PalermoBagheria.
Bagheria developed around the villa built in 1658 by Giuseppe Branciforte, Prince of Butera. In 1769 Salvatore Branciforte built the intersecting Corso Butera and Corso Umberto I, the main thoroughfares of the future town.

The villas of Bagheria are deservedly famous, as for example Villa Butera, built by Giuseppe Branciforte di Butera in 1658. It is at the top of Corso Butera. It has the stern air of a fortified building, once underlined by towers that no longer exist. A new façade, on the opposite side of the original one, was added by Salvatore Branciforte in 1769. Villa Cattolica (1736), also severe in apparence, houses the Town Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, with paintings by various artists, including Renato Guttuso, whose monumental tomb is situated in the grounds of the Villa. Villa Valguarnera (1721) was designed by Tommaso Maria Napoli; it has a double exedra at the front and a concave façade, and is surrounded by a park. Villa Villarosa (18th c.), the work of the architect Venanzio Marvuglia, has a fine neoclassical colonnade. And then there is Villa Palagonia (1715), by the architects Napoli and Daidone; it is known as the Villa dei Mostri (Villa of the Monsters ), because of the frightening sandstone statues of people and animals that surround the building, as desired by Ferdinando Gravina Alliata, who was given the villa by his uncle, the Prince of Palagonia. Palazzo Inguaggiato (1770), in Corso Butera, built in the fine yellow local stone, is also noteworthy. The town has a large new church, San Pietro Apostolo (St. Peter the Apostle), and a Civic Museum in Palazzo Cutò.