Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
fiti and artwork (religious and otherwise). Excellent guided visits are available in English
or Spanish with advance notice.
Guides help point out small details that would otherwise be easily missed. Depicted are
religious themes such as Christ tortured by Spanish soldiers and images of local protector
saints San Rocco and Santa Rosalia. Also depicted are profane themes, including hearts
pierced with arrows or instruments of torture, elaborate maps of Sicily where other prison-
ers were invited to add missing details, an inquisitor holding the scales of justice, or a ca-
ricature of another inquisitor astride a defecating horse adjacent to the latrine.
Look also for two works by noted Sicilian modern artist Renato Guttuso: first, a graphic
depiction of the strangulation murder of inquisitor De Cisneros by the handcuffed
22-year-old prisoner Diego La Mattina; and Guttuso's masterful 1974 painting of the Vuc-
ciria market, whose vibrant colors jump out at you after so many rooms full of prison art
executed in simple reds and blacks (the red from crumbled bricks, black from burnt wood
and candles).
Museo Internazionale delle
MUSEUM
Marionette
( 091 32 80 60;
www.museomarionettepalermo.it
; Piazzetta Antonio Pasqualino 5; adult/reduced €5/3;
9am-1pm & 2.30-6.30pm Mon-Sat year-round, plus 10am-1pm Sun Sep-May)
This whimsical museum
houses over 3500 marionettes, puppets, glove puppets and shadow figures from Palermo,
Catania and Naples, as well as from further-flung places such as Japan, Southeast Asia,
Africa, China and India. From October through May, weekly puppet shows (adult/child
€6/4) are staged on the museum's top floor in a beautifully decorated traditional theatre
complete with hand-cranked music machine.
Established by the Association for the Conservation of Folk Traditions of Palermo, the
museum takes puppeteering seriously, researching the art form, providing informative la-
belling alongside museum exhibits and hosting the annual
Festa di Morgana
(
www.festivaldimorgana.com
)
, when puppeteers from all over the world converge on the mu-
seum for lectures and performances.
Museo delle Maioliche
MUSEUM
(Stanze al Genio; 340 0971561;
www.stanzealgenio.it
; Via Garibaldi 11; adult/reduced €7/5; by appointment)
Lovers of handpainted Italian maiolica should make a beeline for this unique museum,
