Sicilian Renaissance

Spreading from the movement's main centres in Florence, Rome and Naples, when Renaissance Classicism reached Sicily it fused with influences from local late medieval and International Gothic art and Flemish painting to form a distinctive hybrid.

The 1460s is usually identified as the start of the development of this distinctive Renaissance on the island, marked by the presence of Antonello da Messina, Francesco Laurana and Domenico Gagini, all three of whom influenced each other, sometimes basing their studios in the same city at the same time.

In the past, some artistic historiography agreed in considering Sicilian culture in an isolated and marginalized condition during the historical phase of the Spanish Viceroyalty, thus delaying the study of art produced in Sicily during the Renaissance and beyond.

[5] Sicily's early Renaissance was dominated by Antonello da Messina, who trained in Naples, Venice, possibly Milan and indirectly in Flanders, showing the circulation of ideas which marked this era.

Other marble sculptors from Tuscany and Lombardy also opened studios on Sicily, mainly in Palermo and Messina; these included the Lombard Gabriele di Battista who had worked in Naples like Gagini.

[8] The most notable artists of this period active in Messina were Giorgio da Milano, Andrea Mancino, Bernardino Nobile and especially Giovan Battista Mazzolo from Carrara, head of an important studio which included Messina-born Antonio Freri.

[8] Little by little Renaissance classical elements were absorbed into Sicilian architecture, mainly coalescing episodically as in Syracuse Cathedral's sacristy or in small buildings such as the chapels added to churches.

In Palermo, for example, the Gagini workshop was active throughout the century and beyond, alternating between repetitive studio works and prestigious commissions which also included typically Sicilian forms such as marble tabernacles flanked by angels.