Palazzo Abatellis
On Via Alloro — a street that has been called, at various points in its life, the road of the Germans and the road of the laurels — stands a late-fifteenth-century palazzo that outlasted a monastery, a bomb, and several centuries of reinvention. Palazzo Abatellis sits in the Kalsa quarter, its Catalan Gothic portal still carrying the geometric confidence of 1490.
Today the building houses the Galleria Regionale della Sicilia, and the two things — the architecture and the art inside it — are worth treating as a single subject. The star of the collection is a large anonymous fresco, the Triumph of Death, painted around 1445, that fills the former chapel with a skeleton on horseback and a crowd of bodies that still registers as genuinely unsettling.
💛 What travellers fall for
People who come back tend to linger in the former chapel longer than they planned, standing in front of the Triumph of Death fresco trying to identify figures in the crowd. They also mention the courtyard — the double loggia on one side, the upper-floor windows on the other — as the kind of space you walk through twice just to look again.
The story behind Palazzo Abatellis
Francesco Abatellis, port master of the Kingdom of Sicily, commissioned the palazzo between 1490 and 1495. His architect was Matteo Carnelivari, who was simultaneously working on Palazzo Aiutamicristo elsewhere in the city — making this one of two major Gothic-Catalan projects he was running in Palermo at once. After Abatellis died, the building passed to his wife and then to a convent, which added the Chapel of Santa Maria della Pietà between 1535 and 1541, in the process obscuring one of the original façades.
A wartime bomb in World War II destroyed parts of the façade and the crenelated tower. Restoration followed immediately, and in 1953 the Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa — working with Giorgio Vigni on the room arrangement — was commissioned to convert the rebuilt structure into a museum. The Galleria Regionale della Sicilia opened in 1954, and Scarpa's installation is still considered a landmark in museum design.
Good to know
Closed Mondays. Saturday and Sunday hours are shorter (9:00–13:00), so a weekday visit gives you more time. First Sunday of the month is free. Bus stop Alloro Abatellis is a two-minute walk. Budget two to two-and-a-half hours.
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What travellers say about Palazzo Abatellis
A gem in Palermo. This beautiful 15th-century palace features a masterpiece of museum design by legendary architect Carlo Scarpa. His brilliant staging perfectly elevates the art. The collection is small but spectacular, highlighted by the breathtaking "Annunziata" and the haunting "Triumph of Death" fresco. It is quiet, well-curated, and a peaceful escape. An absolute must-visit for art and architecture lovers.
Superb museum with a Great collection containing two absolute must-sees. The annunciation by Antonello da Messina and the victory of death.
The palace houses an art gallery. It's usually open until 7:00 PM (except on Mondays, when it's closed to tourists), and admission costs €10 (as of November 2025). Guidebooks describe it as the largest and most important art gallery in Sicily, but its offerings are significantly smaller than those of the most significant art galleries on the Italian mainland. During my afternoon visit, I was literally the only visitor. The place sometimes feels quite empty, as the vast halls house a relatively small number of works.
Absolutely fantastic art gallery and museum. A truly gorgeous building with excellent curatorial choices for these religious relics and works of art. A mixture of stonework, woodwork, iconography and Sicilian master paintings. The Death on Horseback painting was a true standout work, worth the ticket price just for that. If you are a fan of religious artwork then this is a must see.
Lovely palace to visit and enjoy with your family during weekend. Got free entrance on the first Sunday of the month. This place is extremely interesting if you are into art. There are a lot of paintings here.
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