Villa Cianciafara was built at the end of the eighteenth century on a pre-existing installation of medieval origin. It is one of the few in Messina, perhaps the only one, that has remained basically intact until today with its original functional division of spaces and the design of the consequent fundamental volumes. In fact, without losing the original purpose linked to the cultivation of the fields, the complex also assumes the characteristics of the villa of delight, reaching between the two characteristics a structure of mediated promiscuity. The main building is at the centre of a set of building elements consisting of the farmhouses and the wash house, the millstone and the oil mill, the cellar and the oven, the chapel and the adjoining small sacristy and, finally, secluded near the vegetable garden, the barn and the horses’ stables. The component relating to the garden intended for the enjoyment of the senses and spirit arose later, in the second half of the nineteenth century, mainly wanted by the great-grandmother of the current owner, Princess Lina Tasca and Filangeri, sister of Beatrice mother of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, the author of “The Leopard”.

The interventions subsequently carried out on the Villa, never capable of altering the original plant in depth, were therefore mainly concentrated during the turn of the nineteenth century and, for some interiors, in the early years of the last century.