The Museo archeologico della Badia, in Licata, holds the finds from the archaeological area of Phintias and from the lower valley of the southern Imera. It began as an antiquarium attached to the municipal library, with the support of the heritage office of Agrigento, the town council and the local archaeological association, and in 1972 it separated to become the civic museum. Since 30 March 1996 it has been housed in the «Badia», the Cistercian convent of Santa Maria del Soccorso, founded in the sixteenth century, enlarged in the seventeenth with the cloister and in the eighteenth with the new wing on piazza Sant'Angelo.
What to see
In the entrance hall are the town's wooden coat of arms, of the eighteenth century, and the everyday pottery of the convent, found during the restoration of the Badia. Room I gathers the collections from the Montagna di Licata, from prehistory to the Hellenistic-Roman age, with some inscriptions in Greek; in the basement are finds recovered from the sea off Licata. The following rooms follow the sites of the territory: Casalicchio, Marcato d'Agnone and Portella di Corso, Canticaglione and Montepetrulla, Madre Chiesa with material of the Thapsos culture, and the Muculufa with that of the Bronze Age.
In the cloister are stone finds and architectural elements. A more recent room, room VII, brings together the medieval works: the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century statues from the convent of the Annunziata, some frescoes and the Madonna del Soccorso by Domenico Gagini, dated 1470.
Visiting
Opening times, tickets and opening days should be checked on the official website of the Sicilian Region.
Our editors' tip
Gagini's Madonna del Soccorso has changed home more than once: it comes from the church of the same name, and before reaching the museum it stood in the council chamber of Licata.
