Sicilian Baroque

[2] Sicily, a volcanic island in the central Mediterranean, off the Italian peninsula, was colonised by the Greeks, and then ruled by the Romans, the Byzantines, the Ostrogoths, the Muslims, the Normans, the Hohenstaufen, the Angevins, and the Aragonese.

The town's aristocratic patrons would often call on Florence or Rome to provide them with an architect; one example was the Florentine Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli, who established the Tuscan styles of architecture and sculpture there in the mid-16th century.

Less than a century after his family had begun to cautiously decorate the island's churches (1531–1537), Antonello Gagini completed the proscenium-like arch of the "Capella della Madonna" in the "Santuario dell'Annunziata" at Trapani.

[33] The earliest example of Baroque on the island is Giulio Lasso's Quattro Canti, an octagonal piazza, or circus, constructed around 1610 at the intersection of the city's two principal streets.

[35] While each façade of Quattro Canti is pleasing to the eye, as a scheme it is both out of proportion with the limited size of the piazza and, like most other examples of early Sicilian Baroque, can be considered provincial, naive and heavy-handed, compared with later developments.

The great Sicilian earthquake of 11 January 1693 destroyed at least 45 towns and cities, affecting an area of 5,600 square kilometres (2,200 sq mi) and causing the deaths of about 60,000 people.

In the 18th century, one estimate held that there were 228 noble families, who provided Sicily with a ruling class consisting of 58 princes, 27 dukes, 37 marquesses, 26 counts, one viscount and 79 barons; the Golden Book of the Sicilian nobility (last published in 1926) lists even more.

The Church ruled by fear of damnation in the next life and of the Inquisition in the present, and consequently both upper and lower classes gave as generously as they could on all major saints' days.

[53] Following the earthquake, a program of rebuilding was rapidly put into action, but before it began in earnest some important decisions were made that would permanently differentiate many Sicilian cities and towns from other European urban developments.

[58] In other parts of Europe, lack of finance, complex land ownership and divided public opinion made radical replanning after disaster too difficult: after 1666, London was rebuilt on its ancient plan, though new extensions to the west were partially on a grid system.

[4] One of the finest examples of this new urban planning can be seen at Noto (Illustration 9), the town rebuilt approximately 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) from its original site on Mount Alveria.

In this way Baroque town planning came to symbolise and reflect political authority, and later its style and philosophy spread as far as Annapolis and Savannah in English America,[66] and most notably Haussmann's 19th century re-designing of Paris.

[68] Of Sicily's own form of Baroque, post-1693, it has been said, "The buildings conceived in the wake of this disaster expressed a light-hearted freedom of decoration whose incongruous gaiety was intended, perhaps, to assuage the horror".

These architects, often local, were able to design in a more sophisticated style than those of the late 17th century: many had been trained in mainland Italy and had returned with a more detailed understanding of the Baroque idiom.

[74][75] A second hindrance to Sicilian architects' fully achieving their potential earlier was that frequently they were only rebuilding a damaged structure, and as a consequence having to match their designs to what had been before, or remained.

Anthony Blunt has described this decoration as "either fascinating or repulsive, but however the individual spectator may react to it, this style is a characteristic manifestation of Sicilian exuberance, and must be classed amongst the most important and original creations of Baroque art on the island".

Ragusa Ibla, the lower city, boasts an impressive array of Baroque architecture, which includes the Duomo of San Giorgio by Rosario Gagliardi, designed in 1738 (Illustration 12).

Ragusa Superiore was replanned following 1693 around the cathedral and displays an unusual phenomenon of Sicilian Baroque: the palazzi here are peculiar to this town, of only two storeys and long, with the central bay only emphasised by a balcony and an arch to the inner garden.

[96] Vaccarini's principal façade to Catania's cathedral, dedicated to Santa Agata, shows strong Spanish influences even at this late stage of Sicilian Baroque.

The high altar is usually the pièce de resistance: in many instances a single block of coloured marble, decorated with gilt scrolls and festoons, and frequently inset with other stones such as lapis lazuli and agate.

Contrary to popular belief, the majority of Sicily's nobility did not choose to have their mortal remains displayed for eternity in the Catacombe dei Cappuccini, but were buried quite conventionally in vaults beneath their family churches.

[100] Funerals became tremendous shows of wealth; a result of this ostentation was that the stone memorial slabs covering the burial vaults today provide an accurate barometer of the development of Baroque and marble inlay techniques at any specific time.

[108] This was necessary because the household of a Sicilian aristocrat, beginning with himself, his wife and many children, would typically also contain a collection of poorer relatives and other extended family members, all of whom had minor apartments in the house.

[109] Moreover, there were paid employees, often including a private chaplain or confessor, a majordomo, governesses, secretary, archivist, accountant, librarian, and innumerable lower servants, such as a porter to ring a bell a prescribed number of times according to the rank of an approaching guest.

A contemporary traveller, the Comte de Borch, noted the French influence, describing the villa as "décorée à la française, avec trumeaux, boiseries légères, etc.

[131] Furthermore, because of their neglect and dereliction of noblesse oblige, an essential element of the feudal system, the countryside was often ruled by bandits outside the enclosed villages, and the once grand country villas were decaying.

However, when a few years later the upper floor was added, despite the use of Baroque broken pediments above the windows, the neoclassical French influence is very pronounced, highlighted by the central curved bay.

[78] However, much of the blame for the decay and ruinous state of preservation of so many palazzi must fall not just on owners unwilling to accept change, but on the political agendas of successive socialist governments.

[138][139] The remaining members of the Sicilian aristocracy who still inhabit their ancestral palazzi are unable to make opening their houses to tourism a major source of income, unlike some Northern, especially English, counterparts.

[141][142] As Sicily now becomes a more politically stable, secure and less corrupt environment, the Baroque palazzi are slowly beginning to open their doors to an eager paying public, American and Northern European as much as Italian.