The palace was built by the Spanish aristocratic house of Moncada who ruled Caltanissetta for more than four hundred years.
Today, the palace houses the Civic Art Gallery, where it is possible to admire many bronze, marble and plaster cast works by local sculptor Michele Tripisciano (1860-1913), who bequeathed them to the city as an act of love for Caltanissetta. We also invite you to discover our museum through its website.
The museum displays take a thematic approach.
The Angels’ Room is dedicated to religious works of art, which are the expression of Tripisciano’s profound spirituality. In this room one particularly notes the beautiful Madonna in Trono col Bambino (Madonna and Child enthroned).
Orpheus’ Room gets its name from the marble masterpiece displayed here surrounded by busts and small sculptures showing Tripisciano’s artistic development from his early neoclassical style to the Verism (Realism) of his mature production.
Two more rooms are dedicated to the years he spent in Rome and to his period of greatest fame. One room displays the preparatory works for the monument to Giuseppe Gioacchno Belli, a famous Roman vernacular poet, and a low relief portraying Sicily made for the Altare della Patria. The second room displays the draft sculptures of Roman orators designed for the Palazzo di Giustizia in Rome, headquarters of the Corte di Cassazione (Appeals’ Court).
The large rooms of the Palazzo Moncada also display plaster casts by other local sculptors of the nineteenth and the twentieth century, such as: Giuseppe Frattallone, a well-known artist close to the Macchiaioli painters of Florence, who sculpted the famous work “Ora di Studio” (Study Time) for the city’s library; Francesco Asaro; and Giacomo Scarantino with his moving sculpture “Caruso Morente” (Dying Mine Boy).
Lastly, the exhibition room dedicated to Frattallone houses contemporary works of art donated by the Caltanissetta Rotary Club.
