Villa Palagonia
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The Villa Palagonia is located in the city of Bagheria, 15 km from Palermo, in Sicily. The villa itself, built from 1705 by the architect Tommaso Napoli, is one of the earliest examples of Sicilian baroque. However, his popularity comes mainly from the statues of monsters with human faces that decorate its garden and its wall, and earned it the nickname of "The Villa of Monsters" (Villa dei Mostri ).
This series, created from 1749 by Francesco Ferdinando II Gravina, Prince of Palagonia, aroused the curiosity of the travellers of the Grand Tour in the 18th and 19th centuries, for instance Henry Swinburne, Patrick Brydone, Goethe , the Count de Borde, the artist Jean-Pierre Houël or Alexandre Dumas, prior to fascinate surrealists like André Breton or contemporary authors such as Giovanni Macchia and Dominique Fernandez, or the painter Renato Guttuso.
Bibliography
- Template:Fr Claude Arthaud, Les Palais du rêve, Arthaud, 1970
- Template:Fr Michel-Jean, comte de Borch, Lettres sur la Sicile et sur l'île de Malte, 1782 Extraits en ligne
- Transclusion error: {{En}} is only for use in File namespace. Use {{langx|en}} or {{in lang|en}} instead. Patrick Brydone, A Tour Through Sicily and Malta: In a Series of Letters to William Beckford, Esq. of Somerly in Suffolk (1st ed. 1773)
- Template:Fr Alexandre Dumas, Impressions de voyage
- Template:Fr Dominique Fernandez, Le Radeau de la Gorgone (Promenades en Sicile), photographies de Ferrante Ferranti, Grasset, 1988
- Template:Fr Dominique Fernandez, Le Voyage d'Italie (Dictionnaire amoureux), photographies de Ferrante Ferranti, Plon, 1997
- Template:Fr Goethe, Voyage en Italie, 1787
- Template:Fr P. Hachet, Psychanalyse d'un choc esthétique : La villa Palagonia et ses visiteurs, L'Harmattan, 2002
- Template:Fr Giovanni Macchia, Le Prince de Palagonia, Quai Voltaire, 1987
- Template:Fr Dacia Maraini, Retour à Bagheria, Seuil, 2004
- Transclusion error: {{En}} is only for use in File namespace. Use {{langx|en}} or {{in lang|en}} instead. E. H. Neil, Architecture in context : The Villas of Bagheria, Sicily, Harvard University, 1995
- Template:Fr Madeleine Pinault, Catalogue de l'exposition Houël, Voyage en Sicile, 1776-1779, musée du Louvre, RMN
- Template:It Mario Praz, Bellezza e bizzarria, 1960
- Template:Fr Mario Praz, Le Jardin des sens, Christian Bourgois, 1975
- Template:It F. Santapà, Villa Palagonia a Bagheria, Palermo, Palma, 1968
- Template:It R. Scaduto, Villa Palagonia: storia e restauro, Bagheria, E. M. Falcone, 2007
- Template:It Ferdinando Scianna, La Villa dei mostri, Einaudi, 1977
- Transclusion error: {{En}} is only for use in File namespace. Use {{langx|en}} or {{in lang|en}} instead. Henry Swinburne, Travels in the Two Sicilies, 1777-1780, Cadell & Elmsly, London, 1790
- Template:It N. Tedesco, Villa Palagonia, Palermo, 1988
- Template:Fr Angheli Zalapì, Demeures de Sicile, préface de Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi, photographies de Melo Minnella, Könemann, 2000
Filmography
- Several scenes of L'Avventura (1960), by Michelangelo Antonioni, with Monica Vitti, were filmed at the Villa Palagonia.
- In The Wedding Director (2006), by Marco Bellocchio, Sami Frey plays the part of a descendant of Prince Palagonia.