Villa Coniglio is an old villa in Paternò, now a day centre for the elderly and a meeting place for young people from the nearby Scala Vecchia-Palazzolo quarter. It was built towards the end of the eighteenth century on an estate of the Coniglio barons, a rich noble family active in local politics: Don Giuseppe was the first mayor of Paternò after the abolition of the feudal principality, from 1820 to 1823, while his sons Alessandro and Simone were Paternò's deputy in the Sicilian Parliament of 1848 and the last mayor of the Bourbon era, in 1860-1861.
What to see
Throughout the nineteenth century the villa was the official residence of the Coniglio family and a meeting place for the nobility of Catania, until the First World War: after 1918 the land, which included a large citrus grove, began to be divided into plots, until the municipality expropriated it to build the schools named after it. The villa survived the building speculation of the fifties and sixties, and the new Coniglio quarter grew up around it.
The building is rectangular, on two levels, in a typically nineteenth-century style with neoclassical elements, and has two large arches on its lower side; before the area was built up it was surrounded by a large garden.
Visiting
After years of neglect the municipality bought and restored it, and since 2005 it has been open as Casa Coniglio. Opening times and access should be checked with the municipality.
Our editors' tip
The villa's land divided into plots after 1918, measured nine salme, an old Sicilian unit of land measure.
