VILLA ROSALIA 
Welcome to Villa Rosalia, residence which Calogero Portolano, my father in
law, built in honor of his wife Rosalia Rinaldi, who passed away before her time.
I used to spend my vacation here with my wife Antonietta and our children on our way
back to Girgenti from Rome. It is here that I took inspiration to write my novel
I Vecchi e I Giovani, in which I refer to this villa as Kolimbetra, a majestic dwelling
owned by don Ippolito Laurentano. This property also inspired my other novel
La Giara, as a result of Calogero Portulano’s death and the consequential reading of his will.
There is so much evidence of my life in this place! This house will certainly make you feel like a real character in my novels.
The sites that have been part of my life include: Bonamorone’s fountain, the Colleverde Hill, the Tamburello Hill, the nearby cemetery in which you will be able to see the aristocratic heritage of the Portulano’s (I wrote Calogero Portulano’s epitaph myself). You can even see in the area Portulano Street (which was recently commissioned by the city toponymy), that ends right at the entrance of Casa Portulano, another property of the family, which has now become rest home, run by the religious institute.
Furthermore, let me remind you to take a deep look at the current owners of this villa: they are good people that keep the heritage of this old and controversial land alive. I probably would have chosen them as characters of my novels if I were still here. Who knows!
Have a nice stay here in Agrigento! Pardon, Girgenti.
Luigi Pirandello is an Italian author and playwright who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934 for “his bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage”.
Pirandello was born in 1867 in Girgenti (called today Agrigento), a city in southern Sicily. His father Stefano Pirandello, who owned a sulfur mine, guaranteed Luigi a childhood of well-being.
After graduating high school in Palermo, Pirandello moved to Rome to undertake literary studies, but he completed his academic career In Bonn, Germany, in 1891 with a thesis called “La Parlata di Girgenti” (Girgenti’s dialect).
After finishing his studies Luigi went back to Rome, where he settled permanently with his new bride Maria Antonietta Portulano, with whom he had three children
The following years marked the beginning of his literary career: In 1901, he published his first novel “L’esclusa” (the excluded one), which is about a woman unjustly accused of adultery. The following year Pirandello came up with one of his most important works which made his career: “Il fu Mattia Pascal”, acknowledged (or recognized) as the first Italian novel which abandoned (or has deviated from) the nineteenth-century literary canons and embraced a new way of writing novels. Thereupon he published “I vecchi e I giovani” (the old and young ones) in 1913, another novel that brought him success.
Luigi Pirandello is also known for his playwright work: 1921 is the year of the mise-en-scène of “Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore” (six characters in pursuit of an author), a play which established itself as one of the most remarkable and revolutionary scripts of the history of the Twentieth century theatre, that was also translated and staged worldwide.
Pirandello’s works, therefore, include novels, hundreds of short stories and over 40 plays, some of which are written in the Sicilian dialect. One of the things that distinguishes his works from the rest of the other authors of his time is showing how illusion mixes with reality and how people see things in different ways. Pirandello’s tragic farces are often seen as forerunners of the “theatre of the absurd”, which includes international artists such as Samuel Beckett (1906-1989).
LA FAMIGLIA ZAMMUTO A VILLA ROSALIA
The spouses Antonia Cacciatore and Giuseppe Zammuto visited Villa Rosalia for the first time in 1950. After World War II large numbers of Sicilian families emigrated to Northern Europe and the Americas seeking a better life. The countryside was abandoned because farm life could no longer guarantee a livelihood. This is when Mrs. Antonia looked out at a property in the Valley of the Temples near Agrigento and at one particular home she visited when she went out on the balcony to look at the view she said, “this is going to be my America.”
Mrs. Antonia convinced her husband Giuseppe and family to sell their farmland in Aragona so they could move to the area named Bonamorone, whose name came from the historical fountain in the district where Villa Rosalia stands. They moved with their nine children and the memory of little Vittorio who sadly had passed at the age of six in 1946 when the rubble of war was still smoldering. The investment the Zammutos made puzzled many who saw selling the farmland they owned in Aragona as risky since the land was profitable. Nevertheless, when the Zammuto’s friends from Aragona visited Villa Rosalia they would go back to Aragona even more resolute that the villa was worth the investment with its beautiful marble staircase.
The Zammutos built a farmhouse on the land near Villa Rosalia.The family started producing everything from almonds to olives, vegetables and fruits of every kind. Of the nine Zammuto children, only Angelo stayed involved with the farm. Mrs. Antonia and her husband Giuseppe lived out the rest of their lives on the property with Angelo dedicated to the land.
Angelo’s legacy lives on in his children who are now in their 50s. They remember when almonds were spread out to dry in the front of the villa. Three traders would come by to buy the almonds from the Zammutos. They were known as the “three kings”. Often the children would weigh themselves on the various scales the men used to measure the almonds. It is a beautiful reminder of days gone by in the Sicilian heartland described by the famous Pirandello.
The villa has beautiful frescos of life in the fields. The villa and the frescoes inspired Pirandello who used this very location as the background for his novel “I vecchi e i giovani.”
These memories are forever embedded in the family history of Angelo and his lovely wife Rosetta Terrana, a strong and intelligent woman whom Angelo married in 1963. Together they worked to make the farm and Villa Rosalia the pride of the family.
Thank you Mammi!
Thank you Nonna!
