Villa Giulia in Palermo
Villa Giulia is a public garden in Palermo named after the viceroy Giulia D’Avalos. It was built in 1777 and is the first public garden in Italy .
The Villa was built, based on a project by Nicolò Palma, according to an Italian garden scheme with precise geometric rules: a perimeter square, symmetrical avenues that intersect in two main directions, orthogonal and diagonal, which create a second square diagonal to the first, and a central circular square.
The main entrance faces the sea where we find the monumental portal made in a pompous classical style. The portal is decorated with an eagle, the symbol of the city, and laterally by two high bases with lions. At the beginning of the avenues there is an exedra decorated with large tuff vases from here the long avenue departs which, having crossed the whole villa, meets the central square and reaches the opposite side where there is another exedra decorated with sculptural groups, among these we remember the Abundance and the Glory.
At the center of the exedra is the fountain of the Genius of Palermo : the great Old Man with a crown, symbol of the city, is placed on a cliff with the symbolic figures of Sicily and the Conca d'Oro. In 1866, four neo-Pompeian-style pavilions were placed in the central square, designed by Giuseppe Damiani Almeyda. In the center of the square is the fountain with the Atlas with a marble dodecahedron that served as a sundial, designed by the mathematician Lorenzo Feredici. The sculptural works of the villa were commissioned to Ignazio Marabitti.
