Bonanno Villa in Palermo
Villa Bonanno is a city park located in the historic center of Palermo, near the Cathedral and the monumental entrance of Porta Nuova .
The villa was built in 1904 at the behest of the then mayor Pietro Bonanno, as part of a larger redevelopment project of the historic center.
Villa Bonanno looks like a monumental garden, adorned with trees, Art Nouveau buildings and sculptures. Among the sculptures we remember the bust of Pietro Bonanno, the work of Domenico Costantino on the base of Ernesto Basile, the monument to Gaetano Bucceri, the work of Mario Rutelli and the monument to Lieutenant Mancino, made by Pasquale Civiletti. The garden also incorporates other previous monuments, such as the monument to Philip V, created by Nunzio Morello on a 17th century project by great sculptors such as Carlo D'Aprile, Gaspare Guercio and Gaspare Serpotta.
Inside the villa there are also the remains of two Roman patrician houses , adorned with splendid mosaics and discovered by chance in the second half of the 19th century during some embellishment and maintenance works. The two Roman villas are separated by a road about 4 meters wide. The first house found dates back to the third century AD, while the second is older, dated around the second century BC. The two buildings have wonderful mosaics, some of which were detached from the floor at the time of their discovery, and exhibited in the Museum. National Museum of Palermo, the Salinas Museum. Inside the rooms brought to light, you can relive the everyday life of the two domus, with the dining rooms, the peristyles and the marble fountains that decorated them. In addition to the two villas, the excavations have found signs of subsequent activity, including a necropolis, probably dating back to the violent earthquake of 365 AD, some wells that were later buried and some grain pits dating back to the end of the 16th century.
