Palazzo Bonocore is a magnificent 16th-century building on Piazza Pretoria, (also known as “Piazza della Vergogna” – that is “Square of Shame” – because of the naked statues in the amazing fountain at its center). The neoclassic style of the façade dates back to the first half of the 1800s, and echoes Milan’s La Scala Theater – an obvious influence its architect, Domenico Lo Faso, picked up during his studies in the Lombard capital.

Inside the aristocratic residence, rooms are finely decorated with frescoes from the second half of the 19th century: an eye-tricking triumph of joyous putti with ivy plants, floral geometrical shapes, happy bucolic scenes, zoomorphic elements, pagan deities, fanciful grotesque ornaments, Hellenic-style drawings that resemble the paintings in Pompeii and Herculaneum, idyllic and classical landscapes, allegoric representations of the arts, faux stuccos with series of telamones, allegories of the seasons…