Palazzo Natoli

Luigi Natoli (Palermo, 14 April 1857 – Palermo, 25 March 1941) was the writer and author of numerous appendix novels, using the pseudonym William Galt. At the age of 17, Natoli began writing for newspapers; from 1888 he worked as a history teacher in Palermo, then in various Italian high schools, returning to Palermo in 1923. He also published a book entitled History of Sicily. He is known as the author of more than 25 serial novels set in Sicily that appeared in newspapers and magazines – such as Giornale di Sicilia, Il giornalino della Domenica and Primavera – which earned him great popularity.In one of his most famous novels, I Beati Paoli, his love for his Sicilian homeland and freedom combine to create a national epic of the island. Set between 1698 and 1719, this book is an attempt to trace and explain the causes of Sicilian problems and peculiarities.

Luigi Natoli was born in Palermo in 1857, into a family with a strong Risorgimento feeling. He always had a passion for writing and as early as 17 years old, he wrote for several newspapers. He wrote appendix novels, published in serial form in newspapers, and among them the most famous is I Beati Paoli, which reconstructs, with great historical attention and love of detail, the vicissitudes of one of Sicily’s most mysterious sects, still the subject of studies and legends today.

The first written accounts of the existence of the Beati Paoli sect appear in the early 18th century. From these, one of the most accredited suppositions is that the historical origins of the Beati Paoli date back to the 12th century from citizens of low social class who carried out justice with the aim of defending the people of Palermo from the abuses of the nobility