Filippo Bentivegna's Enchanted Castle in Sciacca

Filippo Bentivegna (1888–1967), known locally as 'Filippo delle Teste', was a self-taught Sicilian sculptor who created the 'Castello Incantato' (Enchanted Castle) on a rocky hillside near Sciacca. After emigrating to the US in 1913, he suffered a head injury causing amnesia and was repatriated in 1919, later declared insane but not dangerous. In the early 1920s, he bought a barren plot on Monte Cronio and began carving stone heads of figures like Garibaldi, Mazzini, Mussolini, and Pirandello. In the 1950s, Swedish painter Lilieström visited and encouraged him to exhibit, sparking local press interest. After Bentivegna's death in 1967, the site was looted. In 1968, Gabriele Stocchi, a collaborator of Jean Dubuffet, took two heads for Dubuffet's collection, now at the Musée de l'Art Brut in Lausanne. The property became regionally owned in 1973 and was declared of cultural interest in 2015; it is now open to visitors. Bentivegna's life inspired the song 'Bentivegna' (1999) by Virginiana Miller.