Description
Villa Igiea is a historic luxury hotel in Acquasanta, on Palermo's seafront at the foot of Monte Pellegrino: a mock castle with turrets and battlements looking out over the gulf, born in the Belle Époque of the Florio family.
The highlight is the Hall of Mirrors, or Sala Basile, the old dining room painted by Ettore De Maria Bergler with Michele Di Giovanni and Luigi Cortegiani: peacocks, garlands of flowers held up by nine maidens, a pomegranate and a pond with swans. The interiors are Art Nouveau, with furniture designed by Ernesto Basile.
Originally it was the neo-Gothic villa of the English admiral Cecil Domville. Ignazio Florio bought it to turn it into a luxury sanatorium for tuberculosis patients, and the name comes from Hygieia, the Greek nymph of health. The sanatorium never opened: Basile turned the building into a hotel, inaugurated in 1900.
Aristocrats from all over Europe, politicians and Hollywood stars have stayed here; since 2018 it has belonged to Rocco Forte Hotels.
The highlight is the Hall of Mirrors, or Sala Basile, the old dining room painted by Ettore De Maria Bergler with Michele Di Giovanni and Luigi Cortegiani: peacocks, garlands of flowers held up by nine maidens, a pomegranate and a pond with swans. The interiors are Art Nouveau, with furniture designed by Ernesto Basile.
Originally it was the neo-Gothic villa of the English admiral Cecil Domville. Ignazio Florio bought it to turn it into a luxury sanatorium for tuberculosis patients, and the name comes from Hygieia, the Greek nymph of health. The sanatorium never opened: Basile turned the building into a hotel, inaugurated in 1900.
Aristocrats from all over Europe, politicians and Hollywood stars have stayed here; since 2018 it has belonged to Rocco Forte Hotels.