On Saturday, April 4, 2026, at 5:30 PM, the Mayor of Bagheria, Filippo Tripoli, and Tommaso Romano, President of the Thule Foundation, will inaugurate the Eros Museum, the only one in Italy, located at Via Bernardo Mattarella 64 in Bagheria (Palermo).
The museum exhibition features 120 works by 42 Italian and international artists (Mexican, French, Zurich, and London). Paintings, drawings, collages, object-books, photographs, sculptures, and installations, all with erotic subjects, are part of the museum’s permanent collection. They offer a broad panorama of sensual imagery, sparked by desire and joie de vivre, which the artists sought to express with complete freedom and without censorship in these diverse creations.
Eros has always been a favored subject in art since prehistoric times, when primitive and archaic men even depicted clearly erotic figures, such as ithyphallic ones, within their first dwellings (caves), undoubtedly wishing to celebrate with them an empowerment of life primarily derived from their sexual experience. If artists were the first to understand that, beyond eroticism, all other magic is vain and illusory, it is only because, thanks to an uncommon sensitivity, they recognized desire’s undeniable power of enchantment, that of the transfiguration and sometimes the transcendence of the desired object itself. It is desire, in fact, that has allowed the artist to conceive and imagine ideal beauty and driven him to depict it imaginatively in his art, transcending even the object of his interest. All great artists have created erotic works, intending with them to celebrate life, of which eros is one of its most intense manifestations, its unconditional enhancement. This is also the reason why the erotic phenomenon should not be considered, according to common prejudice, as the exclusive source of libidinal energy or energy, but also and above all as a source of dreamy and desirous energy and, in this sense, as a source of purely spiritual energy. This energy therefore enriches human reality in the epiphany, in art as in life, of the virtual possibilities of other multiple states of being.
It is therefore not the simple and banal depiction of sexual organs, and their copulation, that the artist is erotically interested in, but rather in their fantastic and ideal transfiguration, which constitutes the key to all the reverie and magic of eros.
Its power of attraction, in fact, lies solely in this magic. The artists who have always felt its allure and power have sought to express it in their diverse and varied works. Evidence of their intent is also evident in the works of the 42 Italian and international artists exhibited in this museum, which aims to create a significant monument to Aleister Crowley, the most famous Sicilian practitioner of sexual magic. Most of the works that make up the museum’s permanent collection are the result of generous donations from artists, who deserve special mention here, primarily because of their skill. 
These are their names: Michele Allotta, Franco Arena, Calogero Barba, Filippo Bordonaro, Giuseppe Calderone, Gai Candido, Francesco Antonio Caporale, Angela Caporaso, Giovanni Castiglia, Franco Castiglione, Anna Boschi Cermasi, Kiki Clienti, Filly Cusenza, Nicolò D’Alessandro, Juan Esperaza, Giovanni Gargano, Lorenzo Guzzo, Marco Intravaia, Carlo Lauricella, Lou Le Caballec, Serse Luigetti, Nino Maggio, Sergio Mammina, Pino Manzella, Marilena Marson, Massimo Milani, Salvatore Mineo, Alba Montori, Gina Nicolosi, Maria R. Orlando, Franco Panella, Enzo Patti, Michela Pelusio, Giangi Pezzotti, Natale Platania, Giovanni Proietto, Nino Rizzo, Tommaso Serra, Nuccio Squillaci, Agostino Tulumello, Accursio Truncali, Giovanni Varisco.
Starting April 4th, Bagheria will boast, in addition to the prestigious Guttuso Museum in Villa Cattolica and the Pietro Piraino Toy and Wax Museum, a revolutionary Eros Museum. Unique in Italy, it will only add to the city’s notoriety, the birthplace of so many illustrious figures, including Renato Guttuso, Ignazio Buttitta, Peppuccio Tornatore, Dacia Maraini, and Ferdinando Scianna. This artistic and cultural event is sponsored by the Municipality of Bagheria. The Eros Museum can be visited starting April 5th, every day, including holidays, from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM, but by appointment only. Please call +39 3886416109.
Admission is €4. A guided tour costs €7 per person.