Caporeale Palace

With an entrance in Piazza Municipio and a remarkable granite portal, the building faces south and has four floors. Built in the eighteenth century, it belonged to the important Caporeale family, now disappeared, like the de Paparo family and many others.

For the last hundred and fifty years it has been the town hall of Badolato. Until the mid-1950s it housed the District Court, which was then transferred to Badolato Marina and later abolished to make way for the Justice of the Peace, which has also disappeared.

On the lower floors, with a separate entrance from another street, there was the Municipal Archive, which was destroyed in the early 1990s, with the loss of an important part of Badolato’s history. On the ground floor is the narrow new Council Chamber, located in a room that for a long time was the municipal slaughterhouse.

On Maundy Thursday in 1944, the upper floor was hastily used as a refuge for the then Archpriest, who was fleeing from the nearby Mother Church, threatened by many people from the procession, due to a conflict over its organisation. The Archpriest, who was hiding in the Chancellor’s apartment, was rescued by the Carabinieri who arrived from the Soverato Carabinieri Station, thanks to the darkness of the night. Since that night, the priest has never seen Badolato again.

Municipio Square (or the Most Holy Savior)

This is the most important square in the city. It is not the largest, but it is the topographical centre of the village.

Facing the square is the Mother Church, the centre of the people’s religious rituals. Also facing the square is the Palazzo Caporeale, which houses the Town Hall and was once the seat of the District Court before it was moved to the Marina and later abolished. The Guarna Palace, with its first floor, also has one of its entrances on the square. For many years, the local section of the Christian Democratic Party and a Catholic youth action group were housed in two separate large rooms on the square.

The landing in front of the Palazzo Guarna was, and still is, the stage on which hundreds of politicians and various speakers have appeared, mainly during election campaigns.

On the wall of the church there is a marble plaque with the names of the Badolato soldiers who fell in the two world wars of the last century.