Seals have been placed on the Sedil Dominova in Sorrento, a historic building attributed to the 14th century and identified as property of the Comune of Sorrento.
According to Il Mattino, the Tribunale del Riesame in Naples ordered the measure after an investigation into the use of the building by the Societa Operaia di Mutuo Soccorso. La Repubblica also reports a preventive seizure of the Sedil Dominova as part of an inquiry led by the Procura di Torre Annunziata.
The court decision followed an appeal by the Torre Annunziata prosecutors against an earlier refusal of preventive seizure by the judge for preliminary investigations. The reported basis for the case is the continued availability of the municipally owned building to the private association after the reported expiry of a loan-for-use agreement.
According to the reconstruction reported by Il Mattino, the comodato contract for the building had expired in 2021.
A surviving historic sedile
The Sedil Dominova is described as the only surviving historic sedile in Campania.
Its more recent history is connected to the Societa Operaia di Mutuo Soccorso, founded in Sorrento in 1877, and to the subsequent transfer of the building to the town administration.
The building retains historic and artistic features, including frescoes attributed to Carlo Amalfi and a sixteenth-century dome.
A planned 450,000-euro restoration
In 2018, the municipal government of Sorrento approved a consolidated restoration and structural consolidation project for the Sedil Dominova, with a planned expenditure of 450,000 euros.
The available sources do not clarify whether that 2018 project was completed in full, nor do they describe the current physical condition of the building following the seizure.
What remains unclear
The outcome of the criminal proceeding has not been documented in the sources acquired, and no later decision on the seizure has been reported.
The account of administrative responsibility and of the validity of the association's use of the building comes principally from press reports. The full text of the Riesame order and an official statement from the Comune were not among the acquired documents.
Details of the building's management during the period of special administration are also reported inconsistently and would require primary administrative records to resolve.
