The Mal Giocondo room is an intimate escape in what was once the domestic wing of the estate, where the farmers and their families lived and worked. Ideal for a solo traveller, the room features a comfortable French bed and antique and contemporary furniture by designers like Katrine Ahrens. The room benefits from an adjoining terrace that looks out over the ancient architecture of the Main Court with a view of verdant fields.

“Mal Giocondo” is the first collection of verses by the poet Luigi Pirandello, who was born in Agrigento in 1867 into a wealthy family and received the Nobel Prize in 1934, two years before his death. The title, which translates to “Bad Joyful,” is an oxymoron and refers to the love he felt both for life and for his cousin Lina, which causes him joy and suffering. Pirandello compares his cousin to the sorceress Alcina, a character present in Ariosto’s Orlando furioso, who appears beautiful thanks to a spell but is actually old and ugly. When Alcina gets tired of her lovers, like Circe, she transforms them into snakes, plants or small trees.