Corleone has often been associated with the figure of the underworld and the Mafia, but the town in the province of Palermo contains very important treasures and was the set of a masterpiece as “The godfather” in which the protagonist takes the surname Corleone from his country of origin.

Geography

Located in the middle of the hinterland of Palermo the city of Corleone extends for 22192 hectares and has a population density of 49 inhabitants per km2. The city is located in a mountain area about 500 above sea level. Palermo, the provincial capital, is about 54km north to the sea.

The Dragon’s Gorge

Lungo la strada che congiunge la Ficuzza con Corleone – nei pressi dell’antica linea ferroviaria – si trovano le Dragon’s Gorge. I sedimenti rocciosi presenti sul territorio mostrano infatti grosse erosioni di effetto carsico.

Then you can see the remains of a wall of the creek from which the water was conveyed to feed a mill, of which only traces can be seen. Old mulberry, orange, pomegranate and fig trees are the testimony of the residential site that used to run the mill here. In the stretch where the slope fades, pools with clear water have formed, where you can take a bath among the ferns, the maidenhair, willows and elms and in the company of some tortoise, fish, and colorful dragonflies.

The walls that close the slope are covered with rock plants of great botanical interest such as woody euphorbia, mountain cabbage, garofanino, caper etc. Among the ravines of the rock they find refuge with pigeons, jackdaws and birds of prey like the kestrel and the peregrine falcon. In excursion you can reach the main pool where you can stop in the shade of the large willows and poplars. From here the torrent Frattina descends towards the Belice and takes a less torrential course, covering the typical riparian vegetation.

Monuments and places of interest

The aspect of Corleone “is that of the Spanish Baroque which marked the culmination of the renewal of the city and its expansion, which stopped at the beginning of the contemporary age and then recovered to the north after the Second World War. well kept and paved, has narrow streets with blocks of houses with typical warehouse, entrance hall on the ground floor and balconies with potted railings in wrought iron, the new expansion has the anodic appearance of the face of many new cities “(Librici Alfio). The ancient core of the city was bordered by a medieval wall that connected the castle Soprano with the castle Sottano, following the course of the Corleone torrent to the south and lapping the flank of the existing Chiesa Madre to the north. During the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, various religious orders were installed inside and outside the walls: from the Minor Observers 1446 to the Dominicans 1554, from the Capuchins 1570 to the Carmelites 1572, from the Clarisse 1594 to the Filippini Fathers 1626 while the Augustinian Fathers were present as early as the fourteenth century.

The church of Sant’Agostino features a 18th century perspective altarpiece, a polychrome wooden statue of the 18th century Madonna della Mazza, a sixteenth-century statue of Saint Joseph and a martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew, a canvas by Giuseppe Ribera. The church is annexed in an oratory entirely frescoed by Santo Governali in the eighteenth century.

The Mother Church, dedicated to San Martino, has a basilica plant with three naves. Of fourteenth century origin, but enlarged in the following centuries, took its current appearance in the eighteenth century when it was frescoed in the dome by Carmelo Salpietra 1783 and then by Giuseppe Genzardi 1854. Notable the wooden choir by Giovan Battista Li Volsi 1635 and a table with the adoration of the Magi attributed to Tommaso De Vigilia. The two paintings on the altars of the transept, re-embedding San Leoluca and San Bernardo da Corleone, are works of Fra Felice da Sambuca. In the manner of Vincenzo La Barbera, the painting of “Santa Rosalia praying for Corleone” is to be reported. Inside the Mother Church there are two museum rooms where you can see other paintings and silverware.

Noteworthy is also the church of Santa Rosalia, in Piazza Vasi, built in the seventeenth century. It houses two 16th century waterworks and several paintings of various origins, considered by Pietro Novelli, Vito D’Anna, Gioacchino Martorana and Giuseppe Velasquez.

They still deserve to be remembered:

• the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows 1735c.a. of Provincial borromian architecture;
  
• the church of the SS. Salvatore XVIII century with a single nave with sumptuous plastic-pictorial decoration, with frescoes by Filippo Randazzo.
• the Capuchin church, on the outskirts of the city, which housed remarkable paintings by Pietro Novelli and Fra felice da Sambuca, kept in the Chiesa Madre.

The Corleone civil architecture includes, in addition to the seventeenth-century Palazzo Pretorio, several seventeenth-nineteenth-century buildings, due to the city aristocracy. The ex-Palazzo Cammarata, in Piazza Garibaldi, restored, houses the new headquarters of the town hall. It is embellished by a bronze door, the work of the Corleonese sculptor Biagio Governali. Very beautiful is also Palazzo Provenzano, with finely frescoed rooms, home to the archaeological museum, rich in archaeological finds from the theriery (including the famous Roman miliariumm of 252 BC with the name of the consul Aurelio Cotta engraved).

From Corleone come two remarkable works of art kept in the Regional Gallery of Sicily in Palermo (Abatellis Palace): the so-called Corleone polyptych depicting the coronation of the Virgin three Saints Michael, John the Baptist, John the Evangelist and Leoluca; magnificent work by Guglielmo Pesaro (1450 c.a.) already in the monastery of the SS. Savior; and the so-called Madonna di Corleone, a delicate statue of Antonello Gagini already in the Maddalena monastery.

At the entrance to Corleone, the immediate impact is with its “Twin” Rocche the Sottana, to the West, and the Soprana, to the East, on which the Saracen Tower stands out.

In the town you can admire the Chiaramontani portals of the Palaces and Churches of Via Cammarata and Firmaturi, the baroque façades of the Churches and Palaces of via S. Martino, the different bronze sculptures (statues and gates of Palazzi and Churches) works by the Corleonese Biagio By going along Via Bentivegna, you can admire the different “murals” that represent places and traditions of Corleone.

Sanctuary of the Madonna del Rosario di Tagliavia.
Continuing along the SS 118, to “Tagliavia”, in the oasis of silence of the nineteenth-century sanctuary of the Madonna del Rosario, frescoes and paintings by Giuseppe Carta are preserved. A few kilometers away you can visit the Gorges of the Dragon, a natural biotope with its Mediterranean maquis, with its stones dug by the water of the Frattina river, with its luxuriant flora.