Enchanted Castle

The land of the Enchanted Castle is unique in everyway, populated by thousands of heads carved onto the rocks and on the branches and trunks of the olive trees. This kingdom was once territory of and home to Filippo Bentivegna, who was born in Sciacca in 1888 and emigrated to The United States after his teens, moving from Boston to New York and Chicago. An accident at work and an assault marked his life. In 1919, having returned from the USA after the Great War, he withdrew in solitude into this farmhouse structure, giving life to the court of the kingdom populated by sculpted heads, over which he could reign with absolute authority. Filippo Bentivegna spent his life on the site until his lonely death in 1967. The following year, a collaborator of Jean Dubuffet, Art Brut theorist, arrived in Sciacca and recognised the artistic importance of the work by the “Madman of Sciacca” and so the site was restructured and opened to the public. 

Today, some of the Bentivegna heads are displayed at the Museum of Art Brut in Lausanne, established in memory of Dubuffet.