The 17th century Convent of Sant'Antonino is a treasure chest,that holds four centuries of religious and secular history, close to the central railway station of Palermo.

The former Convent, acquired by the University in 2004 and inaugurated in 2012, preserves the spaces and machineries dedicated to the manufacture of bread, finds of industrial archaeology whose gem is the giant solid wood mill that has been preserved almost intact.

In the early years of the 20th century the convent was transformed into “barracks of subsistence” and heavily modified to be adapted to its new use. In the rooms that once hosted the monks, for half a century was produced bread for the soldiers of the whole Sicily. Before its transformation in a military base, the building lived for three centuries its religious history. It was built in 1630 to host Franciscan monks. It also housed until his death Fra' Umile da Petralia, celebrated sculptor of crucifixes, one of which is visible in the adjacent church, and Frate Bernardino da Ucria, born Michelangelo Aurifici, “Botanical demonstrator” from 1786 at the Regi Studi Deputation, now University of Palermo. He was responsible for the planting of the Linnean System of the Botanical Garden of Palermo, which took place between 1789 and 1791.

After 1866, with the suppression of religious orders and requisition of their properties, the complex became a military base. The former convent hosts, in the recovered spaces, some structures of the University, and it is house to  the Linguistic pole (University Language Centre), a laboratory of basic and applied research, dedicated to innovative materials, and a museum of industrial archaeology in the spaces once dedicated to bread-making.