Near the main staircase before reaching the Maqueda courtyard you access to the Duke of Montalto Halls, frescoed during the first half of the seventeenth century by the most talented artists of the time including Pietro Novelli, Gerardo Astorino and Vincenzo La Barbera, to transform the original rooms for summer hearings of the Parliament. At the end of the room, there’s a fresco of Gerardo Astorino showing a meeting of the Sicilian parliament of the seventeenth century. Above the porthole that allows a striking view of the Punic walls, there is a great work by Novelli that depicts Pietro Moncada riding, testimony to the decorative environment, transformed, under Ferdinand III of Bourbon, on project of Venanzio Marvuglia in stables.