Villa Luisa (Alcamo)

Villa Luisa
Villa Luisa
General information
Architectural style	Liberty
Town or city	Alcamo
Country	Italy
Coordinates	37°58′57″N12°58′02″E / 37.98251°N 12.96714°E Coordinates: 37°58′57″N12°58′02″E / 37.98251°N 12.96714°E
Construction started	1903
Client	Stefano Chiarelli Peria
Technical details
Size	350 square metres
Design and construction
Engineer	Francesco Naselli

Last updated November 11, 2019

Villa Luisa is a mansion located in the town centre of Alcamo, in the province of Trapani.

Alcamo is the fourth-largest town in the province of Trapani in Sicily, with a population of 45,374 inhabitants. It is on the borderline with the Metropolitan City of Palermo at a distance of about 50 kilometres from Palermo and Trapani.

Trapani is a province in the autonomous island region of Sicily, southern Italy. Following the suppression of the Sicilian provinces, it was replaced in 2015 by the Free municipal consortium of Trapani. Its capital is the city of Trapani. It has an area of 2,469.62 square kilometres (953.53 sq mi) and a total population of 433,826 (2017). There are 24 comunes in the province.

History

It is an elegant villa probably built in 1903^[1] in Liberty style; it took the name of his owner’s wife, Stefano Chiarelli Peria. It is situated in Alcamo, a town rich with ancient buildings and beautiful churches. We do not know the name of the architect who planned it, but it is very similar to Villa Paino in Palermo, also belonging to the family Chiarelli Rossotti, and whose plan is assigned to the engineer Francesco Naselli of Ernesto Basile school.^[2]

Palermo is a city of Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old. Palermo is located in the northwest of the island of Sicily, right by the Gulf of Palermo in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Ernesto Basile was an Italian architect and an exponent of modernisme and Art Nouveau. He became well known because of his stylistic fusion of ancient, medieval and modern elements. He was one of the pioneers of Art Nouveau in Italy.

The mansion has been used as a dance hall and for wedding parties in the 1970s, then as a nursery school in the 1980s.

A mansion is a large dwelling house. The word itself derives through Old French from the Latin word mansio "dwelling", an abstract noun derived from the verb manere "to dwell". The English word manse originally defined a property large enough for the parish priest to maintain himself, but a mansion is no longer self-sustaining in this way. Manor comes from the same root—territorial holdings granted to a lord who would "remain" there.

Dance hall in its general meaning is a hall for dancing. From the earliest years of the twentieth century until the early 1960s, the dance hall was the popular forerunner of the discothèque or nightclub. The majority of towns and cities in the West had at least one dance hall, and almost always featured live musicians playing a range of music from strict tempo ballroom dance music to big band, swing and jazz. One of the most famous dance hall musicians was Glenn Miller.

Today, after the restoration made in 1980, it has become a refined household, with trees of different types, and multicoloured flowers: a real peaceful haven.

A household consists of one people who live in the same dwelling and share meals. It may also consist of a single family or another group of people. A dwelling is considered to contain multiple households if meals or living spaces are not shared. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is important to economics and inheritance.

Description

The building has a fine Liberty style tending towards Moorish; with only one raised floor, it is 350 square metres large, with a magnificent garden enriched by fountains and elegant seats. On the main façade (still surmounted by the owner’s coat of arms and his initials) there is a big balcony with a fine marble parapet, with some carvings with the shape of a Greek cross, and five artistic openings. There are 14 rooms, with the ballroom, about 110 square metres large, in the middle of them.^[2]

A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon, surcoat, or tabard. The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement which in its whole consists of shield, supporters, crest, and motto. A coat of arms is traditionally unique to an individual person, family, state, organization or corporation.

A parapet is a barrier which is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian parapetto. The German equivalent Brüstung has the same meaning. Where extending above a roof, a parapet may simply be the portion of an exterior wall that continues above the edge line of the roof surface, or may be a continuation of a vertical feature beneath the roof such as a fire wall or party wall. Parapets were originally used to defend buildings from military attack, but today they are primarily used as guard rails and to prevent the spread of fires. In the Bible the Hebrews are obligated to build a parapet on the roof of their houses to prevent people falling.

A ballroom or ballhall is a large room inside a building, the primary purpose of which is holding large formal parties called balls. Traditionally, most balls were held in private residences; many mansions contain one or more ballrooms. In other large houses, a large room such as the main drawing room, long gallery, or hall may double as a ballroom, but a good ballroom should have the right type of flooring, such as hardwood flooring or stone flooring. In later times the term ballroom has been used to describe nightclubs where customers dance, the Top Rank Suites in the United Kingdom for example were also often referred to as ballrooms. The phrase "having a ball" has grown to encompass many events where person(s) are having fun, not just dancing.

After the restoration made in 1980 (made according to the project of the architects Valeria De Folly, Dannis and Carlo Bruschi), this room has become a more functional space, like a corner rich with different plants, well-lighted by a large skylight and a big white chandelier made of Murano glass dated 1943.^[2]

A skylight is a light-transmitting structure that forms all or part of the roof space of a building for daylighting purposes.

A chandelier is a branched ornamental light fixture designed to be mounted on ceilings or walls. Chandeliers are often ornate, and normally use incandescent light bulbs, though some modern designs also use fluorescent lamps and recently LEDs.

The furniture is very appropriate, as they have maintained the family’s one, dating back to the early 1900s; there are also two beautiful fireplaces of grey marble, the first is located in the hall and the other in the main bedroom. That one in the hall has geometrical patterns, with the coat of arms of the barons Rossotti Chiarelli, surmounted by a baronial crown.^[2] The second fireplace has floral arrangements, with the family crest in the middle of it.

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References

↑ Villa Luisa Comune di Alcamo
1 2 3 4 Roberto Calia: I Palazzi dell'aristocrazia e della borghesia alcamese; Alcamo, Carrubba, 1997

Sources

Roberto Calia: I Palazzi dell'aristocrazia e della borghesia alcamese; Alcamo, Carrubba, 1997
P.M. Rocca: di alcuni antichi edifici di Alcamo; Palermo, tip. Castellana-Di Stefano, 1905