In Bagheria, a baroque villa considered at the time of the Grand Tour the “most original place in the world and famous throughout Europe” for its characteristic walls populated by hundreds of fantastic characters and a magnificent ballroom with a vaulted mirror ceiling.

Located in the center of Bagheria, a municipality in the province of Palermo, also known as “the city of villas”, Villa Palagonia became famous already in the 18th century thanks to the visit of illustrious guests, including Goethe who visited it in 1787 and wrote about it in his famous Journey to Italy.

Many other artists were influenced by its beauty and eccentricity, such as Salvador Dalì and Renato Guttuso who lived nearby and used to go there to play.

Look at yourself in those crystals and in the same singular magnificence contemplate the image expressed by mortal frailty. (Inscription at the entrance to the villa’s hall)

Its construction began in 1715 at the behest of Don Ferdinando Gravina and Crujllas, IV Prince of Palagonia, peer of the kingdom, knight of the Golden Fleece, a prestigious honor awarded by the kings of Spain, and the Dominican friar Tommaso Maria Napoli, assistant architect of the Senate of Palermo, was commissioned with the help of the Sicilian architect Agatino Daidone.

In 1749, his nephew Francesco Ferdinando Gravina and Alliata, VI Prince of Palagonia, further modified Villa Palagonia by adding the decorations and interior and exterior furnishings that made his residence in Bagheria known throughout the world as the “Villa of Monsters“.

The external walls and the lower bodies are, in fact, decorated with statues in “tuff stone from Aspra”, depicting fantastic animals, anthropomorphic figures, statues of ladies and knights, musicians and various caricatures and by a particular double-flight staircase, under the sumptuous princely coat of arms of the Gravina family.

The main floor is accessed from an elliptical vestibule frescoed with scenes depicting the labors of Hercules, in homage to the new taste of the late eighteenth century, by Salvatore Gravina, successor of his half-brother Francesco Ferdinando II.

To its right we find the famous “Gallery or Hall of Mirrors”, with the ceiling entirely covered with mirrors, with paintings depicting a balustrade with the sky and fantastic birds above.

The walls of this large room are adorned with very fine marbles, with colored glass and marble high reliefs representing the founder of the villa and the nephew who commissioned the “monsters” with their respective wives, ancestors of the Gravina family and of illustrious personalities of the reigning houses of Europe.

From the oval entrance hall you can also reach the private apartments of the villa, which today can only be visited with guided tours, which consist of a series of rooms arranged in “enfilade”.

In 1885 the villa was purchased by the Castronovo family who still today, thanks to their heirs, makes it possible to visit one of the most extraordinary monuments of European Baroque civilization.

The Secret

Despite the many legends about him, Francesco Ferdinando Gravina e Alliata was a skilled man who held various prestigious institutional positions. Therefore, the curious decorations of the villa seem to be due to a cultured and precise alchemical matrix typical of the 18th century with various symbols, such as for example the search for harmony starting from music (Nigredo) up to matter (Rubedo).

Useful Info

Villa Palagonia
Piazza Garibaldi 3
90011 Bagheria, Palermo
Tel. +39 091 932088

Entrance: 6 euro