Villa Palagonia

Villa Palagonia is one of the great 18th-century villas built by Palermo's aristocracy on the slopes of Bagheria, 15 km east of the city. The exterior is conventional Sicilian Baroque; the surrounding wall is what makes the villa famous — 200 grotesque carvings of monsters, dwarves, mythological hybrids, and musicians, originally numbering many more.

The interior is more sober but still strange: a hall of mirrors that fragment incoming visitors into a hundred reflections, painted ceilings, ornate chimneypieces. Bagheria can be reached by suburban train from Palermo Centrale in 15 minutes. The neighbouring Villa Cattolica houses the Renato Guttuso museum.

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A story
Goethe visited Villa Palagonia in 1787 and devoted several long pages of his Italian Journey to denouncing the "monstrosity" of its grotesque carvings, calling the place a "monument of bad taste" that nevertheless held him spellbound. The 18th-century Prince Ferdinando Gravina, who commissioned the most extravagant decoration, was widely thought mad by his contemporaries — the villa's carvings of dwarves, hunchbacks, animal-headed musicians, and grotesque hybrids have long been considered the closest 18th-century equivalent of surrealist art.

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