Ruggero Moncada Paterno Castello, owner of Palazzo Biscari: “We talk a lot about tourism, but we are lagging behind, Catania cannot be so neglected”

Always under the volcano. Looking at Etna or into the shadow of Stromboli, plunging into this flow of energy. Ruggero Moncada Paterno Castello, ironic and racial leopard, is the owner of Palazzo Biscari, a magnificent fragment of the general history of Sicily. A fabulous aristocratic residence with 600 rooms. So many? Perhaps, but “a house in which all the rooms are known is not worthy of being inhabited” (“Leopard”).

“I come from a traditional but healthy family. I had a strict, tough upbringing. As a child, I was picky about food and suffered a lot of beatings… Mom cooked not “for” someone, but “against”: on Monday she added salt, and it was normal for the week! When you are born into a family with values, at twenty you are a little tough, but you get up when a woman comes in, open the door, kiss her hand, you have rules. Sometimes they are useless, sometimes they make a difference. Mothers and grandmothers really like you, but girls don’t. You’re a 14-15 year old “little boy” and they prefer naughty over fashionable. Then, when you grow up, they will begin to appreciate you. You can swear well… you can say politically incorrect things… And I like it, but I hope with grace and self-irony. This is part of the lifestyle that people expect: a tourist visiting Palazzo Biscari is looking for Prince Tancredi.”

A life of privilege?

“My mother belonged to the middle class, there is a mixture of values ​​in education. Then, I had a leftist teacher who made me realize that I was especially lucky. And that not all of them were. I was overcome with a sense of belonging, participation, and also ridicule of these families, who have their own shortcomings. Tomasi di Lampedusa tells them very well, because he knows them, De Roberto, the bourgeois, saves nothing from the aristocracy.”

Some scenes of the Netflix series about Leopard were filmed in the halls of Palazzo Biscari.

“A kind of Sicilian “Downton Abbey”.. The Italian Unification dance was filmed in our Rococo halls, not Angelica’s famous engagement. This could be a further launch if the airports are open if the city is clean. We talk a lot about tourism, but we are lagging behind. You can’t neglect Catania like that, you can’t ignore Sicily.”

There were many famous guests in the palace.

“From the Queen Mother of England to Mick Jagger. It was fantastic with him because I was able to tell him an episode from twenty years ago when Marta Marzotto came to Sant’Agata and published my photograph in “Chi”. The captions were of Bianca Jagger in New York and another photo was of Ruggero Moncada in Catania for Sant’Agata. I told him: I was with your wife Bianca: she was on top, and I was on the bottom… He looked at me a little askance.”

He lives in great beauty.

“I was born and raised here. But beauty can also be found in a shell.”

Where did he spend his holidays?

“Al Forte, in what is now the kingdom of Santanche. My mother was from Lombardy and Veneto, my grandfather was a very famous dermatologist. From 1955 to 1975 I spent all my summers in Forte dei Marmi. Holidays “Sapore di mare”, an atmosphere very similar to the films, with many characters. I was a southerner and also a nobleman among the rich Milanese with a villa and a motorcycle.”

Were there parties, balls, social events?

“There was already a more intellectual, niche group. We hung out with Carlo Carra, his son and grandchildren. Fiametta Carra was a close friend of mine. Bellonci, Giuseppe Berto, and award-winning writers Strega and Campiello passed by. The environment in which we children lived.”

How were your days?

“We lived in a pine forest, went to the movies. We lived on ice cream and walks. In this house by the sea, my grandfather placed his wife, two daughters, sons-in-law, five grandchildren, waiters, a nanny for a diabetic grandmother, a cook, in short, the people. We children lived in rooms with bunk beds. The two eldest were nocturnal; they went to the Kapanins. I’ve never done this. I was a skinny child, a baron among the trees. At the age of 20, I entered the university in Padua because I liked the girl Nicoletta, who became my wife. We’ve been together for 48 years.”

Holidays in Sicily?

“As children, we were planted near the Airone Hotel. The house was rented by Castorina and Serrano, representatives of cinemas. We lived there with nannies, and they came to visit us from time to time. I had a wonderful Teresa. The employees who worked for my mother got married a year after they arrived. And beautiful weddings. One old friend laughingly asked us to come stay with us for a couple of weeks. When we were older, as soon as school was over we went to the seaside at the Excelsior, then to the Cyclopi, and then went on holiday to the Forte. Endless holidays.”

And in 20 years?

“Long and wonderful travels with my wife. In ’76 we went to Spain for a month. Then an unforgettable trip to Greece in 1978-79. My best friend, Mario Castorina arrived with a part for the boat of Pino Sivieri, the engineer who built the Bay of Atlantis and Palacongressi in Taormina. We were traveling around the Peloponnese on this old ship, a Latin American sailing ship with a blue mermaid on the bow, used for smuggling salt. On board are Steve Caramazza, Maria Francesca Natoli, Elena Cutrona. I didn’t go to the Fort anymore, my mother was very cheerful but possessive.”

And his father Vincenzo?

“Fantastic, a man of great integrity. He kept all this. He was very good in the village, an entrepreneur adored by everyone. My mother, Annalisa Flahrer, was a writer who was in the top five of the Strega Awards. with “The coming year beyond the sea.” He wrote a book about San Giuliano. Big family”.

Where are you spending your summer now?

“My holidays were holidays with my grandparents, and nothing more. The house in the Fort has become one of the memories of my daughters, who love it. We have had a house on Stromboli for seven years. There is a fantastic literary group: Paola Mastrocola, Lidia Ravera, Daria Bignardi, many actors and several Neapolitan friends. I’m very homey.”

What does Stromboli mean to you?
“I have a sense of duty that is killing me. Every morning I carry the world on my shoulders, I think that if I were not there, it would collapse. Stromboli manages to relax me, it allows me to free my mind from worries, but even there I do not stay still.: I cook, clean the beach, build lamps from stones and wood. The island has great charm. It’s a good way to live and die under a volcano.”

(Photo by Renato Zacchia)