Villa Giacomina, 19th century villa in Malladeta Hill, Villajoyosa, Spain

Villa Giacomina is a 19th-century building in Villajoyosa with a square plan that encloses a central courtyard and water storage area. The structure displays solid masonry with details mixing eastern and western building styles, while the exterior is marked by rows of windows and fortification-like elements.

Villa Giacomina was completed in 1920 on the Malladeta hill for the physician Alfonso Esquerdo, who had emigrated to Argentina and married Giacomina Bellami, after whom the building is named. The couple used it until Esquerdo's death in 1922. At the end of the Civil War it housed Dr. Bastos, head traumatologist of the Swedish-Norwegian Hospital of Alcoy, and afterwards it was occupied by the Italian Littorio armoured division, which caused the first damage.

The name comes from Giacomina Bellami, the Argentine wife of doctor Alfonso Esquerdo, who finished the villa in 1920. The decoration mixes Islamic, Christian and Jewish motifs: a Star of David on each window of the west facade, Gothic tracery on the main one, and a black-and-white chequered floor at the entrance. Both families belonged to Freemasonry, which explains the symbols.

The villa stands on the Malladeta hill about 1 km southwest of Villajoyosa, reached on foot or by car; the building is partly in ruins and its interior is not visitable. The esplanade around it, edged by a crenellated wall that serves as a viewpoint, and the path up to the 19th-century tower and the Iberian-Roman sanctuary ruins on the summit are outdoors, so wear sturdy shoes for uneven ground.

On the hilltop above the villa, psychiatrist José María Esquerdo built a neo-medieval tower in the late 19th century as his private library and study. Around it lie the ruins of the Malladeta sanctuary, an Iberian and Roman religious site founded around 350 BC and abandoned around AD 75, excavated in five campaigns between 2005 and 2009.