Villa Valguarnera is one of the eighteenth-century villas of Bagheria, in the province of Palermo. Construction began in 1712 to a design by the Dominican Tommaso Maria Napoli, the same architect as the nearby Villa Palagonia. According to the sources, it still belongs to the heirs of the Valguarnera princes, the Alliata di Villafranca princes.
What to see
The architect, who studied in Sicily and in Vienna and was influenced by Austrian architecture, died in 1725 when the villa was still unfinished; the building was then significantly altered, and Giovan Battista Cascione Vaccarini is named as the author of the new façades and of the oval hall on the main floor. The key-shaped plan is one of the elements in which some studies recognise esoteric and alchemical matrices. Inside stands out the sequence of salons frescoed by Elia Interguglielmi, while the attic is crowned by marble statues by Ignazio Marabitti. From the balcony one sees the gulf of Termini Imerese and Monte Catalfano; the building was once surrounded by a vast park with coffee houses, statues and neoclassical architecture.
Part of the design is the Montagnola di Valguarnera (105 metres), the hill included in the garden: on its top an octagonal balustrade was built with seats all around and the statue of Urania holding a telescope, and along the climb there are seven resting seats, as many as the seven phases of alchemical transformation according to those studies. A description from 1785 mentions a grotto with the fresco by Giuseppe Crestadoro of Acis and Galatea below Etna, and outside it the statue of Polyphemus playing the pipes, with an ode by Metastasio carved in the rock. The statue, according to the entry on the comune, was stolen in 1992. In the garden two neoclassical coffee houses with frescoes remain.
Visiting
The villa is in Bagheria. The sources consulted say that the complex has been under restoration for many years, that not all the villas of the town can be visited and that this one can also be rented: opening hours and visiting arrangements must be checked.
Our editors' tip
The villa is the setting of Dacia Maraini's autobiographical account «Bagheria», published in 1993. In the fifties Fosco Maraini and Topazia Alliata lived there with their daughter Dacia, with parents who resided in the villa. As a set it has hosted films and series, among them «I cavalieri dalle maschere nere», Ferzan Özpetek's «La dea fortuna», Niccolò Ammaniti's «Anna» and «Il Gattopardo».
