Carcere di Turi

Originally intended to become the new cloistered convent for the Poor Clare nuns of the Church of Santa Chiara, whose existing monastery was no longer considered suitable for monastic life, the building was designed by the architect Pesce on land previously occupied by the convent’s vegetable garden.

Construction was initially expected to take four years but continued for much longer. The nuns who commissioned the building never had the opportunity to live there. In 1866, when the complex was almost complete, the anti-clerical policies of the newly established Kingdom of Italy led to its transfer into state ownership. It was initially converted into a penal institution for people with mental and physical disabilities and subsequently became a prison. Since 1975, it has officially operated as a detention facility.

The imposing complex, described at the time of its construction as a “magnificent building without equal in the whole of southern Italy”, covers an area of approximately 6,600 square metres. Its architecture includes elements of considerable historical significance, and the building is therefore protected under Italy’s cultural heritage and landscape legislation.

Turi Prison remains operational today and is of considerable national importance because of its role in Italy’s political and prison history. Among those imprisoned here were prominent figures of the Italian anti-fascist movement, including the communist politician Francesco Lo Sardo, the socialist Sandro Pertini, who later became one of the most widely respected Presidents of the Italian Republic, and the thinker Antonio Gramsci, one of the founders of the Italian Communist Party.

Gramsci wrote a significant part of his Prison Notebooks and correspondence while imprisoned in Turi. The cell in which he was held is today recognised as a national monument.

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