In the past, the current Citadel of Culture was an augustinian monastery. These monks lived in Giovinazzo since 10th and 11thcenturies, when they built a monastery near the old walls of the city; this building existed until 1460, when it was destroyed  to strengthen the eastern walls: during that year, in fact, the prince of Taranto, Giovanni Antonio Orsini, besieged the city of Giovinazzo to conquer it and the inhabitants of the city destroyed all of the buildings that were near the walls, because the enemies could use those structures to attack them. So the augustinians moved to a place called “pescara” that was near the current Vittorio Emanuele II square and where that were the S. James of the pescara church. This church and the adjacent monastery were destroyed by the prince of Melfi, Giambattista Caracciolo, that besieged the city in 1529. After that, augustians moved to a place that was a half mile away from the city and that was called “S. Thomas” because in the past there was an old church that had been built in 5th century and that had been one of the oldest churches in Giovinazzo. The current structure was built since 1732 and the adjacent church was built since 1734 by the local architects Giovanni and Giuseppe Mastropasqua. In 1806, when the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy was instituted, the monastery was abolished and was given back to the augustians only in 1819 by the king Ferdinando I of Bourbon. In 1866, after the foundation of the Kingdom of Italy, all these buildings became properties of the Kingdom, so the church became a parish and the monastery became the royal gymnasium “Matteo Spinelli”, that had been an important local chronicler. So some restoration works were done and during those works the old catacombs of the augustinians were found. A small area of the building was commuted to a prison but during the following years this prison was moved to a structure in the old centre of the city and the only gymnasium remained in the old monastery. Today the gymnasium is in another building and in the old augustian monastery there's the Citadel of Culture. This institution is here since 2016 and it's ready to become an important cultural pole.

Thanks to :
Giuseppe Mennea
Mattia Atlante
Samuele Turturro
Raffaele Mastroviti