Monica Craparo

It is rather difficult today to give a unitary description of Palazzo Steripinto in Sciacca, since the alterations made during the last two centuries – particularly as concerns the inside distribution – make it impossible to identify the original plan. An element of homogeneity is actually only afforded by the external façade wall, with a dense covering with multifaceted diamond-tip bosses, a characteristic that marks the whole building and has been an object of study and interest for modern historians. The name Steripinto seems to derive from the union of two words, hosterium, a name common to other 14th-century Sicilian buildings, and pictum, “adorned”, referring in the specific case to the diamond bosses. The building outwardly appears as a thick parallelepiped block, in which nevertheless the appearance of rigid closure is attenuated by some elements like the little marble columns at two corners of the front. The façade of the building horizontally is then divided by stringcourse cornices, the two extreme ones dividing the central bossed part from the scarp base and from the smooth attic wall crowned by merlons, which accentuate its similarity to a fort. The intermediary cornice defines the division between the high ground floor and the piano nobile, also acting as a supporting base for the three mullioned windows. The latter at the sides of the windowsills present carved shell-shaped brackets. The only apertures on the ground floor are two small loopholes and the entrance portal, with grooved architraves and straight lintel, also grooved, surmounted by a cornice carved with leaf decorations and a lunette above.