The history and layout of this architectural and natural jewel, unique in the world, are instead well worth telling, for the extraordinary modernity of its conception.
Given in 1806 by Ferdinand I of Bourbon to the mayor of Taormina, Pancrazio Ciprioti, the islet was bought in 1890 by the English noblewoman Florence Trevelyan: she was the first to build a small house there and to plant a number of valuable non-native species among the soil and rocks.
Passed on through inheritance to the lawyer Cesare Acrosso, nephew of Florence Trevelyan’s husband, in 1938 it was bought for 38,000 lire by the brothers Leone and Emilio Bosurgi from Messina, owners of Sanderson, the largest Sicilian citrus-processing company.
The work that the Bosurgi brothers promoted on the island, the so-called Villa Bosurgi, is to be considered one of the first examples of bioarchitecture before its time in the last century. Visitors who set foot there soon realise they are faced with something extraordinary, and not only because of the period in which it was conceived and built. Secret stone doors perfectly camouflaged in the rock; hidden paths in the greenery of the rarest tree species; seats set into the profile of the island and suspended above the blue of the sea; windows with yellow cathedral glass to filter the gold of the sunlight…
And then the complex’s swimming pools. One, which the owners filled with salt water by means of a system of hydraulic pumps; the other, the so-called “covered pool”, large and fitted with a spectacular big window onto the sea, now used as a space for cultural events.
As in any self-respecting summer residence, there is a “barbecue area”, but designed according to a principle that anticipates the methods of bioarchitecture: a circular space, with windows almost “embroidered” into the rock, like natural paintings opening onto the bay.
Suspended between a vaguely “Zen” atmosphere and a bizarre modernist and ecological streak, Isola Bella, as the Bosurgi brothers wanted it and then abandoned with the inevitable decline of the citrus dynasty, has finally been restored, at least in part, thanks to a first tranche of works self-financed by the Parco Archeologico Naxos Taormina, and is now open to the public. Truly a stop not to be missed.
