Some artists are brilliant and crazy. Filippo Bentivegna, who created this outdoor pleasure park, was clearly both. He had immigrated to the States and later came back to Sicily, to his hometown of Sciacca. He spent countless hours in the hot sun carving dozens of faces from raw stone just outside of the City Center. The architectural marvel has long been called the “Castello Incantato,” or inchanted castle. The grounds sport thousands of heads and faces, carved from rock, and positioned along slowly winding paths that lead uphill and sideways. As you walk around you feel that many of them are staring at you. In the center of the estate there’s a small house where Bentivegna used to live. It is covered in intensely strange graffiti highlighting skyscrapers and images of fish. The final effect is a strange mix of brilliance with a touch of morbidity.
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