Illustration 1: Sicilian Baroque. "Collegiata" in Catania, designed by Stefano Ittar, circa 1768

Sicilian Baroque is the distinctive form of Baroque architecture that took hold on the island of Sicily, off the southern coast of Italy, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The style is recognisable not only by its typical Baroque curves and flourishes, but also by its grinning masks and putti and a particular flamboyance that has given Sicily a unique architectural identity. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (768x1024, 410 KB) Author : Urban Description : Chiesa Badia Di Sant Agata, Catane, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque Stefano Ittar ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (768x1024, 410 KB) Author : Urban Description : Chiesa Badia Di Sant Agata, Catane, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque Stefano Ittar ... Location within Italy Catania is the second largest city of Sicily with 306,464 inhabitants, has the second highest population density on the island and is the capital of the province which bears its name. ... Sicilian Baroque. ... Adoration, by Peter Paul Rubens: dynamic figures spiral down around a void: draperies blow: a whirl of movement lit in a shaft of light, rendered in a free bravura handling of paint In the arts, Baroque (or baroque) is both a period and the artistic style that dominated it. ... In the field of building architecture, the skills demanded of an architect range from the more complex, such as for a hospital or a stadium, to something simpler, such as planning simple residential houses. ... Sicilian disambiguates here; see also Sicilian language or Sicilian Defence. ... (16th century - 17th century - 18th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 17th century was that century which lasted from 1601-1700. ... (17th century - 18th century - 19th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800. ... Masks in a Guatemalan Market A teenager reading a book, while wearing a dinosaur mask A mask is a piece of material or kit worn on the face. ... The putto is a figure of a pudgy baby, almost always male, often naked and having wings, found especially in Italian Renaissance art. ...

The Sicilian Baroque style came to fruition during a major surge of rebuilding following a massive earthquake in 1693. Previously, the Baroque style had been used on the island in a naïve and parochial manner, having evolved from hybrid native architecture rather than being derived from the great Baroque architects of Rome. After the earthquake, local architects, many of them trained in Rome, were given plentiful opportunities to recreate the more sophisticated Baroque architecture that had become popular in mainland Italy; the work of these local architects — and the new genre of architectural engravings that they pioneered — inspired more local architects to follow their lead. Around 1730, Sicilian architects had developed a confidence in their use of the Baroque style. Their particular interpretation led to its evolving further into a personalised and highly localised art form on the island. From the 1780s onwards, the style was gradually replaced by the newly-fashionable neoclassicism. Global earthquake epicenters, 1963–1998 An earthquake is a sudden and sometimes catastrophic movement of a part of the Earths surface. ... Events January 11 - Eruption of Mt. ... This page is a candidate to be moved to Wiktionary. ... In biology, hybrid has three meanings. ... City motto: Senatus Populusque Romanus – SPQR (The Senate and the People of Rome) Founded 21 April 753 BC mythical, 1st millennium BC Region Latium Mayor Walter Veltroni (Left-Wing Democrats) Area  - City Proper  1290 km² Population  - City (2004)  - Metropolitan  - Density (city proper) 2,823,807 almost 4,000,000 1... Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. ... Events Pope Clement XII elected September 17 - Change of emperor of the Ottoman Empire from Ahmed III (1703-1730) to Mahmud I (1730-1754) Anna Ivanova (Anna I of Russia) became czarina Births April 16 - Henry Clinton, British general (d. ... Lazienkowski Palace in Warsaw Neoclassical architecture as a movement began in the 18th century, as a reaction against both the surviving Baroque and Rococo styles, and as a desire to return to the perceived purity of the arts of Rome, the more vague perception (ideal) of Ancient Greek arts (where...

The highly decorative Sicilian Baroque period lasted barely fifty years, and perfectly reflected the social order of the island at a time when, nominally ruled by Spain, it was in fact governed by an extravagant and hedonistic aristocracy. Its Baroque architecture gives the island an architectural character that has lasted into the 21st century. Social order is a concept used in sociology, history and other social sciences. ... This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... -1... The 21st century is the century that began on 1 January 2001 and will last to 31 December 2100. ...

The characteristics of Sicilian Baroque

Illustration 2: University of Catania, designed by Vaccarini and completed by 1752, exemplifies typical Sicilian Baroque, with putti supporting the balcony, wrought iron balustrades, decorated rustication and two-tone lava masonry.

Baroque architecture is a European phenomenon originating in 17th-century Italy; it is flamboyant and theatrical, and richly ornamented by sculpture and an effect known as chiaroscuro, the strategic use of light and shade on a building created by mass and shadow. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (768x1024, 538 KB) Author : Urban Description : Université, Catane, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (768x1024, 538 KB) Author : Urban Description : Université, Catane, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque ... The University of Catania (Italian: Università di Catania) is a university located in Catania, Italy, and founded in 1434. ... Giovanni Battista Vaccarini was born in Palermo in 1702, he did in 1768 He was a Sicilian architect, notable for his work in the Baroque style in his homeland during the period of massive rebuilding following the earthquake of 1693. ... A wrought iron railing in Troy, New York. ... Facade of the Palazzo del Te clearly showing rusticated stonework between the pilasters Rustication is an architectural term referring to the cutting of ashlar. ... Look up lava, Aa, and pahoehoe in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Sacred Love versus Profane Love by Giovanni Baglione. ...

The Baroque style in Sicily was largely confined to buildings erected by the church, and palazzi^[1] built as private residences for the Sicilian aristocracy. The earliest examples of this style in Sicily lacked individuality and were typically heavy-handed pastiches of buildings seen by Sicilian visitors to Rome, Florence, and Naples. However, even at this early stage, provincial architects had begun to incorporate certain vernacular features of Sicily's older architecture. By the middle of the 18th century, when Sicily's Baroque architecture was noticeably different from that of the mainland, it typically included at least two or three of the following features, coupled with a unique freedom of design that is more difficult to characterise in words. The quintessential medieval European palace: Palais de la Cité, in Paris, the royal palace of France. ... Founded 59 BC as Florentia Region Tuscany Mayor Leonardo Domenici (Democratici di Sinistra) Area  - City Proper  102 km² Population  - City (2004)  - Metropolitan  - Density (city proper) 356,000 almost 500,000 3,453/km² Time zone CET, UTC+1 Latitude Longitude 43°47 N 11°15 E www. ... Naples (Italian Napoli, Neapolitan Napule, from Greek Νέα Πόλις - Néa Pólis - meaning New City; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is the largest city in southern Italy and capital of Campania Region and the Province of Naples. ...

1: Grotesque masks and putti, often supporting balconies or decorating various bands of the entablature of a building; these grinning or glaring faces are a relic of Sicilian architecture from before the mid-17th century (Illustrations 2 and 9). A balcony comprising a balustrade supported at either end by plinths. ... An entablature is a classical architectural element, the superstructure which lies horizontally above the columns, resting on their capitals. ...

2: Balconies, often complemented by intricate wrought iron balustrades after 1633 (Illustration 2), and by plainer balustrades before that date (Illustration 6). Stairs, staircase, stairway, flight of stairs are all names for a construction designed to bridge a large vertical distance by dividing it into smaller vertical distances, called steps. ...

