Francesco Scaglione Museum House

The Scaglione palace, today a house-museum, lies at the heart of the historic centre of Sciacca, on the spot where the church of Saint Stephen once stood, build in the fourteenth century and later demolished in the sixteenth century. The knight Francesco Scaglione was a man of great culture and immense curiosity, he loved to collect and surround himself with works of art and various objects. It was his daughters who, honouring the wish of their fathers will, adapted the house into a museum, leaving the stability and harmony intact. The palace, spread over two floors, is divided into various rooms decorated in tempera with Greek motifs and diverse collection pieces. There are candle holders, clocks, eighteenth century pieces by artists from Sciacca, photos, postcards, weapons, coins from the Greek-Roman period, nineteenth century paintings, Capodimonte pottery, furniture and much more. The nineteenth century frescoed ceilings and the precious majolica floors are expressions of a remarkable decorative syntax, typical of Sicily, that combines ornamental motifs from the Sicels, the Arabs, the Catalans, the Renaissance and the Baroque. The house is a great example of the nineteenth century lifestyle of a bourgeois family in Sciacca with a passion for art and collecting.