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Showing posts with the label Sicily

Palazzo Valguarnera-GangiPalermo, Sicily, Italy

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In the year of grace 1735 on the 3rd of July in the Cathedral of Palermo the end of the Habsburg rule was officially sanctioned, at only eighteen, Charles III of Bourbon was crowned Rex Utriusque Siciliae (King of the Sicilies). From this moment on, the Spanish Crown will do everything to strengthen ties with the local feudal class, developing and promoting new relations with the Sicilian aristocracy, which had the need to have “dignified” abode in the city to better exercise its own power. Palermo becomes a construction site, and among the local aristocrats a real competition begins in building sumptuous homes, making them a symbol of their prestige and their rank, as well as their immense wealth. Many of the Palazzos that survived the neglect and bombs of 1943 are still there to make a fine show of themselves, but one in particular, located in the heart of the historic centre of Palermo, has had the privilege of crossing the centuries unscathed by wars or anything else, p