Alcamo's town hall, simply called il Municipio, looks onto piazza Ciullo. In 1842, because of the council's repeated moves, mayor Giovanni Ferrando bought a warehouse on the main square to build the town hall there, choosing the spot for its position in the town of the time. Work began in 1843 to a design by the architect Gaspare Di Giovanni, who was succeeded by the engineer Francesco Palermo with the engineers Greco and Severino; the palazzo was finished in 1865 and the offices moved in the following year.
What to see
The façade is neoclassical: on the ground floor two arched windows and the main door, on the upper floors three balconies with stone corbels and galleries, crowned by a pediment and a wrought-iron railing, and a cornice at the top. The doorway is in travertine with two pilasters. In the barrel-vaulted entrance hall the walls carry engraved drawings by the painter Gino Patti from 1962: on the right monuments of the town, such as the church of San Tommaso, Palazzo De Ballis and the castle, and Cielo d'Alcamo's poem «Rosa fresca aulentissima»; on the left some Alcamo houses.
To go up to the first floor you pass under an arch with four marble columns. Above the arch a plaque recalls the proclamation of the Republic in 1946; on the left another, placed in 1875, recalls the plebiscite of 1860 for annexation to the Kingdom of Italy, and on the right a third remembers the people of Alcamo who died in the uprisings of 1860, Giuseppe Fazio, Liborio Vallone and Francesco Casarubea.
Visiting
The palazzo was fully restored in 1984. As it houses council offices, the entrance hall should be visible during office hours, which should be checked.
Our editors' tip
Look up at the façade: on either side of the main first-floor balcony two plaques of 1910 recall the brothers Stefano and Giuseppe Triolo, barons of Sant'Anna, and the revolt of 6 April 1860; beside the central second-floor balcony, in the right-hand roundel, is the eagle of Alcamo's coat of arms.