3: External staircases. Most villas and palazzi were designed for formal entrance by a carriage through an archway in the street façade, leading to a courtyard within. An intricate double staircase would lead from the courtyard to the piano nobile. This would be the palazzo's principal entrance to the first-floor reception rooms; the symmetrical flights of steps would turn inwards and outwards as many as four times. Owing to the topography of their elevated sites it was often necessary to approach churches by many steps; these steps were often transformed into long straight marble staircases, in themselves decorative architectural features (illustration 19), in the manner of the Spanish Steps in Rome. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Roman villa. ... Tourists in a vis-a-vis, Prague The classic definition of a carriage is a four-wheeled horse-drawn private passenger vehicle with leaf springs (elliptical springs in the 19th century) or leather strapping for suspension, whether light, smart and fast or large and comfortable. ... The word facade (or façade) can mean one of several things. ... A court or courtyard is an enclosed area, often a space enclosed by a building that is open to the sky. ... Kedleston Hall. ... The Spanish Steps in Rome Piazza di Spagna The Spanish Steps (Scalinata di Spagna) in Rome ramp a steep slope between the Piazza di Spagna at the base and the church Trinità dei Monti above. ...

4: Canted, concave, or convex façades (Illustrations 1 and 6). Occasionally in a villa or palazzo, an external staircase would be fitted into the recess created by the curve. The canted facade of The Church Of Anime Ss. ...

Illustration 3: A Sicilian belfry crowns Rosario Gagliardi's Church of San Giuseppe in Ragusa Ibla

5: The Sicilian belfry, which was not placed beside the church in a campanile tower as is common in Italy, but on the façade itself, often surmounting the central pediment, with one or more bells clearly displayed beneath its own arch, such as at Catania's Collegiata (Illustration 1). In a large church with many bells this usually resulted in an intricately sculpted and decorated arcade at the highest point of the principal façade (Illustration 9). These belfries are among the most enduring and characteristic features of Sicilian Baroque architecture. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (768x1024, 298 KB) Author : Urban Description : Ragusa Ibla, San Guiseppe, Ragusa, Italy, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (768x1024, 298 KB) Author : Urban Description : Ragusa Ibla, San Guiseppe, Ragusa, Italy, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque ... Belfry of Bruges A belfry is a building (also known as a bell tower) - or a part of a building - in which bells are hung. ... Church of San Giorgio, Ragusa. ... Ragusa is a city in southern Italy. ... Belfry of Bruges A belfry is a building (also known as a bell tower) - or a part of a building - in which bells are hung. ... St. ... A pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of a triangular section or gable found above the horizontal superstructure (entablature) which lies immediately upon the columns. ...

6: Church interiors with a profusion of inlaid coloured marble set into both floor and walls. This particular form of intrinsica developed in Sicily from the 17th century.

7: Columns that are often deployed singularly, supporting plain arches and thus displaying the influence of the earlier and much plainer Norman period (Illustration 3). Columns are rarely encountered, as elsewhere in Europe, in clustered groups acting as piers, especially in examples of early Sicilian Baroque. Roman pillar In architecture and structural engineering, a column is that part of a structure whose purpose is to transmit through compression the weight of the structure. ... The Nave of Durham Cathedral demonstrates the characteristic round arched style, though use of shallow pointed arches above the nave anticipates the Gothic style. ...

8: Decorated rustication. Sebastiano Serlio had decorated the blocks of ashlar in his rustication; by the end of the 16th century, Sicilian architects were ornamenting the blocks with carvings of leaves, fish-scales, and even sweets and shells; shells were later to become among the most prevalent ornamental symbols of Baroque design. Sometimes the rustication would be used for pillars rather than walls, a reversal of expectations and almost an architectural joke (illustration 2). Facade of the Palazzo del Te clearly showing rusticated stonework between the pilasters Rustication is an architectural term referring to the cutting of ashlar. ... Sebastiano Serlio (Bologna 1475 – Fontainebleau ca 1554), the Italian Mannerist architect, was part of the Italian team building Fontainebleau. ... Ashlar is dressed stone work of any type of stone. ...

Illustration 4: The Cathedral of San Giovanni Battista, Ragusa, (1694–1735), an example of early Sicilian Baroque.

9: The local volcanic lava stone that was used in the construction of many Sicilian Baroque buildings, because this was the most readily available. Shades of black or grey were used to create contrasting decorative effects, accentuating the Baroque love of light and shade. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1280x960, 727 KB) Picture by User:GiorgioPro Italy, Ragusa, Duomo (inside) File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1280x960, 727 KB) Picture by User:GiorgioPro Italy, Ragusa, Duomo (inside) File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque ... Ragusa is a city in southern Italy. ... Eruption redirects here. ... Look up lava, Aa, and pahoehoe in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

10: The architectural influence of the ruling Spanish (Illustration 13), although this was a milder influence than that of the Normans. The Spanish style, a more restrained version of French renaissance architecture, is particularly evident in eastern Sicily, where — owing to minor insurrections — the Spanish maintained a stronger military presence. Messina's monumental Porta Grazia, erected in 1680 as the entrance to a Spanish citadel, would not be out of place in any of the towns and citadels built by the Spanish in their colonies elsewhere. The style of this arched city gate, with its ornate mouldings and scrolls, was widely copied all over Catania immediately following the quake. The Normans (adapted from the name Northmen or Norsemen) were a mixture of the indigenous Gauls of France and the Viking invaders under the leadership of Rollo (Gange Rolf). ... Messina, Italy Strait of Messina, Italy. ... This article is about a type of fortification. ... Molding is a strip of material with various cross sections used to cover transitions between surfaces or for decoration. ... Location within Italy Catania is the second largest city of Sicily with 306,464 inhabitants, has the second highest population density on the island and is the capital of the province which bears its name. ...

It must be remembered that all of these characteristics never occur together in the same building. Other Baroque characteristics, such as broken pediments over windows, the excessive use of statuary and curved topped windows and doors are all emblematic of baroque architecture, but can all be found on Baroque building all over Europe.

Early Sicilian Baroque

Illustration 5: Piazza Pretoria, Palermo. The fountain (circa 1554) by Francesco Camilliani is the only example of high Renaissance art in the capital city. Dominating the piece is the Church of Santa Caterina (circa 1556), with its spectacular late-Baroque dome.

