Description
The Palazzo Chiaramonte-Steri, in Piazza Marina, is one of the most important palaces of fourteenth-century Palermo: a massive square building with towers and battlements, born as the residence of a powerful family, then a royal palace and finally the seat of the Inquisition. Today it houses the University's rectorate.
It was built in the early 1300s by Manfredi I Chiaramonte, head of a family so influential that even the Aragonese kings in Palermo depended on its consent. The name Steri comes from Hosterium, meaning fortified palace.
Look first at the façade, with mullioned windows decorated with lava-stone inlays: this is the "Chiaramontan style", a graft of Norman and Gothic forms found only in Sicily. Inside, a courtyard with inlaid portico and loggia.
The highlight is the Sala Magna, or Hall of the Barons, with its wooden ceiling painted between 1377 and 1380: knightly tournaments, epic and romance tales, the exaltation of women. A faithful picture of fourteenth-century Sicilian society, painted by three artists: Cecco di Naro, Simone da Corleone and Pellegrino Darena.
On the ground floor are the prisons of the Inquisition: during restoration, under the plaster of the cells, graffiti, drawings of figures and invocations by female prisoners accused of witchcraft came to light, along with a few rare traces of the Jewish presence.
The palace also holds the famous Vucciria by Renato Guttuso. The complex also includes the fourteenth-century chapel of Sant'Antonio Abate alla Dogana, which the Chiaramonte built as the family's private chapel.
The Chiaramonte's power ended in 1392, when King Martin had Andrea Chiaramonte beheaded in Piazza Marina. Then the palace was a royal residence and, from 1468 to 1517, the residence of the viceroys of Sicily.
From 1600 to 1782 it housed the tribunal of the Inquisition. When Viceroy Caracciolo closed it, he had the secret archive and the instruments of torture burned. In the square, meanwhile, the autos-da-fé had been held, the great public ceremonies with stands for the authorities.
It was built in the early 1300s by Manfredi I Chiaramonte, head of a family so influential that even the Aragonese kings in Palermo depended on its consent. The name Steri comes from Hosterium, meaning fortified palace.
Look first at the façade, with mullioned windows decorated with lava-stone inlays: this is the "Chiaramontan style", a graft of Norman and Gothic forms found only in Sicily. Inside, a courtyard with inlaid portico and loggia.
The highlight is the Sala Magna, or Hall of the Barons, with its wooden ceiling painted between 1377 and 1380: knightly tournaments, epic and romance tales, the exaltation of women. A faithful picture of fourteenth-century Sicilian society, painted by three artists: Cecco di Naro, Simone da Corleone and Pellegrino Darena.
On the ground floor are the prisons of the Inquisition: during restoration, under the plaster of the cells, graffiti, drawings of figures and invocations by female prisoners accused of witchcraft came to light, along with a few rare traces of the Jewish presence.
The palace also holds the famous Vucciria by Renato Guttuso. The complex also includes the fourteenth-century chapel of Sant'Antonio Abate alla Dogana, which the Chiaramonte built as the family's private chapel.
The Chiaramonte's power ended in 1392, when King Martin had Andrea Chiaramonte beheaded in Piazza Marina. Then the palace was a royal residence and, from 1468 to 1517, the residence of the viceroys of Sicily.
From 1600 to 1782 it housed the tribunal of the Inquisition. When Viceroy Caracciolo closed it, he had the secret archive and the instruments of torture burned. In the square, meanwhile, the autos-da-fé had been held, the great public ceremonies with stands for the authorities.