Palermo: Region reopens the Villino Favaloro with the Museum of Photography

New life for the Villino Favaloro in Palermo which, once the restoration work was completed, reopens after over twenty years and becomes home to the Regional Museum of Photography. The inauguration took place on the afternoon of March 22nd with the regional and city authorities, and from Tuesday March 26th it will be open to the public.

The renovation project was managed by Regional Inventory Center, cataloging and documentation, for an amount of 1,7 million euro under the 2014/2020 “Culture and Development” Pon.

It was made museumisation of part of the archive historical photography of the Centre, selecting the most representative assets of greatest artistic value: negatives and positives on plate and film dating back to a period between 1854 and 1970; albums belonging to families of the Sicilian aristocracy and the upper middle class, including the Florios; photographic equipment from the late nineteenth century.

«This architectural jewel in the heart of the city once again becomes everyone's heritage – says the president of the Sicilian Region, Renato Schifani – becoming a museum of itself, a stop on an ideal Art Nouveau itinerary which represents an entirely Palermo peculiarity. But not only that: Villino Favaloro becomes the guardian of history, hosting precious images that reconstruct over a century of our island."

«An architectural work of great value, an essential stage of the Liberty itinerary in Palermo, is finally returned to public use – underlines the councilor for cultural heritage and Sicilian identity, Francesco Paolo Scarpinato – and the correct valorisation of the photographic collections of the Regional Center for inventory, cataloging and documentation is ensured, in a permanent exhibition capable of narrating the history of photography in Sicily and the cultural memory of the Region".

A second intervention by the Pon "Culture and development“, with an amount of over 900 thousand euros, made it possible to take care of the multimedia and immersive setup, entrusted to Vodafone Business and ETT, to integrate and enhance the exhibition system.

The Center has curated the contents dedicated to various themes: history of photographic techniques, the photographers of the Grand Tour, photography between naturalism and pictorialism, the history of portraiture, the great Sicilian photographers, photographic documentation linked to industrial development and agrarian reform.

An app with texts and images will guide the visitor to understand the visit route along the mezzanine floor and the first floor, various exhibits with art walls, interactive touch screens, virtual reconstructions will allow you to travel through time through the photographic shots of Sommer, Sevaistre, Incorpora, Interguglielmi, Benedetto and Eugenio Bronzetti, the Seffer.
It was thus possible to overcome the static mode and passive contemplation of the works exhibited to offer an engaging experience.

Information for visits

The Regional Museum of Photography will open to the public, starting from Tuesday 26 March, on the following days and times: Tuesday to Saturday from 9am to 13pm, last entry at 12.15pm; extraordinary openings on the first and third Sunday of the month.
Ticket office (for 2024): 2 € (entire); one euro (reduced); free entry on the first Sunday of the month. Furthermore, access is free or reduced, according to regional regulations.

Villino Favaloro

The Villino in Piazza Virgilio was built between the 1889 and 1891, designed by Giovan Battista Filippo Basile, as a meeting point between late medieval and Renaissance stylistic features in a balanced stylistic synthesis of the experimental tendencies of the brilliant architect. The mosaic panels on the upper floor and in the Pompeian room are probably the work of Carmelo Giarrizzo. The Art Nouveau methods and formulas date back to some interventions in 1903 by Ernesto Basile, the same person who carried out the expansion of the Villa in 1914 with the construction of the lookout tower. The internal pictorial decorations and mosaics were created by Salvatore Gregorietti.

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