The Feudo (“feudal holding, fiefdom”) Desisa estate is located in the district of Monreale, just inland from Palermo on Sicily’s northwest coast; not far from the village of Corleone, of Godfather fame. After centuries as a Saracen stronghold, Sicily was finally returned to Christendom by the Norman conquest of the island, and a title deed of 1182 (in both Latin and Arabic) confirmed the land as a holding of the Archbishopric of Monreale, which held it as a feudal fiefdom of the King of the Two Sicilies until the Unification of Italy in 1865.

The Di Lorenzo family migrated to Sicily from Britain in the 1100’s under the Norman King Roger (Ruggiero) of Sicily. By the 1600s, they had settled in the area of Monreale and become important members of the royal and ecclesiastical establishments.

In 1865, Archpriest Santi Di Lorenzo acquired the ex Feudo Disisa estate following the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1865. He left it to his nephew Nicolò Di Lorenzo, and the property has remained in the hands of the Di Lorenzo family ever since.