Volcanic Sicily in the central Mediterranean, off the Italian peninsula, has been colonised by the Greeks, oppressed under the Romans, governed by Byzantines, conquered by barbarians, was then a Moslem emirate, a Norman duchy, a Hohenstaufen kingdom, ruled by Angevins, given to Spain and then to the Neapolitan Bourbons, before finally being absorbed into the Kingdom of Italy in 1860. Thus Sicilians have been exposed to a rich sequence of disparate cultures; this is reflected in the extraordinary diversity of architecture on the island. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (768x1024, 341 KB) Author : Urban Description : Piazza Pretoria in Palermo, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (768x1024, 341 KB) Author : Urban Description : Piazza Pretoria in Palermo, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque ... Nickname: Palermu Motto: {{{motto}}} Official website: http://www. ... The Jet dEau fountain in Lake Geneva in Geneva A traditional fountain is an arrangement where water issues from a source (Latin fons), fills a basin of some kind, and is drained away. ... Francesco Camilliani (d 1586) was a Tuscan sculptor of the Renaissance period. ... By region Italian Renaissance Spanish Renaissance Northern Renaissance French Renaissance German Renaissance English Renaissance The Renaissance, also known as Il Rinascimento (in Italian), was an influential cultural movement which brought about a period of scientific revolution, religious reform and artistic transformation, at the dawn of modern European history. ... The Mediterranean Sea is an intercontinental sea positioned between Europe to the north, Africa to the south and Asia to the east, covering an approximate area of 2. ... The Italian peninsula or the Apennine peninsula is one of the greatest peninsulas of Europe, spanning 1000 km from the Alps in the north, to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south. ... The Roman Forum was the central area around which ancient Rome developed. ... Byzantium was an ancient Greek city-state, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas. ... Barbarian was originally a Greek term applied to any foreigner, one not sharing a recognized culture or language with the speaker or writer employing the term. ... A Muslim is a believer in or follower of Islam. ... Generally speaking, an emirate (Arabic imarah, plural imarat) is a territory that is administered by an emir, although in Arabic the term can be generalized to mean any province of a country that is administered by a member of the ruling class. ... The Norman dynasty is a series of four monarchs, who ruled England from the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066, until 1154. ... The term duke is a title of nobility which refers to the sovereign male ruler of a Continental European duchy, to a nobleman of the highest grade of the British peerage, or to the highest rank of nobility in various other European countries, including Portugal, Spain and France (in Italy... The Hohenstaufen were a dynasty of Kings of Germany, many of whom were also crowned Holy Roman Emperor and Dukes of Swabia. ... Angevin is the name applied to two distinct medieval dynasties which originated as counts (from 1360, dukes) of the western French province of Anjou (of which angevin is the adjectival form), but later came to rule far greater areas including England, Hungary and Poland (see Angevin Empire). ... Naples (Italian Napoli, Neapolitan Napule, from Greek Νέα Πόλις - Néa Pólis - meaning New City; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is the largest city in southern Italy and capital of Campania Region and the Province of Naples. ... This article or section should include material from France: Wars of Religion _ Bourbon Dynasty The House of Bourbon dates from at least the beginning of the 13th century, when the estate of Bourbon was ruled by a Lord, vassal of France. ... There have been several entities known as the Kingdom of Italy. ...

A form of decorated classical architecture peculiar to Sicily had begun to evolve from the 1530s. Inspired by the ruined Greek architecture and by the Norman cathedrals on the island, this often incorporated Greek architectural motifs such as the Greek key pattern into late Norman architecture with Gothic features such as pointed arches and window apertures. The Sicilian Norman architecture incorporated some Byzantine elements seldom found in Norman architecture elsewhere, and like other Romanesque architecture it went on to incorporate Gothic features. This early ornate architecture differs from that of mainland Europe in not having evolved from Renaissance architecture; instead, it was developed from Norman styles. Renaissance architecture hardly touched Sicily; in the capital city of Palermo, the only remnant of the High Renaissance is a water fountain, brought from Florence when it was already 20 years old (Illustration 5). The restored Stoa of Attalus, Athens This article discusses architecture in Ancient Greece. ... A cathedral is a Christian church building, specifically of a denomination with an episcopal hierarchy, such as the Anglican, Roman Catholic and some Lutheran churches, which serves as the central church of a diocese, and thus as a bishops seat. ... A simple Greek key design A Greek Key is a repeating design element used in architecture, jewelry and fabrics. ... See also Gothic art. ... The Nave of Durham Cathedral demonstrates the characteristic round arched style, though use of shallow pointed arches above the nave anticipates the Gothic style. ... The Byzantine Empire is the term conventionally used to describe the Greek-speaking Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered at its capital in Constantinople. ... Interior of the Saint-Saturnin church St-Sernin basilica, Toulouse, 1080 – 1120: elevation of the east end Romanesque sculpture, cloister of St. ... By region Italian Renaissance Spanish Renaissance Northern Renaissance French Renaissance German Renaissance English Renaissance Renaissance Architecture: The cultural movement called the Renaissance (which literally means re-birth) was just that in architecture, a rebirth of the Roman traditions of design recognized by contemporaries in the term alllAntica, in the... Nickname: Palermu Motto: {{{motto}}} Official website: http://www. ...

Whatever the reason that Renaissance style never became popular in Sicily, it was certainly not ignorance. Antonello Gagini was midway through constructing the church of Santa Maria di Porto Salvo in 1536 in the Renaissance style when he died; he was superseded by the architect Antonio Scaglione, who completed the building in a Norman style. This style seems to have influenced Sicilian architecture almost up to the time of the 1693 earthquake. Even Mannerism passed the island by. Only in the architecture of Messina ^[2] could a Renaissance influence be discerned, partly for geographical reasons: within sight of mainland Italy, Messina was always more amenable to the prevailing tides of fashion there. 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. However, these influences remained largely confined to Messina and the surrounding district. It seems likely that it was always the patronage of the Roman Catholic church, removed from the influences of Roman fashion, that remained conservative in architectural taste. Antonello Gagini (1478-1536); was a Sicilian sculptor. ... Antonio Scaglione was a 16th century provincial Sicilian architect, he is best known for his work in the Gothic style, which he continued to promote long after Renaissance architecture had superseded it in popularity. ... Mannerism is the usual English term for an approach to all the arts, particularly painting but not exclusive to it, a reaction to the High Renaissance, emerging after the Sack of Rome in 1527 shook Renaissance confidence, humanism and rationality to their foundations, and even Religion had split apart. ... Messina, Italy Strait of Messina, Italy. ... The sculptor Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli (c. ... Tuscany (Italian Toscana) is a region in central Italy, bordering on Latium to the south, Umbria and Marche to the east, Emilia-Romagna and Liguria to the north, and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west. ...

This is not to say that Sicily was completely isolated from trends elsewhere in Europe. Architecture in the island's major cities was strongly influenced by the family of the sculptor Domenico Gagini, who arrived from Florence in 1463. This family of sculptors and painters decorated churches and buildings with ornate decorative and figurative sculpture. Less than a century after his family had begun to cautiously decorate the island's churches (1531–37), Antonio Gagini completed the proscenium-like arch of the "Capella della Madonna" in the "Santuario dell'Annunziata" at Trapani. This pedimented arch to the sanctuary has pilasters — not fluted, but decorated heavily with relief busts of the saints; and, most importantly in terms of architecture, the pediment is adorned by reclining saints supporting swags linked to the central shield that crowns the pediment. This ornate pediment, although still unbroken, was one of the first signs that Sicily was forming its own style of decorative architecture. Similar in style is the Chiesa del Gesù (Illustration 14), constructed between 1564 and 1633, which also shows early signs of the Sicilian Baroque. Domenico Gagini (1449-1492) was an Italian sculptor. ... Antonio Gagini (1504-153?) was a 16th century Italian sculptor. ... A proscenium theater is a theater space whose primary feature is a large archway (the proscenium arch) at or near the front of the stage, through which the audience views the play. ... Torre della Colombaia Trapani (2004 population 67,456) is a city in the west coast of Sicily region, Italy. ... In architecture, pilasters comprise slightly-projecting pseudo-columns built into or onto a wall, with capitals and bases. ... A groove is a slot cut into a hard material such as wood, stone, or metal, often to provide a location for another component. ... Bust of Richard Bently by Roubiliac A bust is a sculpture depicting a persons chest, shoulders, and head, usually supported by a stand. ... In general, the term Saint refers to someone who is exceptionally virtuous and holy. ... Garland is a decoration, used for Christmas, or other holidays, seasons, or special events. ... In heraldry, the shield is the principal portion of a heraldic achievement or coat of arms. ...

