The Opera Pia Purgatorio in Arco - O.N.L.U.S. is the owner of the entire Museum Complex of Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio in Arco. Already IPAB - Institute of Public Assistance and Charity - has 400 years of life. In addition to being one of the few remaining Pie Works, it has kept faith with the aims that the founders had set: relief for the sick and the needy and works for the souls in Purgatory with the celebration of Holy Masses in the Church of Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatory in Arco. In the Complex there is also the Historical Archive, managed by the Friends of the Archives Association, where important testimonies of the life of the congregation are kept. The Opera Pia Purgatorio in Arco is a secular body of assistance and charity to the most disadvantaged classes in the center of Naples whose origin dates back to the 17th century. Among the most important lay congregations of counter-reformation inspired in Naples, it was founded in 1605 by some members of the most ancient Neapolitan nobility with a double purpose "the celebration of daily masses, works of worship and other sacred functions in suffrage of the Souls of Purgatory "And charity and charity activities also in favor of strangers to the Sodality". Born thanks to the "spontaneous expansions of Neapolitan citizenship" - as stated in Article 1 of the last statute of the institution, which dates back to 1875 - it was officially recognized by Pope Paul V, with Apostolic Brief of 15 October 1606. La Pia At the beginning, the congregation gathered in the church of Sant 'Arcangelo a Segno, then in Santa Maria della Rotonda and finally in Sant'Arcangelo a Nilo; later, with the increase in rents, thanks to the abundant donations of the Neapolitans in 1616, he decided to build his own Church based on a design by Cav. Cosimo Fanzago who was called the "Souls of the Purgatory in Arco". Among the benefits reserved for the deputies, there were: "Masses and office on the day of death (...), burial of the corpse in the cemetery of the chapel of the cemetery (...) The masses in honor of the deceased benefactor were associated with those that were celebrated daily for the benefit of the souls of their relatives and relatives and of the other purgatory souls without any worldly help, those imposed by pious testaments and "an indeterminate number of adventitious Masses" whose celebration was requested by those who paid the corresponding alms in the Sacristy. The works of charity and charity promoted by the Congregation of the Souls of Purgatory in Arco consisted of "donations to poor damsels to facilitate them in marriage, alms and subsidies for the poor and kindergartens". With the Crispi law of 1862 the pious works, including those of the Purgatory in Arco, were equated with parastatals, and in 1890 their transformation into public charitable institutions was arranged. The Opera Pia Purgatorio in Arco is still active today and the members of the association, belonging to the good Neapolitan bourgeoisie, lend their work in the field of charity, assistance and worship.