Casa Devilla : Museo del castagno e della cassa intagliata

It is an architectural complex that preserves its original core intact, even though it is the result of several building phases. The structure develops over three levels and is introduced by an imposing masonry entrance built in 1889. From here one enters a courtyard whose trapezoidal shape accentuates the scenic effect, enhanced by the particular perspective perception of the space and enriched by the wealth of the whole house, intended to highlight the social role of the Devilla family in the Aritzo community.
Representatives of the agrarian and professional bourgeoisie, the Devilla family were in fact contractors in the snow industry (Signori della neve) from the 1800s until this activity disappeared in the early twentieth century.
The oldest body of the residence, to the left of the entrance, can be dated to around the seventeenth century; a second intervention, comprising the right-hand part of the structure, including the courtyard that acts as a link between the two parts, is attributable to the nineteenth century. The first core reflects the standards of mountain houses in the Gennargentu, both in the use of materials and in its form: of the old wooden balcony, replaced on the ground floor by the portico and on the upper floor by a closed corridor, the beautiful double carved wooden brackets are still preserved. On the ground floor there is a courtyard paved with old cobblestones of local stone, surrounded by a portico with open arches running along three sides, from which rooms at different levels are accessed. In the courtyard, the vernacular poet Bachis Sulis died in 1838, struck by an assassin's hand.
Today the structure forms a section of the Ecomuseo della Montagna or del Gennargentu, a distributed museum system, and houses the museum of the chestnut and the carved chest.