Baarìa, Sicily
Bagheria (; ) is a city and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Palermo in Sicily, located approximately 10km to the east of the city centre. Etymology According to some sources, the name ''Bagheria'' (by way of old Sicilian ''Baarìa'') originates from the Phoenician term ''Bayharia'' meaning "land that descends toward the sea." History Since its founding, the town has gone by the names of ''Bayharia'', ''Baharia'', and ''Baarìa''. In 1658 Giuseppe Branciforti, Prince of Butera and former Viceroy of Sicily, built a large villa and established the region as the preferred location for the vacation homes of Palermo's elites. Villas like the fortified Villa San Marco (designed by Andrea Cirrincione) with angled bastions and a drawbridge soon followed. The area experienced a boom in villa building roughly coinciding with the period of Savoyard (1713–21) and Habsburg (1721–30) rule and continuing for several decades thereafter. The two most striking baroque residences, V ...
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