Museo della Fondazione Ettore Pomarici Santomasi

The Museum of the Ettore Pomarici Santomasi Foundation occupies a seventeenth-century palace in Gravina in Puglia. Its collections include the former family's domestic apartment, a picture gallery, a reconstruction of the rock crypt of San Vito Vecchio, arms, historic clothing, carriages, a library and an archive.

Why it matters

Baron Ettore Pomarici Santomasi bequeathed his palace and collections to the city of Gravina. The foundation was established as a legal entity in 1920, preserving the family's historic home as a public cultural collection. The museum brings together the history of a private residence and objects documenting the town's artistic and civic life.

What to notice

The family apartment comprises seven furnished rooms. The picture gallery contains 263 canvases, including two seventeenth-century paintings by Francesco Guarini. The collection also includes arms and uniforms, numismatic material, nine period dresses and an eighteenth-century carriage. At ground level, a reconstruction of the rock crypt of San Vito Vecchio preserves its detached frescoes, dated to the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. The original crypt remains at a separate site in Gravina; detachment and conservation work began in 1956.

Context and history

The foundation's library and archive were established by Royal Decree 1761 of 28 November 1920. The archive preserves books, loose papers and printed material associated with the household's history. The museum's collections and the foundation's archival holdings preserve different aspects of the Pomarici Santomasi bequest.