Visit this baroque villa for a combination of antique architecture and modern art. It was originally constructed by Giuseppe Bonanni Filangeri, prince of Cattolica, and completed in 1736, during the Ottocento vogue for ostentatious country villas. An art gallery, Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, was established here in 1973. Most of the works in the gallery were donated by Renato Guttuso, a neorealist painter born in 1912 and the island's best-known modern artist. A staunch anti-Fascist during the Mussolini era, and later anti-Mafia, Guttuso evokes Picasso in some of his works. Beginning in 1958, the artist fell heavily under the influence of expressionism, abandoning realism for strong colors and daringly decisive lines. His Jazz Age portraits and still lifes evoke the 1930s, while his works from the 1970s are startlingly sensuous. Note Gattuso's portrait of French Impressionist Paul Cézanne. Gattuso died in 1987, and his sculptor friend Giacomo Manzù designed a surreal "blue capsule" tomb for him. Set among scrubby cacti and citrus trees in the shadow of the villa, the tomb evokes the blue of the Sicilian sky.
After visiting the museum, you can walk through the gardens and see Gattuso's tomb as well as a Camera dello Scirocco, an artificial cave built under a seigniorial mansion that provided refuge on days when the scorching winds from Africa swept across the land.
Note: This information was accurate when it was published, but can change without
notice. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before
planning your trip.
