Palazzo Lanfranchi is a palace built in the second half of the 17th century in Piazza Giovanni Pascoli, in Matera, which today houses the Museum of Medieval and Modern Art of Basilicata. SHORT HISTORY OF PALAZZO LANFRANCHI The palace was built between 1668 and 1672 by the Capuchin friar Francesco da Copertino, as a diocesan seminary, at the behest of the Archbishop of Matera, Vincenzo Lanfranchi. Built on a pre-existing convent of the Carmelites, whose order was suppressed in 1652, the palace was the seat of the city’s seminary until 1864. After the Unification of Italy, the building passed to the Piedmontese Government and became the seat of the Classical Lyceum and the National Boarding School. The palace housed the Lyceum until 1980. Later, it hosted the offices of the Superintendency for Artistic and Historical Heritage of Basilicata and, since 2003, it is the seat of the National Museum of Medieval and Modern Art of Basilicata. ARCHITECTURE OF PALAZZO LANFRANCHI The asymmetric facade of the palace is divided horizontally into two orders by a cornice. In the lower order, there are five niches in which we can see the statues of San Nicola, the Madonna del Carmine, San Read more [...]