Villino Florio e Giardino
In the big park of the Princes of Butera, Florio wanted to build, in 1899, a villa in the style of the times, and commissioned it to the architect Ernesto Basile. Of the large park in which it was written, it just remains a small garden surrounded by an imposing gate. The building is notable for its whimsicaland asymmetrical distribution of space and for its various and irregular game of its volumes, with its bustling outdoor staircase with two flights and towers, gables, slopings and columns. Opera symbol of the fin de siècle, in European taste, is expression of Italian modernism and, at the time of the Belle Epoque, it has hosted the high society, the jet set of the time. Later the villa, as the Florio family, has known a periods of decline.
There are three main levels: the ground floor, called "Leisure", with the billiard room and game room; the first floor called "Representation", with large living room, to which could enter directly from the outside staircase and dining room; and finally the plan called "Residence", to which could enter by the monumental staircase, leading to the living room and to the bedroom. The Superintendence for Cultural Heritage of Palermo oversaw a complex philological restoration in five years. It is open to visitors from December 2009.
