Restored at the behest of Ferdinand III of Bourbon, it was part of a craze that invaded all of Europe
From True Encounters to Imagined Ones
After experiencing Palermo’s multicultural dimension firsthand through the story of its markets and its Arab-Norman architectural and cultural heritage, today we move on to another example that once again reflects foreign influences, but with a slight “twist.”
We’re talking about the Palazzina Cinese, or rather the Palazzina alla Cinese. The difference between the two versions of the name is substantial. In this case, the encounter between cultures was not real, but rather the result of a fashion, a quirk of the time.
The building was constructed at the end of the 1700s at the behest of the nobleman Benedetto Lombardo. Even in the first version of the building, the intention was to create a structure with exotic features, following what was a real fashion at the time. Interest in the Orient arose from trade on the famous Silk Road, followed by direct exchanges from the mid-1500s. By the 1700s, the so-called “Chinoiserie décor”, or “cineserie” in Italian, had spread throughout Europe.
Chinoiserie in Palermo
Despite the name, oriental objects and artifacts came not only from China but also from other Asian countries, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia. Thus, the fashion for oriental products and the exaltation of the Orient—criticized, among other things, in Edward Said’s famous book Orientalism—took hold, and Palermo was by no means exempt.
The Sicilian capital was abundantly invaded by a taste for Asian products, porcelain, furniture, and paintings. In the wake of this, the fashion developed of having entire rooms dedicated to Oriental taste within noble palaces, examples of which are the Chinese sitting room in Palazzo Mirto and the Chinese Room in Palazzo dei Normanni.
However, the ultimate expression of this trend in Palermo was the Palazzina alla Cinese, a building entirely dedicated to this fashion. The building, which, as mentioned, already existed, reached its current state under its next owner: none other than Ferdinand III of Bourbon. The sovereign had fled Naples, which had fallen under the control of Napoleon’s France. Having moved there thanks to the welcome he received from the Palermo nobility, Ferdinand commissioned the architect Giuseppe Venanzio Marvuglia to renovate the Palazzina.
The Royal Oriental Fantasy
This resulted in the building that can be visited today, which is entirely in Chinese style. The palace is topped with a pagoda roof and has three floors. On the first floor are the reception hall, the dining room, the king’s bedroom, and that of Queen Maria Carolina. There is also a separate building connected by underground passages, which are not open to visitors today, where the kitchens, stables, and servants’ quarters were located. The dining room with its “Mathematical Table” is very unusual. The table has four seats and a mechanism that, when activated by the servants, raised the dishes without disturbing the royals. Next to each place setting were three cords, each of which, when pulled, signaled a need to the staff below: water, wine, salt. All the rooms feature Chinese-style frescoes by Sicilian painters.
This place between Palermo and the village of Mondello is yet another foreign presence on Sicilian soil. This time, with a little deception…