Palazzo Abatellis — Galleria Regionale

The story

The palace was built between 1490 and 1495 by Matteo Carnilivari for Francesco Abatellis, master of the ports of the Kingdom, in the Kalsa quarter. It is one of the clearest examples of Gothic-Catalan style in Palermo: a sober facade, a rusticated portal, corner towers, a courtyard with a loggia.

After centuries as a convent and damage from the 1943 bombings, in 1954 it became the Galleria Regionale della Sicilia, with a layout by Carlo Scarpa that is still a reference point in Italian museum design.

Here you find the Annunciata by Antonello da Messina, Francesco Laurana’s bust of Eleonora of Aragon and the great fresco of the Triumph of Death, painted around the middle of the 15th century for Palazzo Sclafani.

Why it is worth it

The Triumph of Death greets you in a room of its own: a skeleton on horseback riding through a crowd of nobles and bishops, and the longer you look the more you find. Then upstairs, in the half-light of a small room, is the Annunciata, a girl in a blue veil raising her hand towards someone you cannot see. Two works that justify the trip.