In 1961 a Waldensian pastor, Tullio Vinay, founded a diaconal centre at Riesi. Italy's Protestant minority is historically Alpine, and Riesi is a Sicilian sulphur town, then deep in crisis from the closing of the mines: Vinay wanted to answer the poverty, the illiteracy and the crime that collapse brought with it.
What to see
To build it he did not settle for sheds: he called in Leonardo Ricci, a Florentine architect of Waldensian family, who had already designed the ecumenical centre Agape above Prali, in Piedmont, founded by Vinay after the war. The complex is of six buildings, put up between 1963 and 1966 by local firms together with a community of volunteers.
The name comes from the hill it stands on, but it also points to the Mount of Olives of the gospels. Over time a guesthouse, a sports field, a rehabilitation centre for the disabled and sheds and tanks for agriculture have been added: olives, almonds and vegetables are grown here. In the basement of the former mechanical school there is a photographic exhibition on the centre's history.
Visiting
The complex is at the south-eastern end of Riesi, in the province of Caltanissetta; it is a place of work, with a community living and operating there, so a visit must be arranged and you do not wander about as in a museum. An hour.
Our editors' tip
Look at how the six buildings sit on the slope: Ricci did not flatten the hill, he went along with it, and the concrete follows the ground instead of dominating it. It is Italian architecture of a high order in a place where nobody goes looking for it, and the only way to see it is to remember that it is not a monument: it is a building site that has been open for sixty years.