Judica palace in Palazzolo Acreide
The Palazzo Judica in Palazzolo Acreide , located in Corso Vittorio Emanuele , is the most elegant, important and imposing building in the city. It is flanked by eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century buildings following its construction.
The palace, which belonged to the Judica family, one of the richest and most influential in the city, is the first example of the late eighteenth-century Baroque style of the city that we find in a civil construction.
It was built at the behest of Baron Gabriele Judica at the end of the 18th century, intellectual who conducted archaeological excavations in the Akrai area.
The facade has three vertical bodies separated by large pillars with a crenellated capital with bas-relief garlands. At the center of the façade stands the majestic arched portal which presents valuable bas-reliefs of a geometric and floral type. The portal is framed by imposing pillars with Corinthian capitals, and is surmounted by a balcony with spiral section corbels decorated with battlements that support it. The balcony is enclosed by wrought iron railings, while the access door to the balcony is flanked by decorative pinnacles and surmounted by a cornice with imaginative decorations adorned by a semicircular gable with an open base, embellished with a shell. The side balconies of the building are characterized by corbels elegantly decorated with the bas-relief technique, and the respective openings are framed by precious bas-reliefs and crowned by semicircular tympanums. Crowning the facade there are five spherical pinnacles in Hyblaean stone, of which the central one is placed on an elegant Baroque pediment.
The interior of the building has an internal courtyard overlooked by an elegant loggia. The rooms are decorated with stuccoes and frescoes. It is said that the palace originally had three hundred and sixty-five openings, equal to the days of a calendar year.
The palace, still owned by the Iudica family, is now the seat of exhibitions and cultural events.
