The Palazzo Municipale of Acireale, also called Palazzo di Città and once the Loggia Giuratoria, closes the south-west side of piazza del Duomo, opposite the cathedral and beside the basilica of Santi Pietro e Paolo. It has always been the seat of the town administration. The seventeenth-century loggia built by the town magistrates was badly damaged by the earthquake of 11 January 1693, and today's palace is the work of the Acireale architect Costantino Larcidiacono.
What to see
The late Baroque façade plays on the contrast between the dark Etna basalt used for the structure and the pale limestone of the frames and decorations. On the ground floor runs a long stone balustrade, broken by the central portal, and the walls are marked by rusticated pilasters. On the main floor the windows have pediments and swelling wrought-iron railings, called «petto d'oca», goose-breast.
The best-known detail is the carved masks that hold up the balconies: grotesque faces and deformed creatures that, besides their decorative value, were meant to keep the evil eye and envy away from the seat of civic power. Inside, an entrance hall and a courtyard lead to the grand staircase. On the ground floor the Accademia degli Zelanti e dei Dafnici, founded in 1671, has had its seat since 1833, and there is the Museum of Historic Uniforms, born from the collection of the Acireale scholar Aldo Scaccianoce: French uniforms of the First and Second Empire, helmets of the German Empire, Savoy caparisons embroidered in gold, portraits and relics, from the eighteenth century to the years after the First World War.
Visiting
The façade can be seen freely from piazza del Duomo. Opening hours of the Museum of Historic Uniforms should be checked with the town council.
Our editors' tip
In 2011, for the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Italian unification, the uniforms museum added relics of the Risorgimento: they are worth looking for among the cases.
