In this room some of the most recent works are displayed. They witness the artistic and experimental goals reached by Vigliaturo.

The extemporary esposition wil be periodically changed, as a modern way to read, to get into the collection of works offered to the museum that are displayed from the first floor.

The Palace, centre of Vigliaturo’s museum, was built thanks to Giuseppe Leopoldo Sanseverino from 1707 to 1717.

It was Vangieri di Rogliano who from “master-builder” was then defined by Sanseverino, in some of his letters, as “our engineer and architect”.

It was painted and decorated by the painter from Napoli Donato Vitale and his school in the last three decades of the century. Together with him worked his brother in law, a sculptor, whose name is unknown.

Sanseverino thought the palace as a summer residence, which in a commanding position, imposes itself for its powerful and big size. Attracted by the climate, the healthy of the air and by the rich products that Acri’s territory offered, he decided to live there the whole year, This situation lasted until his death in 1726.

His son Luigi, who in love with Acri, lived there until his death came after Giuseppe Leopoldo.

He went on with the father’s work, giving the palace a game preserve with walls, remembered, still today, by a popular place name:”Port ‘a Caccia’” (Door of the hunt) where you could enter the park where “animals” were kept.

Various are the the architectonical aspects of the palace and there are numerous particular features some of which are difficult to interpret, as the colonnade, which has nothing to do with the structure that is certainly of a previous age compared with the building; the niches, that are in the same room, it is difficul to understand the usefulness and usage of.

In the princely residence, beyond the crowd of mininisters, officers and servants, there were famous people. We can mention two of them:

• Blessed Angelo d’Acri, who had strong relationships with the above mentioned princes. Well known are the citizens’ causes pleaded by him, and the relationship with Giuseppe Leopoldo during the building of the Cappuccinelle’s monastery, he was spiritual leader of.

• Prince De Sangro or di Sansevero, very well known alchemist, Aurora Sanseverino’s nephew, Giuseppe Leopoldo’s sister. He was extremely linked to the prince Luigi.

As far as Prince Sanseverino and the mysteries of the palace are concerned, it is of particular interest a room on the ground floor – in which you stand – because of a fresco difficult to interpret, for the numerous symbols included in it.

There is , in one side of the room, the symbol of Sanseverino’s family. On the visitor’s left there is a fresco put on another one of which you can see the sinopite.

Why was this painting put on the other? Who was the author and who wanted it?

The questions can’t have a certain answer. You can form a hypothesis, since there are a lot of symbols. Was the room destined to alchemic experiments? What was the function of the well? Could an analysis made by experts give an answer?

In this, at last, as in all the residence, there is a ghost, In 1806, during the local French and Jacobine defence from the realists’ assault, one of Falcone’s family was killed, and, falling down, left the bloody hand’s mark on a wall. People’s immagination talks about ghosts. As in all the similar cases, it is the magic and imaginary world to reign.

The palace was abandoned with the abolition of feudalism. In the middle of the numerous historical events, among which a long occupation during the IX century, the palace was then sold, when it showed damages of time and carelessness, and became Falcone and Zanfini’s residence. In the second half of ‘900, the Comune di Acri took it and restored it from1986, giving it to the town in 2000.

Giuseppe Abruzzo

(Taked from volume Il palazzo di Acri dei Principi Sanseverino di Bisignano edited by Fondazione “V. Padula”)