Murals

It all began in 1996, when local painter Angelo Fazio transformed a bastion in Via Diaz into a large collective fresco: women at the river, almond harvesting, plowing with mules, and grape harvesting become vivid scenes that narrate the daily epic of Sicilian peasant life. That work inaugurated a season of public art which today includes more than twenty murals scattered between the historic center and the access roads, now a regular stop for schools and visitors. On the ocher-colored walls of the houses, you will find the warm tones of Fazio’s “open-air canvases”: the Lavannare with clothes beaten on the water, the Wine Cart pulled by donkeys, the Grape Pressing evoking the fragrance of must—scenes that, beyond their aesthetic value, serve as a precious anthropological archive.

In recent years, a new generation of artists has taken up the torch: Pierfrancesco Fazio in 2022 signed the long panel on Viale Luigi La Verde (16 × 2 m), LED-lit and dedicated to emigration and the return of the “delioti” with their cardboard suitcases; while Totò Montebello, with his triptych Nature at Heart painted on the public scale at Largo Canale, reinterprets in a contemporary way the typical products of almonds, olives, and wheat, seen through the lens of memory.

Beyond their artistic value, the murals have become a tourist driver: the Colors of Delia itinerary links Piazza Madrice with the Monument to Emigrants and the Arab-Norman Castle, intertwining street art, feudal history, and local flavors.

In recent years, the baton has passed to a new generation of artists: in 2022, Pierfrancesco Fazio signed the long panel on Viale Luigi La Verde (16 × 2 m), LED-lit and dedicated to emigration and the return of the “delioti” with cardboard suitcases; while Totò Montebello, with the triptych Nature at Heart painted on the public scale in Largo Canale, narrates in a pop key the typical products of almonds, olives, and wheat, pairing golden ears with futuristic barcodes to remind us how tradition and innovation can coexist.

Beyond its artistic value, the murals have become a tourist driver: the Colors of Delia itinerary connects Piazza Madrice with the Monument to Emigrants and the Norman Castle, intertwining street art, feudal history, and local flavors. Every September the route comes alive with guided tours and open-air painting workshops, while a photographic selection of the most iconic panels is displayed in the council chamber, bearing witness to how those rural faces and gestures continue to inspire the present. Thus, in Delia, color becomes shared memory: a pictorial journey through farm work, local pride, and new ecological visions that transform simple walls into timeless narratives.