Villa Palagonia


The Villa Palagonia is a patrician villa in Bagheria, 15 km from Palermo, in Sicily, southern Italy. The villa itself, built from 1715 by the architect Tommaso Napoli with the help of Agatino Daidone, is one of the earliest examples of Sicilian Baroque. However, its popularity comes mainly from the statues of monsters with human faces that decorate its garden and its wall, and earned it the nickname of "The Villa of Monsters".
This series of grotesques, created from 1749 by Francesco Ferdinando II Gravina, Prince of Palagonia, aroused the curiosity of the travellers of the Grand Tour during the 18th and 19th centuries, for instance Henry Swinburne, Patrick Brydone, John Soane, Goethe, the Count de Borde, the artist Jean-Pierre Houël or Alexandre Dumas, prior to fascinate surrealists like André Breton or contemporary authors such as Giovanni Macchia and Dominique Fernandez, or the painter Renato Guttuso.
In 1885, the villa was bought by private individuals, whose heirs are still in possession, and is partially open to the public.
Villa Palagonia has been one of the venues for music concerts held within the framework of the Concert Season of Bagheria initiative since 2017, with free entrance.

Palagonìa and Mineo

Palagonìa and Mineo are in a rocky area rich in caves, some used as tombs. One of them, the tomb 15 of Mineo, has an inscription with letters high 8.5/6 cm on the right side and 13/10 cm on the left. Paleographic studies of the funerary inscriptions date the tombs to the VII century BC. Similar archeological findings were made in Licodia Eubea, Sciri and Mendolito, showing a close connection between the Sicels and the population living in the central Italy like the Etruscans.

Filmography