Villa Cappellano in Delia
The Villa Cappellano in Delia is one of the few examples of a monastery-farm existing in SIcily. Unfortunately the complex is in a state of abandonment.
Villa Cappellano is located within the municipal territory of Caltanissetta but is only 2 km from Delia.
It was built by the Jesuits in the 16th century at the behest of Francesco II Moncada , Count of Caltanissetta, and his mother Donna Luisa, and was used by the Jesuits as a summer residence until 1843, the year in which they moved to the new small house in the Balate, near Caltanissetta.
The complex presents several bodies of factory which overlook a quadrangular courtyard which is accessed via a gallery. The main body, which develops on two elevations, has a façade with baroque elements: the round-headed entrance portal, made of ashlar stone, typical of the early Baroque style of Palermo; the balcony above supported by shelves with floral motifs.
The ground floor of the main building has four rooms, identified as the refectory, the laboratory, an entrance hall and the oil mill. On the main floor there are the sixteen cells of the fathers connected by two corridors that intersect to form a cross vault. Inside the complex there is also the chapel dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The façade has a rounded portal in ashlar stone; two pilasters support an architrave decorated with metope motifs, triglyphs and drops, surmounted by a window.
The interior features decorations in white stucco squares and, in the sacristy, a valuable eighteenth-century Calatino majolica flooring.
Some of the works that were once kept in the chapel have been lost. It is still possible to admire a baroque wooden frame today kept in the Mother Church of Delia.
