The museum location: the monastery of Santa Maria de Senioribus
The monastery of the order of the Carmelite Fathers, located in the land of Desenzano, diocese of Verona, was founded and erected the year one thousand four hundred seventy-three (General Archive of the Carmelites order).
Map of the monastery, the church and its surroundings, view of the church façade, the bell tower and the second cloister, which has now disappeared (1770, State Archives in Venice).
The monastery of the order of the Carmelite Friars was founded in 1472. The adjacent church, later deconsecrated, was already named after Santa Maria de Senioribus.
The cloister, with a square plan and five arches on each side resting on twenty columns, had already been completed in 1547. The refectory and the chancery opened out into the cloister. On the first floor, two sides of the cloister were occupied by the monks' cells, while the other two were loggias with small arches resting on little terracotta columns. A double lancet window was the only view over the lake.
The Venetian Republic first (1768) and then the Republic of Brescia (1797) issued regulatory measures aimed at suppressing religious bodies, among which the Carmelite order of Desenzano.
The monastery was auctioned off and the church became state-owned property. In 1813, it was sold and used as a theatre.
The building had seriously been damaged by the Allied Aviation bombing (1944), hence the municipality of Desenzano del Garda had it restored at the end of the twentieth century.