Illustration 6: Early Sicilian Baroque: Quattro Canti, Palermo, (circa 1610).

Thus a particular brand of Baroque architecture had begun to evolve in Sicily long before the earthquake of 1693. While the majority of those buildings that can be clearly classified as Baroque in style date from around 1650, the scarcity of these isolated, surviving examples of Sicily's 17th-century architectural history makes it hard to fully and accurately evaluate the architecture immediately before the natural disaster: the earthquake destroyed not only most of the buildings, but also most of their documentation. Yet more information has been lost in subsequent earthquakes and severe bombing during World War II. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (768x1024, 459 KB) Author : Urban Description : Quattro Canti, Palermo, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque Giulio Lasso ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (768x1024, 459 KB) Author : Urban Description : Quattro Canti, Palermo, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque Giulio Lasso ... Nickname: Palermu Motto: {{{motto}}} Official website: http://www. ... Combatants Allied Powers Axis Powers Commanders {{{commander1}}} {{{commander2}}} Strength {{{strength1}}} {{{strength2}}} Casualties 17 million military deaths 7 million military deaths World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a mid-20th century conflict that engulfed much of the globe and is accepted as the largest and deadliest...

The earliest example of Baroque on the island is Giulio Lasso's Quattro Canti, an octagonal piazza, or circus, constructed around 1610 at the crossroads of the city's two principal streets. Around this intersection are four open sides, being the streets, and four matching buildings with identical canted corners. The sides of the four buildings are curved, further heightening the Baroque design of the buildings lining the circus. These four great buildings dominating the circus are each enhanced by a fountain, reminiscent of those of Pope Sixtus V's "Quattro Fontane" in Rome. However, here in Palermo the Baroque theme continues up three storeys of the buildings, which are adorned with statues in recessed niches depicting the four seasons, the four Spanish kings of Sicily, and the four patronesses of Palermo: Saints Cristina, Ninfa, Olivia, and Agata. Early Sicilian Baroque: Quattro Canti, Palermo built circa 1610 Giulio Lasso (died 1617) Little is known of him other than he was a 17th century Florentine architect, best know for his work in Palermo, Sicily. ... One of the 8 semi-regular tessellations: octagons and squares An octagon is a polygon that has eight sides. ... A piazza is an open square in a city, often used as a marketplace, found in Italy. ... A crossroads (the word rarely appears in singular) is another word for road junction, where two or more roads meet (there are three or more arms). ... The word cant can mean more than one thing: Cant is insincere speech, similar to hypocrisy. ... Sixtus V, né Felice Peretti (December 13, 1521 - August 27, 1590) was pope from 1585 to 1590. ... The following is a list of monarchs of Naples and Sicily: See also: List of Counts of Apulia and Calabria Hauteville Counts of Sicily, 1071-1130 Roger I 1071-1101 Simon 1101-1105 Roger II 1105-1130 Hauteville Kings of Sicily, 1130-1198 Roger II 1130-1154 William I 1154... Saint Christina lived during the 3rd century or 5th century Her name day is July 24. ... Saint Ninfa was a virgin martyr of the 5th century, her name day is November 10 She is one of the four patron saints of Palermo in Sicily, the other three are Saint Agata, Saint Christina, and Saint Olivia. ... Saint Olivia, whose feast day is June 10, was the beautiful daughter of a noble Sicilian family. ... Saint Agatha (died AD 251) is a Christian saint. ...

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.^[3] Whatever its merit, it is evident that during the 17th century, the Baroque style in the hands of the local architects and sculptors was already deviating from that of mainland Italy. This localised variation on the mainstream Baroque was not peculiar to Sicily, but occurred as far afield as Bavaria, and Russia, where Naryshkin Baroque would be just as eccentric as its Sicilian cousin. The Free State of Bavaria  (German: Freistaat Bayern), with an area of 70,553 km² (27,241 square miles) and 12. ... The Assumption church in Pokrovka Street, Moscow (1696-99) Naryshkin Baroque, also called Moscow Baroque, or Muscovite Baroque, is the name given to a particular style of architecture and decoration which was fashionable in Moscow at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. ...

Sicilian Baroque from 1693

Earthquake and patrons

Illustration 7: Catania and the Palazzo Biscari, begun in 1702. Catania replaced Messina as Sicily's second city after the revolt of 1686.

The great Sicilian earthquake of 1693 severely damaged 54 cities and towns and 300 villages. The epicentre of the disaster was in Val di Noto, where the city of Noto was destroyed, while the city of Catania was very severely damaged. In total it is estimated over 100,000 people were killed. Other towns which suffered severely were Ragusa, Modica, Scicli, and Ispica. Rebuilding began almost immediately. Image File history File links Palazzo_Biscari. ... Image File history File links Palazzo_Biscari. ... Location within Italy Catania is the second largest city of Sicily with 306,464 inhabitants, has the second highest population density on the island and is the capital of the province which bears its name. ... Messina, Italy Strait of Messina, Italy. ... The epicenter is directly above the earthquakes focus. ... Val di Noto (English: Valley of Noto) is a geographical area of south east Sicily; it is dominated by the limestone Iblean plateau. ... Noto, a city of Sicily, in the province of Syracuse, and 20 miles southwest of it, 520 feet above sea-level. ... Location within Italy Catania is the second largest city of Sicily with 306,464 inhabitants, has the second highest population density on the island and is the capital of the province which bears its name. ... Ragusa is a city in southern Italy. ... The cathedral of San Giorgio, Modica Modica is a city in the Province of Ragusa, Sicily. ... Scicli is a city in the Province of Ragusa in the south east of Sicily. ... St. ...

The lavishness of the architecture that was to arise from this disaster is connected with the politics of Sicily at the time; Sicily was still officially under Spanish rule, but in truth the island was ruled by its native aristocracy. This was led by the Duke of Camastra, whom the Spanish had appointed viceroy to appease the aristocracy, who were numerous. It is estimated that there were more aristocrats per square metre than in any other state: in the 18th century, one estimate held that ^[4] 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. In addition to these were the younger scions of the families, with their courtesy titles of nobile or baron. Giuseppe Lanza, Duke of Camastra was 17th century, Sicilian nobleman who in his capacity as Viceroy of Sicily representing the Spanish rulers of Sicily oversaw the reconstruction of many Sicilian towns and cities following the earthquake of 1693. ... A viceroy is a royal official who governs a country or province as a substitute for the monarch. ... In Marxian political economics, the ruling class refers to that segment or class of society that has the most economic and political power. ... This article is on the car division of Toyota. ... Baron is a specific title of nobility or a more generic feudal qualification. ...

