Palace of the Chancellery
In Ibla, climbing the Commendatore hill and passing the Idria Church by a few tens of meters, you will find a small square where the Palazzo della Cancelleria is located. The building, also known as Palazzo Nicastro, from the name of the family that originally owned it, is made up of several parts built in different eras. The palace was built, or perhaps more likely rebuilt, by the Nicastro family after the earthquake of 1693 and the works had to be completed in 1760, as shown by the date engraved on the main façade. The Nicastro family apparently descended from Bartolomeo De Neo Castro da Messina, the official historian of Frederick II. In 1776 a member of the family, the baron Don Ferdinando Nicastro, hosted in this palace Jean Hoűel, traveler and artist in the era of the "Grand Tour"[1], author of the four volumes of the "Voyage Pittoresque del isles de Sicile, de Malte et de Lipari" published between 1782 and 1787. From cadastral surveys conducted on the block it seems that the building had a private garden and an external staircase that it allowed to easily reach the underlying church of Idria.[2] In 1840 the building became the seat of the “chancellery”, that is the town hall. With the division of Ragusa into Ragusa Inferiore and Ragusa Superiore in 1865, two new chancelleries were built and the "Old Chancellery" was used as a public school. The façade is characterized by a portal with a semicircular arch flanked by two sculpted half-pillars. Above the portal, there is a circular window and above it a balcony supported by five corbels embroidered with squares and rhombuses. On the side facade two other balconies supported by corbels similar to those of the front facade. On the two facades you can also see some pilasters ending with composite capitals.
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