Turi Prison

The Prison of Turi

Originally intended to become the new cloistered convent of the Poor Clares of the Church of Santa Chiara—since the old one was no longer suitable for monastic life—the project was entrusted to the architect Pesce and built on the land once occupied by the nuns’ vegetable garden. The works, initially planned to last four years, were so delayed that the nuns never moved in. By 1866, when the building was almost complete, the anticlerical policies of the Kingdom of Italy led to its seizure and conversion into state property. It first became an institution for those with physical and mental disabilities, and later a penitentiary. Since 1975, it has functioned as a House of Detention.

Described at the time of its construction as a “magnificent building, unmatched throughout southern Italy”, the prison covers an area of about 6,600 m². Architecturally significant, it is protected as a site of historical and landscape interest under Legislative Decree no. 42 of 22 January 2004.

Still active today, Turi Prison holds an important place in Italy’s penal history. It once housed prominent figures of the anti-fascist movement, such as the communist Francesco Lo Sardo, the socialist Sandro Pertini—later one of the most beloved Presidents of the Italian Republic—and the thinker Antonio Gramsci, co-founder of the Italian Communist Party. Gramsci’s cell, where he wrote much of his Prison Notebooks and correspondence, is now a national monument.