. Some scenes and the curtain were made by the Bari artist Raffaele Armenise, the same who made the frescoes on the dome of the Petruzzelli theater in Bari, which were then destroyed in the fire of 1991.

In the post-war period the state of degradation of the wooden structures pushed the municipal administration to entrust to private the renovations in exchange for the twenty-year management. Based on a design by the engineer Basile, the theater, transformed into a cinema-theater with a capacity of around 900 seats: it was completely gutted inside, replacing the wooden trusses of the roof that covered the cavea with a wide vault laterocementizia. The cinema-theater inaugurated in 1957 was closed in 1978 due to unusable plant and safety deficiencies.

evento a teatro anni 40 Only in 1993 were the maintenance work on the roofs and facades restored. The building is characterized by a rectangular structure 35 meters long and 17 meters wide. The roof vault is surmounted by a pitched roof with a height of 17 meters. In December 2008 the De Miccolis administration approved the final restructuring, recovery and restoration project prepared by the municipal technical office. In July 2010, the works contracted out to the Temporary Business Association "Consortium for the Recovery of Artistic Heritage" and "Constazio Stabile Constap" began. To date, the variant project is currently being approved, under the design coordination of the architects Gian Luigi Sylos Labini - SMN Studio di Architettura - and Luigi Dragone, who plans to build a 365-seat room, extension of the scenic tower, a large double-height foyer, the demolition of the concrete vault built after the war, the revival of the roof with wooden trusses with retraction of the tympanum on the façade, coherently with the original layout, in order to use the terrace flat as a lookout and outdoor shows.