"I Pupi" and the two motionless sentries

Among the legends that surround the famous “Villa dei Mostri” in Bagheria, there are countless those about the two so-called “Pupi” which one encounters immediately before entering the majestic gate, which has become today’s access road.

The original entrance was actually on the opposite side, the northern one, where an arch led to a long avenue populated by those grotesque sculptures that we saw in the reconstruction, perhaps too romanticized, offered to us by Giuseppe Tornatore in his film Baaria.

In the Oscar-winning film we already find a good sample of all those imaginative legends that surround the villa, the monsters and their patron necromancer, starting with the rumors according to which pregnant women should not turn their gaze to those figures in order not to incur in the risk that the unborn child could bring back the appearance.

We speak precisely of imaginative legends because nothing written or documented with certainty reaches us neither from Francesco Ferdinando Gravina and Alliata, VII Prince of Palagonia, commissioner starting from 1749 of the low bodies of the villa, together with this population of unusual characters, nor from the his contemporaries. [...continua]

[Pubbl. balarm.it]