Palazzo Ciancio is the largest noble palace in Adrano, in importance and in size. It was built in the fifteenth century at the wish of Baron Scipione Ciancio, of the family that gives it its name. It is entirely of lava stone and stands in via San Filippo, in the San Pietro district, where it occupies a large block.
What to see
The palace has two faces. One section is in Etna Baroque, on two levels: a round-arched doorway, surmounted by the balcony of honour, and three secondary balconies. The other, on three levels, is closer to an Art Nouveau with Neoclassical elements: a three-centred arched doorway flanked by a small balcony and two windows, a single wide balcony with three large windows on the first floor and two balconies on the second.
Inside are eighteenth-century frescoes by the Acireale painter Giuseppe Grasso Naso.
Visiting
The front is seen from via San Filippo; any access to the interior should be checked on the spot.
Our editors' tip
Turn towards the other side of the street: opposite the palace is the deconsecrated church of San Francesco di Paola, which the Ciancio had built at the end of the seventeenth century as a private chapel. Since 1978 the palace has been listed by the Sicilian Region as a record, in its surviving parts, of the local architecture of the fifteenth century.
