Ex Convento di S.Girolamo

The Ex Convento di S. Girolamo is less a single building than an architectural palimpsest, a sum of structures whose present appearance differs markedly from the original. The surviving conventual wing offers broad ground-floor halls, likely refectories and service rooms, with elliptical vaults. Beneath the portico, a central staircase of recent restoration, its steps in terracotta, leads to the first floor, where the original layout endures. This is the complex’s most compelling feature: two wide, symmetrical corridors, their walls marked by paired pilasters that rhythmically punctuate the cell entrances. Above the door frames, beautifully preserved frescoed lunettes sit beneath elegant sail vaults on rectangular bases.

Alas, the interior subdivision of the friars’ former quarters has been entirely distorted by inappropriate residential use. Of the church, only the apse survives, a spherical vault in exposed, stuccoed brick, now serving as a meeting room. This single remnant barely hints at the handsome place of worship it once belonged to. To imagine the lost cloister’s portico, one must stand and look.

Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.