The museum depot of St Augustine is a fundamental place for getting to know the memory of Genoa. In this large underground room, designed by Franco Albini and Franca Helg, is in fact preserved what can be defined as the city's monumental archive: here converged all the testimonies safeguarded during the demolitions that took place in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as they were considered to be of historical-artistic or documentary importance.

These silent testimonies, however, speak: patient archive research and careful formal analysis allow, thanks to the piecing of its original context, to outline the biographies of these monuments and, above all, of the men who created them. To give an idea of the stories the thousands of artefacts housed here would tell you if questioned, you can contemplate the large plan hanging on the opposite wall. The relief assembles the different detailed sections of the map of Genoa within its walls, created by Giacomo Brusco (1785) and documents a largely lost city, at times difficult to be recognised.

Numerous religious buildings have disappeared, such as the two large Gothic complexes of San Francesco di Castelletto and San Domenico, and the churches of San Tommaso, San Michele, San Benigno, Santa Maria in Passione, San Silvestro, Sant'Andrea and San Sebastiano. Demolitions of residential buildings were also very significant, as documented by the material concerning the area overlooking Porta Soprana, Piccapietra or Via Madre di Dio.

This depot is not an exhibition space and you will not find any captions or panels here. It is instead a place reserved for working and conservation, a space in continuous change: with the start of the rearrangement of the St Augustine Museum, many pieces will be transferred to the exhibition rooms and, in their place, the depot will house other artefacts capable of telling other aspects of Genoa's multifaceted memory.