Scirocco room of Villa Naselli
Via Ambleri, 52. Villa Naselli is known for its Camera dello Scirocco, built in 1552 by the magnificent Gerardo Alliata, a hydraulic work for capturing the water of Ambleri but also a place to enjoy the coolness on sultry summer days.
Its layout, described by the gentleman Vincenzo Di Giovanni in the Restored Palermo (1613) has remained unchanged since its construction. It is a gallery that develops under the garden, with a barrel vault pierced by several light wells and a central rotunda surmounted by a truncated cone-shaped tower, beyond which there is an environment in which the waters of the Source flow. Ambleri.
The water from the spring is conveyed into a canal, which runs in the center of the tunnel, to be then introduced into the aqueduct and used by the surrounding citrus groves. The coverings of the canal and the source, built in the early twentieth century, are the only changes (but easily reversible) undergone by the sixteenth-century system made necessary for the adaptation to the sanitary regulations in force in the field of drinking water, the Naselli in fact exploited in the XNUMXth century the waters of the spring and others to feed a private aqueduct called Naselli-Ambleri.
It was Giovan Battista Alliata, brother of Gerardo, knight of the Gerosolimitana religion, who made the sirocco room famous in the Palermo of his time: an extravagant character who used to give in these environments, expertly adorned with precious fabrics and branches of orange and myrtle , of the parties whose guests were representatives of the highest nobility of the time.
Text source: Municipality of Palermo
in-depth document - TIZIANA FIRRONE: The rooms of the sirocco: bioclimatic archetypes of ancient Palermo
download document: Firrone
Card insertion: Ignazio Caloggero
Photo: web
Information contributions: Web, Region of Sicily
Note: The populating of the files of the Heritage database proceeds in incremental phases: cataloging, georeferencing, insertion of information and images. The cultural property in question has been cataloged, georeferenced and the first information entered. In order to enrich the information content, further contributions are welcome, if you wish you can contribute through our area "Your Contributions"
