The Story of Palazzo Ragusi

Our structure owes its name to the old palace in which it is located, Palazzo Ragusi. The architectural evidence still present inside trace it back to the 15th century, when the Pisan family of the Palmerinos bought the palace, modifying and adapting a pre-existing medieval plant to their needs.

In the middle of the 18th century, the town was sold to the Pretoria judge Biagio Ragusa, from whom the palace then took its name and to which the modernization works that gave an eighteenth-century configuration to the property. Finally, around 1860 he passed to the Marquis Giovanni Maurigi.

Until this period, the palace had to develop on three elevations: the ground floor destined for the workshops, the first floor where today is present our property and a second floor also intended for housing. The current five-elevation configuration seems to be due to successive expansions that have occurred over time, probably by Alessandro Fornaja. 

In addition, while most of the palaces located along the Càssaro (the oldest street in the city whose name comes from the Arabic “al Qasr” or “Fortification”, today Via Vittorio Emanuele) is accessed through entrances placed on the main road, the Ragusi Palace is accessed sideways, from the Ragusi Alley, thus reserving the ground floor entirely to the workshops.

A simple and high oven enters a short andito where a staircase is grafted that leads to the small inner courtyard, characterized by the presence of the eighteenth-century marble staircase and waiting for a coveted restoration. Very beautiful are the eighteenth-century painted ceilings present in three of our rooms, found randomly during restoration work, typically decorated with blue phytomorphic motifs on a white background.