Villa Patti is a historic semi-rural villa on via Santa Maria di Gesù, in Caltagirone. It belongs to the town council and houses the Museum of the Historic Villas of Caltagirone and Sicily. A rural settlement of the Patti, an aristocratic family, already existed here in the nineteenth century, within the system of villas and parks that the noble families of Caltagirone had built from the seventeenth century around the convent of Santa Maria di Gesù, along a line of about three kilometres: this was the area of their country retreats. In the second half of the nineteenth century the building was thoroughly renewed by the local architect Gian Battista Nicastro.
What to see
The façade is in Venetian Neo-Gothic style: pointed windows, single and paired, and battlements along the roofline. Around the building runs a ring of seats, made in the nineteenth century by the Stabilimento artistico-industriale Vella of Caltagirone. The English-style park keeps Mediterranean and exotic plants, partly going back to the eighteenth-century layout; in 2015 maintenance work restored the historic paths, recovered structures and vistas hidden by vegetation and added lighting.
The museum, in the rooms of the main building, is devoted to the culture of the aristocratic villa: paintings, design drawings, engravings, period photographs, books, majolica and terracotta tell of the country life of Sicilian families, with maps and surveys of the main historic villas.
Visiting
Admission to the museum is reported to be free, and the park is said to be open in the afternoon too thanks to the volunteers of the youth council, which is based here: times and openings should be checked with the town council.
Our editors' tip
Among the historic villas in this area, Villa Patti is the only one owned by the municipality and with a civic museum. In summer it hosts the Sikelia Festival, started in 2024, with talks in the afternoon and concerts and screenings in the evening.
