Description
Villa Cerami is the 18th-century palace at the end of Via dei Crociferi, in Catania, once the residence of the Rosso di Cerami princes and today home to the University's Law School: among the street's Baroque churches, a noble mansion where law is now studied.
Through the portal bearing the Rosso di Cerami stone coat of arms you enter a spacious courtyard, with a monumental staircase and a fountain. In the court that separates the villa from the faculty's new building stands the Grande bagnante (Large Bather), a bronze by the Catania-born sculptor Emilio Greco.
In 1881 the villa hosted a ball for King Umberto I and Queen Margherita. For the occasion the old chapel became a ballroom, and its fresco of the Assumption was covered with a layer of plaster, repainted with a copy of Guido Reni's Aurora, better suited to dancing.
Through the portal bearing the Rosso di Cerami stone coat of arms you enter a spacious courtyard, with a monumental staircase and a fountain. In the court that separates the villa from the faculty's new building stands the Grande bagnante (Large Bather), a bronze by the Catania-born sculptor Emilio Greco.
In 1881 the villa hosted a ball for King Umberto I and Queen Margherita. For the occasion the old chapel became a ballroom, and its fresco of the Assumption was covered with a layer of plaster, repainted with a copy of Guido Reni's Aurora, better suited to dancing.