Parco Regionale Gallipoli Cognato
Piccole Dolomiti Lucane

Loc. Palazzo

75011 Accettura (MT)

Municipality: Accettura

Region: Basilicata

Palazzo Visitor Center has been set in a monastic settlement dating back to the 11th century AD and of Basilian origins. It was then transferred to the Benedictine nuns and is mentioned in a 1068 bull as a donation to the Bishop of Tricarico by the Earls of Montescaglioso. Around the year 1123 it welcomed San Guglielmo from Vercelli who founded in Gallipoli a church and a monastery. Afterwards, it was transferred to the Clarisse and became a State property immediately after the Unification of Italy with the 1867 law. When it became forest property, it was enriched with other buildings.
With the Park establishment, the buildings have been used for the Park services. On the ground floor of the old monastery, beyond St. Chiara Church, there are a naturalistic museum and the Foresters head offices. On the first floor there is the congress hall. The old vegetable garden has been transformed into a forest nursery and houses nowadays the botanic garden with a section dedicated to medicinal herbs and a section housing the ecomuseum. In the other buildings there are a welcome center with bar-refreshment point, a guide center, a fire-prevention center, a rural craftsmanship workshop, a medicinal herbs lab, a diorama, and the Park Offices.