Monastero Santa Caterina Badiella - Monreale

The construction of the Monastery of Santa Caterina, known today as ''Badiella'', was commissioned in 1580 by Archbishop Ludovico I Torres.

Due to the health and social distress of the city of Monreale , Archbishop Ludovico Il Torres preferred to install the new headquarters of the civilian hospital, named after Saint Catherine the Martyr, in a part of the convent. In 1646, the building was no longer used as a hospital, which was moved to the city center, but kept its function as a Dominican convent for the management of the orphanage of the 'Pericolating Virgins' and later of the 'Daughters of the Military' where the sisters, in addition to religious training, gave internal and external girls job training.

In 1656 the first core of the building was completed. Monseigneur Alfonso Los Cameros endowed the institute with stable means of support by a deed of August 1662, after which he entrusted the leadership to the Dominican Sisters in 1665. He also endowed the Opera Pia with an internal church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary and named the whole complex 'Badiella' to distinguish it from the 'Badia' in the Monastery of San Castrense.

It was Archbishop Francesco Testa who committed all the work in 1760 to the construction of the building in its present form. At the beginning of the 20th century, at the request of Monseigneur Intreccialagli, the ordinary administration passed from the Capuchin Sisters to the Congregation of the Oblate Sisters of Divine Charity, recognized precisely in Monreale, at the request of "Suor Diomira Crispi" , the founder.

It is certain from documentary evidence that the old prison of Monreale, which no longer exists but was demolished in the 19th century, was located in the old convent of S. Caterina in Monreale (Badiella). Also the seat of the Inquisition for Monreale and its surroundings , the prison coexisted for centuries with the first seat of the old hospital of the same name and then with the convent of the nuns of Badiella.

Willem Vandenameele