Galleria Regionale di Palazzo Abatellis ★

Sicily's top art museum in a 15th century Palermo palazzo

This is one of the best art museums in Sicily, well worth an hour or two of your time. The ground floor of this 15th-century, Catalan-Gothic-meets-Renaissance palazzo contains the sculpture collection, including one room devoted to ★ Francesco Laurana (look for his bust of Eleonora of Aragon) and another room to a passel of Madonnas by the Gagini clan.

Also down here is the 1449 fresco of the ★ Triumph of Death, by an unknown but clearly warped hand (possibly Flemish or from the school of Pisanello). The skeleton of death rides an emaciated horse, felling with his arrows an unduly number of bishops and popes while passing right by a clump of virtuous (and undoubtedly grateful) beggars and cripples.

Upstairs is the painting gallery, starring works by Sicily's greatest Renaissance master Antonella da Messina, including his signature masterpiece, the ★ Madonna Annunziata. This is an "Annunciation" scene from the angel Gabriel's point of view, wherein a quiet, delicately featured Mary interrupted at her reading stretches out her hand to us from under the voluminous pyramid of an intensely blue shawl.

Also be on the lookout for the incredibly detailed 16th-cenutry Malvagna Triptych by Mabuse, Pietro Novelli's early–17th century Mannerist Madonna and Child in Glory, and Francesco Solimena's Return of Joseph's Brothers.

There are also some nice late 15th century frescoes by Palermitano Tommaso de Viglia.

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