Architecture was not the only legacy of the Normans. Rule over the peasants (there was no established middle class) was also enforced by a feudal system, unchanged since its introduction following the Norman conquest of 1071. Thus the Sicilian aristocracy had not only wealth but vast manpower at their command, something that had by this time declined in many other parts of Europe. The Normans (adapted from the name Northmen or Norsemen) were a mixture of the indigenous Gauls of France and the Viking invaders under the leadership of Rollo (Gange Rolf). ... Feudalism comes from the Late Latin word feudum, itself borrowed from a Germanic root *fehu, a commonly used term in the Middle Ages which means fief, or land held under certain obligations by feodati. ... Events Byzantine Empire loses Battle of Manzikert to Turkish army under Alp Arslan. ...

The aristocracy shared their power only with the Roman Catholic Church. 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. Many priests and bishops were members of the aristocracy. The wealth of the Church in Sicily was further enhanced by the tradition of pressing younger children of the aristocracy to enter monasteries and convents, in order to preserve the family estates from division; a large fee, or dowry, was usually paid to the Church to facilitate this, in the form of property, jewels, or money. Thus the wealth of certain religious orders grew out of all proportion to the economic growth of any other group at this time. This is one of the reasons that so many of the Sicilian Baroque churches and monasteries, such as San Martino delle Scale, were rebuilt after 1693 on such a lavish scale. The Roman Catholic Church, (also known as the Catholic Church), is the ancient Christian Church led by the Bishop of Rome (commonly called the Pope). ... Artistic (i. ... A monastery is the habitation of monks, derived from the Greek word for a hermits cell. ... This article is about an abbey as a religious building. ... Estate: The term applies to land under ownership and as such is a generic term for a parcel of land held by an individual or family, common in early British Gentry. ... A dowry (also known as trousseau) is a gift of money or valuables given by the brides family to that of the groom to permit their marriage. ...

Once rebuilding began, the poor rebuilt their hovels in the same primitive fashion as before. By contrast, the wealthiest residents, both secular and spiritual, became caught in an almost manic orgy of building. Most members of the nobility had several homes in Sicily.^[5] For one thing, the Spanish viceroy spent six months of the year in Palermo and six in Catania, holding court in each city, and hence members of the aristocracy needed a town palazzo in each city. Once the palazzi in devastated Catania were rebuilt in the new fashion, the palazzi in Palermo seemed antiquated by comparison, so they too were eventually rebuilt. Following this, from the middle of the 18th century, villas to retire to in the autumn, essentially status symbols, were built at the fashionable enclave at Bagheria. This pattern was repeated, on a smaller scale, throughout the lesser cities of Sicily, each city providing a more entertaining social life and magnetic draw for the provincial aristocrat than their country estate. The country estate also did not escape the building mania. Often Baroque wings or new façades were added to ancient castles, or country villas were completely rebuilt. Thus the frenzy of building gained momentum until the increasingly fantastical Baroque architecture demanded by these hedonistic patrons reached its zenith in the mid-18th century. Location within Italy Catania is the second largest city of Sicily with 306,464 inhabitants, has the second highest population density on the island and is the capital of the province which bears its name. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Exclave. ... Bagheria is a town of approximately 40,000 inhabitants in the neighbourhood of Palermo in Sicily, Italy. ... The zenith, in astronomy, is the point in the sky which appears directly above the observer. ...

New cities

Illustration 8: Piazza del Duomo, Syracuse. Andrea Palma's Cathedral (Illustration below); the pillared cathedral is flanked by Baroque palazzi.

Following the quake a program of rebuilding was rapidly put into action, but before it began in earnest some important decisions would permanently differentiate many Sicilian cities and towns from other European urban developments. The Viceroy, the Duke of Camastra, aware of new trends in town planning, decreed that rather than rebuilding in the medieval plan of cramped narrow streets, the new rebuilding would offer piazze and wider main streets, often on a rational grid system. The whole plan was often to take a geometric shape such as a perfect square or a hexagon, typical of Baroque town planning. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x768, 337 KB) Author : Urban Description : Place de la cathédrale, Syracuse, Italy, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x768, 337 KB) Author : Urban Description : Place de la cathédrale, Syracuse, Italy, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque ... Map of central Mediterranean Sea, showing location of Syracuse on the island of Sicily. ... A cathedral is a Christian church building, specifically of a denomination with an episcopal hierarchy, such as the Anglican, Roman Catholic and some Lutheran churches, which serves as the central church of a diocese, and thus as a bishops seat. ... A piazza is an open square in a city, often used as a marketplace, found in Italy. ... A regular hexagon A hexagon is a polygon with six edges and six vertices. ...

This concept was still very new in the 1690s, and few new cities had reason to be built in Europe. The prototype may well have been the new city of Terra del Sole, constructed in 1564. Another of the first towns to be planned using symmetry and order rather than an evolution of small alleys and streets was Alessandria in southern Piedmont. A little later, from 1711, this Baroque form of planning was favoured in the Hispanic colonies of South America, especially by the Portuguese in Brazil. In other parts of Europe, local interests and opinions were too entrenched to permit radical replanning after disaster: in 1666, the City of London was all but destroyed by fire; the City itself was rebuilt on its ancient plan, though the new extensions to the west were partially on a grid system. In Sicily, public opinion (the public being anyone not a member of the ruling class) counted for nothing, and hence these seemingly revolutionary new concepts of town planning could be freely executed. Plan of Baldassarre Lancis new town at Terra del Sole. ... Alessandria is a strongly fortified and impressive town and capital of the Province of Alessandria. ... Piedmont (Italian: Piemonte) is a region of northwestern Italy. ... // Events February 24 - The London premiere of Rinaldo by George Friderich Handel, the first Italian opera written for the London stage. ... For London as a whole, see the main article London. ...

In Sicily, the decision was taken not just for fashion and appearance but also because it would minimise the damage to property and life likely to be caused in future quakes. In 1693, the cramped housing and streets had caused buildings to collapse together like dominoes (a hazard that was to remain in the still cramped and narrow areas housing the poor). Architecturally and aesthetically, the big advantage of the new order of town planning was that unlike many Italian towns and cities, where one frequently encounters a monumental Renaissance church squeezed terrace fashion between incongruous neighbours, in urban Baroque design one can step back and actually see the architecture in a more conducive setting in relation to its proportions and perspective. This is most notable in the largely rebuilt towns of Caltagirone, Militello Val di Catania, Catania, Modica, Noto, Palazzolo, Ragusa, and Scicli. Caltagirone is a city in Sicily. ... Location within Italy Catania is the second largest city of Sicily with 306,464 inhabitants, has the second highest population density on the island and is the capital of the province which bears its name. ... The cathedral of San Giorgio, Modica Modica is a city in the Province of Ragusa, Sicily. ... Noto, a city of Sicily, in the province of Syracuse, and 20 miles southwest of it, 520 feet above sea-level. ... Several villages of Italy bear the name Palazzolo: Palazzolo, in Firenze province Palazzolo, in Milano province Palazzolo, a frazione of Fossato di Vico in Perugia province Palazzolo, in Verona province. ... Ragusa is a city in southern Italy. ... Scicli is a city in the Province of Ragusa in the south east of Sicily. ...

