Benedictine Monastery

Benedictine monastery

The foundation of Palma began with the construction of this church dedicated to the Madonna del S.S. Rosario and the neighboring ducal palace. It was May 3, 1637. Today the Benedictine monastery is one of the few cloistered monasteries left in Sicily. Duke Giulio Tomasi, founder of Palma, had four daughters, who decided to embark on the monastic life from an early age, abandoning all noble titles and submitting themselves to strict seclusion within this monastery.

The Sisters in the monastery dedicated themselves to meditation, humble work and an intimate and fervent unity with the Lord. From time to time the square in front of the Monastery, the throbbing heart of the young economy that was developing in Palma in the 1600s, was pervaded by an intense smell of freshly baked sweets.

The famous Ricci biscuits, also mentioned in the novel II GATTOPARDO, prepared with great care by the nuns of the convent, using simple ingredients that abounded on the hills surrounding the town, almonds. Sweets that still today, after 400 years, are prepared inside the Monastery by the few remaining Benedictine nuns. The same recipe handed down for centuries by the nuns of the convent, and which perhaps, in a few years, could be interrupted due to the lack of other sisters.

Today only 3 remain in the monastery. In the monastery it is possible to buy the typical almond sweets such as the famous "Ricci del Gattopardo" but not only. You can taste the "muccuneddri", marzipan with cedar and soft nougats with almonds and pistachio, which the nuns prepare and deliver to the customer using to a very characteristic ancient tradition, a wheel that was once used to deliver messages.