Bruno di Belmonte Palace ad Ispica
Palazzo Bruno di Belmonte in Ispica is one of the most impressive buildings in the city and the highest testimony of the Art Nouveau style in the area .
Its construction began in 1905 to at the behest of the honorable Pietro Bruno di Belmonte, based on a project by Ernesto Basile who had designed the extension of Palazzo Montecitorio in Rome, with which Palazzo Bruno di Belmonte has several similarities. Numerous vicissitudes often stopped the works: the outbreak of the First World War, the death of Donna Giovanna, wife of Pietro, and of Pietro himself two years later. The building was completed by the children, and the only daughter who lived in the building was Preziosa Bruno di Belmonte who settled on the ground floor. On the death of Donna Preziosa in 1962, the building was purchased by the municipal administration and is currently the seat of the Municipality of Ispica.
The building, with its imposing size, has three floors and two corner towers, one in the main facade and the the other on the rear facade. The lower level of the facade is decorated with a smooth ashlar, while the two upper levels are plastered. The last register is closed by a polychrome majolica decoration with floral motifs and surmounted by a frame with blind arches. The architraves of the large windows are decorated with floral bas-reliefs carved in Modica stone.
Inside, the building is organized around a courtyard overlooked by the windows of the upper floors, molded with geometrically decorated frames. Only three rooms on the ground floor have decorations: the rooms are accessed through a wrought iron door with the heraldic coat of arms of the Bruno di Belmonte: the first room, with an octagonal coffered roof, gives access to a room once used as a chapel. The crowning of the other room is a monochrome frieze with allegorical figures.