One of the finest examples of this new urban planning can be seen at Noto (Illustration 9), the town rebuilt approximately 10 km from its original site on Mount Alveria. The old ruined town now known as "Noto Antica" can still be viewed in its ruinous state. The new site chosen was flatter than the old to better facilitate a linear grid-like plan. The principal streets run east to west so they would benefit from a better light and a sunnier disposition. This example of town planning is directly attributable to a learned local aristocrat, Giovanni Battista Landolina; helped by three local architects, he is credited with planning the new city himself. A kilometre (American spelling: kilometer), symbol: km is a unit of length in the metric system equal to 1000 metres (from the Greek words χίλια (khilia) = thousand and μέτρο (metro) = count/measure). ... Mount Alveria in the Province of Siracusa, south-eastern Sicily, is a mountain side which has been inhabited, since prehistoric times. ... Giovanni Battista Landolina, Marchese di S. Alfano was, was a Sicilian landowner and intellectual instrumental in having the city of Noto removed from its former site on Mount Alveria to a more level location following the earthquake centred on the Val di Noto in 1693. ...

Illustration 9: Via Nicolasi, Noto.

In these new towns, the aristocracy was allocated the higher areas, where the air was cooler and fresher and the views finest. The church was allocated the town centre (Illustration 8), for convenience to all, and to reflect the church's global and central position; round the pairing of cathedral and episcopal Palazzo Vescovile were built the convents. The merchants and storekeepers chose their lots on the planned wider streets leading from the main piazzas. Finally, the poor were allowed to erect their simple brick huts and houses in the areas nobody else wanted. Lawyers, doctors, and members of the few professions including the more skilled artisans - those who fell between the strictly defined upper and lower class - and were able to afford building plots, often lived on the periphery of the commercial and upper class residential sectors, but equally often these people just lived in a larger or grander house than their neighbours in the poorer areas. However many of the skilled artists working on the rebuilding lived as part of the extended households of their patrons. In this way Baroque town planning came to symbolize and reflect political authority, and later its style and philosophy spread to such far away places as Annapolis and Savannah in English America, and perhaps most notably Haussmann's 19th-century re-designing of Paris. The stage was now set for the explosion of Baroque architecture, which was to predominate in Sicily until the early 19th century. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1018x683, 199 KB) Author : Urban Description : Via Nicolasi in Noto, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1018x683, 199 KB) Author : Urban Description : Via Nicolasi in Noto, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque ... Noto, a city of Sicily, in the province of Syracuse, and 20 miles southwest of it, 520 feet above sea-level. ... A bishop is an ordained member of the Christian clergy who, in certain Christian churches, holds a position of authority. ... Motto: Nickname: Americas Sailing Capital , Naptown Founded Incorporated 1649 1708  County Anne Arundel County Borough {{{borough}}} Parrish {{{parrish}}} Mayor Ellen O. Moyer (Dem) Area  - Total  - Water 19. ... Nickname: The Coastal Empire or The Hostess City Motto: {{{motto}}} Official website: Savannah, Georgia Location Government County Chatham Mayor Otis S. Johnson Geographical characteristics Area 202. ... Georges-Eugène, Baron Haussmann (March 27, 1809 – January 11, 1891) was a French civic planner whose name is associated with the rebuilding of Paris. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) The 19th century lasted from 1801 to 1900 in the Gregorian calendar (using the Common Era system of year numbering). ... The Eiffel Tower has become a symbol of Paris throughout the world. ...

Later many other Sicilian towns and cities which had been either little damaged or completely untouched by the quake, such as Palermo, were also transformed by the Baroque style, as the fashion spread and aristocrats with a palazzo in Catania came to wish their palazzo in the capital to be as opulent as that in the second city. In Palermo the Church of Santa Caterina, began in 1566, was one of many in the city to be redecorated inside in the 18th century in the Baroque style, with coloured marbles. Marble For the glass spheres, see marbles. ...

New churches and palazzi

Illustration 10: The Cathedral of San Giorgio, Modica.

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".^[6] While this is an accurate description of a style which is almost a celebration of joie de vivre in stone, it is unlikely to be the reason for the choice. As with all architectural styles, the selection of style would have directly linked to current fashion. Versailles had been completed in 1688 in the Baroque style; Louis XIV's new palace was immediately emulated across Europe by any aristocrat or sovereign in Europe aspiring to wealth, taste, or power. Thus it was the obvious choice for the "homeless rich" of Sicily, of whom there were hundreds. The excesses of the Baroque style palazzi and country villas to be constructed in Sicily, however, were soon to make Versailles seem a model of restraint. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (768x1024, 323 KB) Author : Urban Description : Duomo San Giorgio, Modica, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque Modica ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (768x1024, 323 KB) Author : Urban Description : Duomo San Giorgio, Modica, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque Modica ... The cathedral of San Giorgio, Modica Modica is a city in the Province of Ragusa, Sicily. ... Versailles: Louis Le Vau opened up the interior court to create the expansive entrance cour dhonneur, later copied all over Europe Monument of Louis XIV in the cour dhonneur The Château de Versailles —or simply Versailles— is a royal château, outside the gates of which the... For the musical group of the same name, see Louis XIV (band). ...

As the 18th century dawned, Sicilian architects were employed to create the new palazzi and churches. 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. Their work inspired less-travelled Sicilian designers. Very importantly, these architects were also assisted by the books of engravings by Domenico de' Rossi, who for the first time wrote down text with his engravings, giving the precise dimensions and measurements of many of the principal Renaissance and Baroque façades in Rome. In this way, the Renaissance finally came late to Sicily by proxy. Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. ... Domenico deRossi (1657 - 1737) was a Venetian architect. ...

