Room of the sirocco: what is it about? Digging into the past one encounters that fashion in vogue among the ancient noble families, who used to build particular caves in their holiday residences. So let's find out why they are born and what their characteristic elements are, deepening the most beautiful of these structures that is located in Palermo and is known by the name of the sirocco chamber of Fondo Micciulla.
What is the sirocco room?
To fully understand what is meant by the sirocco chamber and analyze its typical features, it is advisable to take a step back and make a premise regarding the climatic conditions in Sicily. Because? The reason is to be found in that heat of African origin called sirocco which falls on the island in the hottest periods of the year. In the past, wealthy families sought for a long time a way to solve this problem that afflicted them so much, and it was thus that ad hoc rooms were born in the summer residences capable of giving refreshment even on days of particular sirocco. We are in the eighteenth century, the period of greatest diffusion of these caves able to defend from the annoying African wind.
However, each of these chambers of the sirocco had to possess very specific requirements to be truly functional for the purpose. In this strictly artificial cave, there must have been an air current and a source of water. The result was an underground room, carved into the rock, where you could enjoy a pleasant temperature, away from the external sirocco. In the absence of a source of water, the rooms were recreated where the qanat, underground aqueducts. Most of these caves they had the same characteristics, but there are examples sui generis that are part of that Palermo heritage of great historical value, such as the sirocco room of Villa Savagnone, the only one in the open air.
The open-air grotto at Villa Savagnone
Originally from the second half of the 700th century, the sirocco room of Villa Savagnone, also known as the Micciulla fund, is the only “open-air” model present in Palermo. Its circular shape, the presence of the qanat dell'Uscibene, one of the major aqueducts in the capital of Palermo, and the presence of a small waterfall inside it, make it today a very different historical asset from all the others. It owes its fame and its name to the Savagnone, exponents of the nobility Sicilian people who spent their holidays in this villa.
The underground open-air chamber, after its splendor known at the time of the Micciulla Barons first and then of the Savagnone family, has also experienced moments of great abandonment over time. Today, the suggestive cave, born inside a historic one limestone quarry, remains a treasure to be valued in the heart of Palermo.
