A museum project to turn the former seminary into a visitors centre dedicated to St. Don Bosco’s life
The Commune of Chieri will carry out a museum project to allow the visit to the rooms of the former seminary.
The new visitors’ centre will open in April 2010 and will be the core of the town itinerary dedicated to St. Don Bosco’s life.
The centre will not be completely finalized then, but it will enable the visitors to better understand the social environment of the education of Don Bosco.
It was a very important place for the spiritual education of the young Don Bosco.
There he consolidated his friendship with Luigi Comollo who was a nephew of the priest of Cinzano.
Comollo was often ill-treated, insulted and beaten by his classmates, but he never retaliated and always forgave them. The young John Bosco could not stand to see his classmate so mistreated, and sometimes he came to blows with his aggressors to defend him.
Comollo’s words and prayers impressed John Bosco so much that one day he wrote in his Memories: “I can say that he taught me to live as a Christian”. Thanks to his humble and docile attitude, the Saint understood the importance of the salvation of the soul. This idea was so important to him that, when he founded the Oratory in Valdocco, he wrote on a piece of paper in his room “Take away anything from me, but leave me the souls”.
On the 2nd April 1837 Luigi Comollo, who was a sickly boy, fell ill and died at the age of 22. Two days later, according to a direct experience of John Bosco and his room mates, the deceased friend appeared to them in the form of a light, shouting “I am safe”. Whether it was just imagination or a real miracle, it was not important to the young cleric, who at that moment decided to “put eternal salvation above anything else and consider it the only really important thing”.