At this stage of its development, Sicilian Baroque still lacked the freedom of style that it was later to acquire. Giovanni Battista Vaccarini was the leading Sicilian architect during this period. He arrived on the island in 1730 bringing with him a fusion of the concepts of Bernini and Borromini, and introduced to the island's architecture a unified movement and a play of curves, which would have been unacceptable in Rome itself. However, his works are considered of lesser quality than that which was to come.^[7] Notable works which date from this period are the 18th century wings of the Palazzo Biscari at Catania; and Vaccarini's church of Santa Agata, also in Catania. On this building Vaccarini quite clearly copied the capitals from Guarino Guarini's Architettura Civile. It is this frequent copying of established designs that causes the architecture from this period, while opulent, also to be disciplined and almost reined in. Vaccarini's style was to dominate Catania for the next decades. Giovanni Battista Vaccarini was born in Palermo in 1702, he did in 1768 He was a Sicilian architect, notable for his work in the Baroque style in his homeland during the period of massive rebuilding following the earthquake of 1693. ... A self portrait: Bernini is said to have used his own features in the David (below, left) Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini) (December 7, 1598, Naples – November 28, 1680, Rome) was a towering baroque artist in 17th century Baroque Rome, where he is known mainly for his often... Francesco Borromini (Bissone near Lugano, Switzerland, September 25, 1599 – August 3, 1667 in Rome) was a Baroque architect, and active in Rome alongside the more prolific papal architect, Gian Lorenzo Bernini. ... A capital of the Composite order In Western architecture, the capital (from the Latin caput, head) forms the crowning member of the column, which projects on each side as it rises, in order to support the abacus and unite the square form of the latter with the circular shaft. ... Camillo-Guarino Guarini (1624 - 1683) was a Theatine priest, mathematician, writer and architect. ...

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. The Cathedral of San Giorgio at Modica (Illustration 10) is an example. It was badly damaged in the earthquake of 1613, rebuilt in 1643 in a Baroque style while keeping the medieval layout, then damaged again in 1693. Rebuilding again began in 1702, by an unknown architect. Finally, Rosario Gagliardi oversaw the façade's completion in 1760,^[8] but the compromises he had to make in deference to the existing structure are obvious. While Gagliardi used the same formulae he used so successfully at the church of San Giorgio in Ragusa, here in Modica the building is heavier, and lacks his usual lightness of touch and freedom of design. The cathedral of San Giorgio, Modica Modica is a city in the Province of Ragusa, Sicily. ... Church of San Giorgio, Ragusa. ...

There were also at this time other influences at work. Between 1718 and 1734 Sicily was ruled personally by Charles VI from Vienna, and as a result close ties with Austrian architecture can be perceived. Several buildings on the island are shameless imitations of the works of Fischer von Erlach.^[9] One Sicilian architect, Tomasso Napoli, a monk, visited Vienna twice early in the century, returning with a store of engraving and drawings. He was later the architect of two country villas of the early Sicilian Baroque period, remarkable for their concave and convex walls and the complex design of their external staircases. One villa, his Villa Palagonia begun in 1705, is the most complex and ingenious of all constructed in Sicily's Baroque era; its double staircase of straight flights, frequently changing direction, was to be the prototype of a distinguishing feature of Sicilian Baroque. Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI Charles VI of Austria (October 1, 1685 – October 20, 1740) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1711 to 1740 and the second son of Leopold I with his third wife, Eleonore-Magdalena of Pfalz-Neuburg, came first to the throne with the name Charles III of... Vienna (German: Wien [viːn]; Slovenian: Dunaj, Hungarian: Bécs, Czech: Vídeň, Slovak: Viedeň, Romany Vidnya; Croatian and Serbian: Beč) is the capital of Austria, and also one of Austrias nine states (Land Wien). ... Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (1656- 5 April 1723) was an Austrian architect in the Baroque period. ... Tomasso Maria Napoli was an early 18th century Dominican order monk who published an architectural treatise on perspective. ... A Roman Catholic monk A monk is a person who practices monasticism, adopting a strict religious and ascetic lifestyle, usually in community with others following the same path. ...

Later, a new wave of architects, who would master the Baroque sentiments, aware of Rococo interior styles beginning elsewhere to gain an ascendancy over Baroque, would go on to develop the flamboyance, freedom, and movement that are synonymous with the term Sicilian Baroque today. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

High Sicilian Baroque

Illustration 11: Duomo in Syracuse, Andrea Palma's cathedral façade (begun in 1728). Based on the formula of a Roman triumphal arch, the broken masses within a columned façade create a theatrical effect.

Around 1730, the Baroque style gradually began to break away from the defined Roman style of Baroque and gain an even stronger individuality, for two reasons: the rush to rebuild was subsiding, construction was becoming more leisurely and thoughtful; and a new clutch of home-grown Sicilian architects came to the forefront. This new generation had watched the rebuilding in the Baroque, and studied the ever more frequent engravings and architectural books and treatises arriving from the mainland. However, they were not like their predecessors (the former students of the Romans), and consequently were able to formulate strong individual styles of their own. They included Andrea Palma, Rosario Gagliardi and Tomasso Napoli. While taking account of the Baroque of Naples and Rome, they now adapted their designs for the local needs and traditions. Their use of resources and exploitation of the sites was often wildly inventive. Napoli and then Vaccarini had promoted the use of the external staircase, which was now taken to a new dimension: churches upon the summits of a hills would be reached by fantastical flights of steps evoking Vaccarini's mentor Francesco De Sanctis's Spanish Steps in Rome. Image File history File links Cathedral in Syracuse, Italy. ... Image File history File links Cathedral in Syracuse, Italy. ... Map of central Mediterranean Sea, showing location of Syracuse on the island of Sicily. ... Cathedral in Syracuse Andrea Palmas cathedral facade (begun in 1728). ... Arc de Triomphe, Paris The Gateway of India, Mumbai, India A triumphal arch is a structure in the shape of a monumental archway, usually built to celebrate a victory in war. ... Cathedral in Syracuse Andrea Palmas cathedral facade (begun in 1728). ... Church of San Giorgio, Ragusa. ... Tomasso Maria Napoli was an early 18th century Dominican order monk who published an architectural treatise on perspective. ... The Spanish Steps in Rome Piazza di Spagna The Spanish Steps (Scalinata di Spagna) in Rome ramp a steep slope between the Piazza di Spagna at the base and the church Trinità dei Monti above. ...

Façades of churches often came to resemble wedding cakes rather than places of worship as the architects grew in confidence, competence, and stature. Church interiors, which until this date had been slightly pedestrian, came especially in Palermo to be decorated in a riot of inlaid marbles of a wide variety of colours. Professor 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". This is the key to Sicilian Baroque; it was ideally matched to the Sicilian personality, and this was the reason it evolved so dramatically on the island. Nowhere in Sicily is the development of the new Baroque style more evident than in Ragusa and Catania. American newlyweds perform the ritual of cutting the wedding cake together. ... Ragusa is a city in southern Italy. ... Location within Italy Catania is the second largest city of Sicily with 306,464 inhabitants, has the second highest population density on the island and is the capital of the province which bears its name. ...

Ragusa

Ragusa was very badly damaged in 1693. The town is in two halves, divided by a deep ravine known as the "Valle dei Ponti": the older town of Ragusa Ibla, and the higher Ragusa Superiore. Ragusa is a city in southern Italy. ...

