Atrium of the Castle

Dear visitor.

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We are inside the fifteenth-century atrium. In front of you, the main wall stands out with the fifteenth-century staircase on the left, which leads to the beautiful portals of the Guest House and the Party Hall. Scrolling to the right, you can admire the two large classic-style windows. Further on, two small balconies also surmounted by a classic portal, from which you can look out from the frescoed rooms on the first floor. Immediately on the right, the loggia that leads to the Chapel.

The architraves of the door leading to the Festive Hall and the two adjacent windows are surmounted by some shields which represent a crane, alluding to the La Grua family; others show three clods of earth, probably a symbol of the Chiaramonte.

To the left of the ground floor there are three small doors that lead into the hall of the arches, once intended for the service and warehouse rooms for the Castle's supplies. Under the staircase you access the space that was once intended for the stables.

I will describe to you later, in detail, the architectural style of the individual doors and windows.

The two doors located next to the Chapel loggia lead into the rooms that were once used as a meeting room and the Library.

On your right you will find two staircases, through a narrow corridor, one leading to the bastion and the other to the external towers, through a walkway placed on the wall onto which the main entrance door opens. On this wall there is a small fountain on which there was a marble putto.

Looking up you can see the two towers: those of the Bell Tower and the Main Tower.

These are of rare workmanship, both for the battlements and for the friezes applied to them.

The wear and tear of time, bad weather and above all neglect have corroded many of them.

One of them, the bell tower, struck by lightning around nineteen thirty, was rebuilt in a style that was not integrated with the structure of the castle. The cornice of the central internal wall was dominated by a sparrowhawk, a rare piece of Egyptian craftsmanship, representing the god Horus.

The black basalt statue, forty-six centimeters high, depicts the god Horus, son of Isis and Osiris, represented as a falcon, a divinity belonging to the religion of ancient Egypt.

He was the lord of prophecy, music, art and beauty, he was later identified as the sun god.

The statue was placed on the roofs probably with apotropaic intentions: to ward off or cancel an evil magical influence. Today the statuette is exhibited at the Civic Museum of the Carmelite Cloister in Carini.

Moving your gaze to your left, on the wall on which the fifteenth-century staircase rests, we can observe a modern structure, dating back to the restoration works which were started around the beginning of the eighties following the donation made in nineteen seventy-seven by the heirs of the family La Grua Talamanca, following the collapse of the west wing of the castle in April 1976.

This area of the Castle contained the residential environments at the time of Vincenzo II, La Grua, and his wife, Baroness Laura Lanza di Tràbia.

The porthole placed in the center of the wall recalls the position on which a large coat of arms of the La Grua family was placed, depicting a crane inserted in a garland of acanthus leaves, which was destroyed when the wall collapsed.

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Now I invite you to continue your visit by going to the Castle Chapel.