Navarro Palace
The home of a literary family
Emmanuel's father, Vincenzo - a doctor, poet, man of culture and patriot, originally from Ribera - had moved to Sambuca in 1837 because of malaria: almost all his children were born in this palace. In fact, the whole row of houses adorned with balconies, terraces and loggias, which flank Piazza Navarro on the left, was owned and lived in by Vincenzo's large family. It was he who had the pre-existing buildings (at least those in the first body of buildings) dating back to the second half of the 1700s renovated, giving rise to the current entire layout. The part, on the other hand, which insists on the arch of the driveway that connects with Via Graffeo, was not tampered with and, by analogy with structures of the same characteristics, can be dated to the late 1500s-early 1600s.
Navarro Palace
The place where we find ourselves is one of the Places of Identity and Memory of Sambuca di Sicilia, linked to a personality of literary culture who lived between 1838 and 1919 and was born right here in this house: we are talking about Emmanuele Navarro della Miraglia, writer and author of numerous essays and short stories, considered the father, or at any rate the forerunner, of Verismo, a friend of Verga and Capuana.
From Casa Navarro, the "Sambucese drawing room of the 1800s," to Paris among international intellectuals
Casa Navarro, in front of which we stand, was a coterie of artistic and literary life and the ideal seat of the so-called "Sambucese Salotto dell'800." And if Vincenzo was active in Sambuca as a man of letters and founder of the local periodical L'Arpetta, Emmanuele distinguished himself for his commitment far beyond the borders of his town. In 1860, with his father and other Sambucese liberals, he welcomed a column of Garibaldians, led by Vincenzo Giordano Orsini, who were aiming for Sambuca after being repulsed by the inhabitants of Giuliana; he collaborated with important periodicals of the time, such as the Neapolitan L'indipendente, edited by Alexandre Dumas Sr; but he also traveled extensively, in Italy and abroad, even living in Paris where he frequented the literary salons of the time with Victor Hugo and numerous intellectuals and cultural figures from beyond the Alps-among them the writer George Sand, Chopin's famous muse and rebellious spirit, with whom he perhaps also had a liaison.
Surprising works and places of Navarro's memory in Sicily
The "Count of Miraglia," as Emmanuele signed himself with a pseudonym, died Nov. 13, 1919, in Sambuca, where he was born. He will remain immortal for his works: his novel "La Nana," in which Rosaria Passalacqua, a dwarf's daughter, is seduced and abandoned by a "gentleman" and then loved and taken in by a "straight picciotto," was enthusiastically reviewed by Luigi Capuana and reissued by Leonardo Sciascia. Also celebrating and popularizing the memory of the influential writer from Sambucese are the Navarrian Studies Library from the local Cooperative Credit Bank, the Emmanuele Navarro award, the inclusion of the man of letters in the "Road of Writers" (the highway 640, which, crossing Sicily longitudinally from east to west, touches the places of literary memory of Sicilians Verga, Sciascia, Camilleri, Tomasi di Lampedusa, Antonio Russello, Rosso di San Secondo and, indeed, Navarro) and this House, Place of Identity and Memory of an eminent personality of literary culture.
Navarro Palace among the Places of Identity and Memory (LIM)
Palazzo Navarro in Sambuca has been included by the Region of Sicily among the LIMs (Places of Identity and Memory) in the section of Places of Historical Personalities and Culture, in this case literary: a heritage of enormous importance subject to an enhancement project, an opportunity to define the development strategies of the host community.
