It was commissioned by Countess Aloisia Luna y Vega and financed by the city’s University, which granted the order lands and incomes to ensure its sustenance. The complex, a rare example in Sicily of a monastery-farm, is organized around a quadrangular courtyard dominated by two central wells, accessed through an elegant entrance gallery. It includes several buildings with Baroque façades, while the chapel dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus—once the spiritual heart of the religious community—preserves its original wooden structure, today kept in the Mother Church of Delia.
Until 1843, Villa Cappellano served as the Jesuits’ summer retreat; afterwards, it was replaced by the new lodge at Le Balate. Since then, it has fallen into a state of abandonment, which only enhances the suggestive charm of its decay, with peeling walls and openings dotted with the greenery of the Mediterranean scrub.