Palazzo Napolino-Tommasi Rosso, also called Lorefice-Napolino-Tommasi Rosso, is a historic building in Modica, behind the cathedral of San Giorgio, in the old Francavilla district. It stands on a slope along the street linking Modica Bassa and Modica Alta, near the entrance to the castle of the Counts, and is regarded as one of the most significant expressions of the town's late Baroque civil architecture.
What to see
It was built in the second half of the eighteenth century by the noble Lorefice family and then passed to the Napolino barons and finally to the Tommasi Rosso. Neither the name of the designer nor the author of the late Baroque decoration of the façade is known. The splayed portal has two pilasters with Corinthian capitals at the sides; two animal faces, two lions according to the description of the town, hold in their teeth a ceremonial drape carved in stone, and two theatrical masks sit at the centre, on the keystone.
On the lower floor two openings are elegantly linked to the side ones of the upper floor, with five large corbels supporting a balcony and an opening crowned by broken, curled pediments, slightly convex. On the upper floor the central balcony, the real focal point of the façade together with the portal, rests on corbels decorated with animal faces and with two female figures that, on the central corbel, frame the Napolino arms. The three balconies have a projecting central part and goose-breast iron railings. At the top the front is closed by a decorated band, interrupted at the centre by the baronial crown of the Lorefice arms, the family that in all likelihood commissioned the palace.
Visiting
The palace can be seen from the sloping street between Modica Bassa and Modica Alta. The sources do not say whether the interiors can be visited: check this.
Our editors' tip
When looking at the façade, remember that it was designed for a street running differently from today's: this is why its proportions appear altered to the viewer.
