The Prince of Palagonia’s Granary

3 Minutes of reading

Built in the 18th century on the initiative of the Prince of Palagonia, the granary of Delia is an impressive testimony to feudal agricultural policies and historical grain storage techniques.

Il granaio del principe di Palagonia

Certainly, between the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the feudal lord possessed large grain reserves stored in the dammusi of the castle-palace, in the warehouses beneath the baronial palace, and in the warehouse located in Piazza Vecchia. According to research by local scholars, the area where the granary of the Prince of Palagonia, Marquis Nicolò Antonio Lucchese, now stands — along with its immediate surroundings — was, since the early decades of the 17th century, occupied by a considerable number of buildings used for storing and possibly processing grain. These were mostly small warehouses, underground grain silos, small watchtowers for guarding the cereal reserves, and perhaps even a water mill.
To centralize the storage of his estates’ grain production in a single location, the Prince of Palagonia, Marquis of Delia, built in 1740 the great granary that stands in Piazza Castello, designed to hold up to 1,000 salme of wheat.
From a notarial deed dated 1743, we learn that this was a newly constructed building, replacing the old Lucchese warehouse located in Piazza Vecchia.

The structure, built with local stone, is laid out on a single level. Traces of the building’s original height remain in the section that was not raised when part of it was converted into a cinema, adjacent to the structure identified as the former baronial palace of the Lucchese family.
The building, covered by a gabled roof supported by wooden beams and sloping east–west, featured a series of openings protected by double-leaf wooden doors, surmounted by matching double-leaf wooden windows, some of which are still preserved intact.
This granary represents the link between the old model of grain management and the new one that brought about profound transformations and epochal changes — partly in response to the 1693 Val di Noto earthquake (which caused little damage in this area), but mainly due to the new management of land cultivation and cereal production that emerged in Sicily during the 18th century.

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