Palazzo Menghini

In November 1907, the lawyer Carlo Menghini purchased the land on which the future Menghini kindergarten would be built from Miss Ciria Rossi Candrini. The building is L-shaped, built partly on one floor, partly on three floors, one of which is underground. A corridor leads to a triangular-shaped atrium where the two wings meet, both closed by windows. Externally the building is elegant in terms of overall shape, with concrete frames and contours around the windows for decorative use in accordance with the late Art Nouveau style of the time.

The Menghini Asylum officially opened at the beginning of 1910, and during the last days of the Second World War the premises were occupied by military troops stationed in the town. The building was cleared out only in 1945, at the time of the Liberation, and after a long restoration work it reopened. In 1981 the nursery school was in a precarious economic situation, being supported exclusively by subsidies from the Istituti Riuniti di Assistenza Minorile. As the years passed, the assets derived from these funds no longer allowed any type of assistance to be provided. On 1 September the property was rented free of charge to the Municipality of Castiglione delle Stiviere.

Currently Palazzo Menghini, the former headquarters of the nursery school, in addition to hosting the Infopoint, is the headquarters of the Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art of Castiglione delle Stiviere and hosts the permanent exhibition: “Sign and identity of a Community. Great artists of the twentieth century from Castiglione”.