Pietro Genduso is a young farmer who has transformed his family’s splendid country house near Polizzi Generosa into a beloved destination for travelers from all over the world.

Pietro works as a high-altitude arborist: hooked to a rope, like an acrobat, he takes care of the Madonie forests. In the garden of his farm he grows Slow Food products of Polizzi, (the Badda bean and pepper) and many other local varieties. He defines himself as a guardian farmer: in the garden he has collected more than forty varieties of traditional Sicilian fruits, of which he shares the scions (grafting branches) for reproduction. Together with another partner of The Heart of Sicily, Casa dei Salici, Pietro started a compost production project for the sustainable management of the garden.

His house, an eighteenth-century home, has become a research center on insects and organic management in agriculture. Pietro’s grandfather, his namesake, was the well-known entomologist who recognized and saved a precious indigenous species: the Sicilian black bee.