Pia Opera Pastore

Thanks to a financing by the Ministry of the Interior, there was an antitubercular preventive sanatorium for children who were lodged at the prophylactic Dispensary, if they were sick, and went back home when they had recovered their health.

At present the premises belong to IPAB (Public Institutions of Assistance and Charity: Opere Pie Pastore and San Pietro): some of them are rent for vocational training courses, others are used as a hospitality centre for non-EU immigrants.

[2] On 29 July 1900 the Association "Dame di Carità" (that is Ladies of Charity) was founded by Sister Margherita Castets, Mother Superior of Opera Pia: it was formed by women who wanted to devote themselves to the comfort of sick people, the outcasts and the poor.

[2] The members had to be devotee of Saint Vincent de Paul and the Blessed Luisa di Marillac, imitating the virtue, above all charity, praying, receiving Holy Communion and saying the Rosary in suffrage of the dead sisters.

[2] In 1924 they founded the Association Little Ladies of Charity, whose protector was Saint Luisa di Marillac: its members were girls aged 16, 17 and 18, wearing a blue skirt, a white blouse and black shoes.

[2] Their purposes were: During the period of the crisis in the 1920s, these Little Ladies cooperated with the Nuns, collecting wheat and flour, and getting funds for poor families through different activities like theatre, concerts, etc.

Above the front door there is the Pastore family's coat of arms, represented by a shepherd's crook, three stars and a tower; there is also a balcony of honour with a parapet and small columns.