Antonino Giunta’s Villa – Bugilfezza region

Vanedda Amuri gets its name from the winding path which opens along the
Highway 115 at the Cava d’Ispica crossroad and which guides one to the iron gate
of Villa Giunta in the Bugilfezza region, an estate recognized as early as 1303, and
whose name – according to the historian Raffaele Solarino, author of the
remarkable work “The County of Modica” – is certainly of Arab derivation: from
Burg (land), and Feiz (proper and family name).

There remains a question as to whether the denomination Vanedda Amuri is to be
attributed to the thick and thorny brambles with sweetest fruits, called amuri, that
cling to the typical dry-stone walls of the province of Ragusa, or if it is to be traced
back to a love story yet to be fully discovered. Anyway, it is delightful to gaze upon
the large courtyard, overlooked by the elegant manor house with its sunny rooms,
echoes of past glories inscribed on the decorated stones of doors and balconies.

The first unit of the villa, immersed in the silver green of a large olive grove, dates
back to the XVIII century and exactly to the commissioning of Tommaso Scrofani,
Isabella Alagona’s bridegroom and father of the famous literary man and
economist of Modica Saverio Scrofani, who vacationed in this place and who, from
the stunning terrace of the prospect facing the Mediterranean Sea horizon,
imagined his adventurous itineraries of “travelling journalist”. Later, in 1861, the
original unit was enlarged with the construction of another building, which, at the
end of the same century, was acquired by the Giunta family after the marriage
between the Baroness A. Maria Scrofani with Don Antonio Giunta, as can be
learned from the geneaology Alagona-Scrofani-Giunta.

The villa still has its original entrance and its harmonious architectural language
that exemplified the joyful holidays of a well-to-do and sophisticated class, devoted
to the rational exploitation of the countryside and of its resources. The villa’s
pertinent rural buildings, currently a working farm, date back to the first years of
the XIX century or earlier, as proven by their original aggregation.

The careful and detailed renovation of its rooms, the museum-quality conservation
of the historical tools of traditional agriculture, the careful conversion of
warehouses and even the preserved grindstones of the ancient oil mill, indicate a
remarkable attention to detail and recall the historic scores of this ancient coast of
the Iblea region, and offer an unforgettable journey that only the most reliable
Sicilian hospitality can bestow.

Grazia Dormiente
Retired Teacher of Literature and Expert of History and Ethnography of the Province of Ragusa