There is a place in Sicily where the water tastes of sulfur and history, where a German composer came to seek inspiration, where a queen immersed herself in white marble tubs and where hot steam rose from underground as if Etna was breathing slowly. That place is called Terme di Acireale and for over fifteen years it has been closed, silent, wrapped in a degradation that clashes with the magnificence of what it once was.
View this post on Instagram
It all began with the Greeks
Before anyone even thought of building a building, there was water: hot, sulphurous water, full of minerals torn from the bowels of Europe’s largest volcano. The ancient Greeks were the first to know it and immediately understood that it was not just any water, so much so that they built the Xiphonie in the Reitana district, one of the first spa facilities in eastern Sicily, of which today only a few signs remain, almost erased by time. They speak of that experience, albeit en passant, the De Aetna of Cornelius Severus and the Garden of Asclepius of Philip of Thessalonica, precious testimonies that confirm how the spa tradition of this corner of Sicily had its roots in a very remote era.
Then the Romans arrived, more methodical and ambitious, who expanded and consolidated what the Greeks had started; the exploitation continued with the Byzantines, continued until the Arab invasion and was abruptly interrupted only with the devastating earthquake of 1169, which probably marked the definitive abandonment of the ancient buildings. The remains of that complex can still be visited today in the archaeological area of Santa Venera al Pozzo, in the municipality of Acicatena, as a silent testimony of a thermal civilization that had survived almost a millennium of history unscathed.
The Baron who transformed everything
We had to wait until the mid-nineteenth century for someone to have the vision and resources to revive that tradition. It was Baron Agostino Pennisi of Floristella who invested his assets in an ambitious project, inaugurating in 1873 a modern spa center on the southern outskirts of Acireale, in a strategic position a few steps from the railway station on the Messina-Catania-Syracuse route, which already guaranteed good accessibility to the structure. The new complex was designed by the Florentine architect Mariano Falcini in neoclassical style, with an elegant English garden which completed a landscape composition of great effect, made even more evocative by the presence of Etna and the sea as a natural backdrop; in the same year the adjacent Grand Hotel des Bains was inaugurated, while shortly thereafter the neo-Gothic castle owned by the same baron would also be built nearby.
The structure that took shape was something never seen in Sicily: around sixty white marble tubs arranged in elegantly furnished rooms, where hot and cold, sweet and mineral, perfumed, aromatic water flowed or transformed into Russian steam through special “metal spouts”; Jets of cold water fell from the ceiling and acted as a shower, while special hydrotherapy devices and special devices also allowed the sick to access the treatments.
The water used was the same as the ancient Roman baths, conveyed through a sophisticated system of collections: sulphurous, salsobromoiodic and radioactive, it proved effective in the treatment of osteoarticular, rheumatic and dermatological diseases, attracting an increasingly large and qualified clientele.
When the greats of Europe came to Acireale
The big ones arrived early and in numbers. Richard Wagner, who in 1882 was going through one of the most fruitful periods of his creative life, chose Acireale as a place to stay together with his family; Ernesto Renan, the French philologist and historian who had shaken Europe with his Life of Jesushe also frequented the Sicilian spas. In 1881 it was the turn of King Umberto I with Queen Margherita, while Menotti Garibaldi had already visited the structure in July 1873, a few months after the inauguration; the hereditary Grand Duke of Baden and the famous doctor Antonio Cardarelli followed, testifying to a reputation that went far beyond the borders of the island. From 1915 to 1934 the Catania-Acireale tramway, with a stop at the spa, made the influx of customers from the nearby Etna city even easier, contributing to making Acireale one of the most popular spa destinations in the South.
The twentieth century, the crisis, Nanni Moretti
The twentieth century brought with it changes, expansions and inevitable setbacks: the spa experienced its first serious crisis in conjunction with the war period and in the post-war period, so much so that in 1951 ownership passed from the Pennisi family to the Sicilian Region. However, public management did not prevent a recovery, and in 1987 a second spa centre, called Terme di Santa Caterina, was inaugurated in the nearby hamlet of Santa Caterina, demonstrating a vitality that still seemed solid. Two years later, in 1989, even Nanni Moretti arrived, who chose the swimming pool inside the park as the set for Red Palombellaone of his most loved and discussed films: it was an unexpected recognition by Italian cinema, a sign that that place still retained a charm capable of spanning the decades. But something was already creaking beneath the surface.
Silence since 2015
In 2015 the Terme di Acireale were officially placed into liquidation due to economic problems and definitively ceased their activity, concluding an almost one hundred and fifty year long history in an abrupt and in many ways incomplete way. Water infiltrations begin to make their way between the walls of the neoclassical structure, the English garden designed by Falcini progressively grows wild, while the debate on the future of the complex gets stuck in an endless back and forth of responsibilities between the Sicilian Region and private individuals, complicated by an accumulated debt that exceeds nine million euros. Only in March 2022, thanks to the FAI Days, did the park reopen its gates for a weekend, offering a glimmer of hope but leaving the main structure still closed and awaiting decisions.
What will happen now
The future of the Terme di Acireale is still to be written: there is talk of an industrial plan, but first the debt will have to be repaid; there is talk of restructuring, but the costs are huge and the political will uncertain. What is certain is that under that structure the water of Etna still flows, the same that the Greeks knew three thousand years ago and in which Wagner sought, between one hot bath and another, the notes of something great. The water waits, patient as a volcano; the question is whether anyone will have the vision, and the means, to make it flow again.
