The Carolino Educatorio for noble spinsters.
A massive building on Monreale’s ancient stradone. The monastery of the nuns of St. Francis de Sales was opened in 1738, designed by Dominican Cosimo Agnetta. Inside it hides a church by Marvuglia and a nuns’ crypt with a tomb that has a whole history of its own. In 1779, Ferdinand III of Bourbon decreed that the monastery house 20 poor “noble spinsters.” But nuns and institutions are at odds: first the division in 1840, in 1863 the nunnery was named after Queen Maria Adelaide of Savoy, in 1888 the final separation, and an overall restoration that gives an Art Nouveau refectory in shades of teal and a hall-theater mellowed by Rocco Lentini. And a “training” library with ancient volumes on women’s education.