Ragusa Ibla, the lower city, boasts an impressive array of Baroque architecture, which includes the Church of San Giorgio by Rosario Gagliardi, designed in 1738 (Illustration 12). In the design of this church Gagliardi exploited the difficult terrain of the hillside site. The church towers impressively over a massive marble staircase of some 250 steps, a Baroque feature, especially exploited in Sicily due to the island's topography. The tower seems to explode from the façade, accentuated by the columns and pilasters canted against the curved walls. Above the doorways and window apertures, pediments scroll and curve with a sense of freedom and movement which would have been unthinkable to those earlier architects inspired by Bernini and Borromini. The neoclassical dome was not added until 1820. Church of San Giorgio, Ragusa. ... Surface of the Earth Topography, a term in geography, has come to refer to the lay of the land, or the physiogeographic characteristics of land in terms of elevation, slope, and orientation. ... A self portrait: Bernini is said to have used his own features in the David (below, left) Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini) (December 7, 1598, Naples – November 28, 1680, Rome) was a towering baroque artist in 17th century Baroque Rome, where he is known mainly for his often... Francesco Borromini (Bissone near Lugano, Switzerland, September 25, 1599 – August 3, 1667 in Rome) was a Baroque architect, and active in Rome alongside the more prolific papal architect, Gian Lorenzo Bernini. ...

Illustration 12: Rosario Gagliardi's Church of San Giorgio, Ragusa.

In an alley connecting Ragusa Ibla with Ragusa Superiore is the church of Santa Maria delle Scale. This church is interesting, though badly damaged in the earthquake. Only half the church was rebuilt in Baroque style, while the surviving half was kept in the original Norman (with Gothic features), thus demonstrating in one piece the evolution of Sicilian Baroque. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (453x677, 89 KB)View of San Giorgio Cathedral (Duomo) in Ragusa Ibla, Italy. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (453x677, 89 KB)View of San Giorgio Cathedral (Duomo) in Ragusa Ibla, Italy. ... Church of San Giorgio, Ragusa. ... Ragusa is a city in southern Italy. ...

The Palazzo Zacco is one of the more notable Baroque buildings of the city, its Corinthian columns supporting balconies of amazing wrought iron work, while supports of grotesques mock, shock or amuse the passerby. The palazzo was built in the second half of the 18th century by the Baron Melfi di San Antonio. It was later acquired by the Zacco family, after which it is named. The building has two street façades, each with six wide balconies bearing the coat of arms of the Melfi family, a frame of acanthus leaves from which a puttino leans. The balconies, a feature of the palazzo, are notable for the differing corbels which support them, ranging from putti to musicians and grotesques. The focal points of the principal façade are the three central balconies, divided by columns with Corinthian capitals. Here the balconies are supported by images of musicians with grotesque faces. Palazzo Zacco is a mansion in Ragusa, Sicily. ... Roman pillar In architecture and structural engineering, a column is that part of a structure whose purpose is to transmit through compression the weight of the structure. ... A balcony comprising a balustrade supported at either end by plinths. ... When commonly used, grotesque means strange, fantastic, ugly or bizarre, and thus is often used to describe shapes and distorted forms such as Halloween masks or gargoyles on churches. ... The Zacco family originated from Spain, where they are first recorded in when Stefano Zacco was a councillor of King Alfonso II of Aragon in the 12th century. ... The acanthus is an ornament in the capitals of the Corinthian and Composite orders that depicts or resembles foliage of the acanthus plant. ... In Medieval architecture a corbel or console names a piece of stone jutting out of a wall to carry any superincumbent weight. ... The putto is a figure of a pudgy baby, almost always male, often naked and having wings, found especially in Italian Renaissance art. ... A capital of the Composite order In Western architecture, the capital (from the Latin caput, head) forms the crowning member of the column, which projects on each side as it rises, in order to support the abacus and unite the square form of the latter with the circular shaft. ...

The Cathedral of San Giovanni Battista in Ragusa Superiore was built between 1718 and 1778. Its principal façade is pure Baroque, containing fine carvings and sculptures. The cathedral has a high Sicilian belfry in the same style. The ornate Baroque interior is separated into three colonnaded aisles (Illustration 3). Ragusa Superiore, the most badly damaged part of the town, 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. This very Portuguese style, probably designed to minimise damage in future earthquakes, is very different to the palazzi in Ragusa Ibla, which are in true Sicilian style. Unusually, Baroque lingered on here until the early 19th century. The last palazzo built here was in the Baroque form but with columns of Roman Doric and neoclassical balconies. In classical architecture, a colonnade denotes a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, as in the famous elliptically curving colonnades that Bernini added to the facade of Saint Peters Basilica in Rome, which embrace and define the Piazza. ... The uncompleted Doric temple at Segesta, Sicily, has been waiting for finishing of its surfaces since 430 - 420 BC The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of Ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. ...

Catania

Illustration 13: Catania duomo. Giovanni Battista Vaccarini's principal façade of 1736 shows Spanish architectural influences.

Sicily's second city, Catania, was the most damaged of all the larger cities in 1693, with only the medieval Castello Ursino and three tribunes of the cathedral remaining. Thus it was replanned and rebuilt. The new design separated the city into quarters, divided by two roads meeting at an intersection known as the Piazza dell Duomo (Cathedral Square). Rebuilding was supervised by the Bishop of Catania, and the city's only surviving architect, Alonzo di Benedetto. Benedetto headed a team of junior architects called in from Messina, which quickly began to rebuild, concentrating first on the Piazza dell Duomo. Three palazzi are situated here, the Bishop's Palace, the Seminario and one other. The architects worked in complete harmony and it is impossible to distinguish Benedetto's work from that of his junior colleagues. The work is competent but not remarkable, with decorated rustication in the 17th-century Sicilian style, but often the decoration on the upper floors is superficial. This is typical of the Baroque of this period immediately after the earthquake. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x768, 376 KB) Author : Urban Description : Duomo (cathédrale), Catane, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Catania Sicilian Baroque ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x768, 376 KB) Author : Urban Description : Duomo (cathédrale), Catane, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Catania Sicilian Baroque ... Location within Italy Catania is the second largest city of Sicily with 306,464 inhabitants, has the second highest population density on the island and is the capital of the province which bears its name. ... Duomo is a generic Italian term for a cathedral church. ... Giovanni Battista Vaccarini was born in Palermo in 1702, he did in 1768 He was a Sicilian architect, notable for his work in the Baroque style in his homeland during the period of massive rebuilding following the earthquake of 1693. ... Castello Ursino is a once impregnable 13th century castle in Catania, Sicily. ... Interior of the Hagia Sophia. ... A seminary is a specialized university-like institution for the purpose of instructing students in religion, often in order to prepare them to become members of the clergy. ...

In 1730, Vaccarini arrived in Catania as the appointed city architect and immediately impressed on the architecture the Roman Baroque style. The pilasters lose their rustication and support Roman type cornices and entablatures, or curved pediments, and free-standing columns support balconies. Vaccarini also exploited the local black lava stone as a decorative feature rather than a general building material, using it intermittently with other materials, and spectacularly for an obelisk supported on the back of the Catanian heraldic elephant, for a fountain in the style of Bernini in front of the new Town hall. Vaccarini's principal façade to Catania's cathedral, dedicated to Santa Agata, shows strong Spanish influences even at this late stage of Sicilian Baroque. Also in the city is Stefano Ittar's Church of the Collegiata, built around 1768. It is an example of Sicilian Baroque at its most stylistically simple. The Luxor obelisk in the Place de la Concorde in Paris An obelisk is a tall, thin, four-sided, tapering monument which ends in a pyramidal top. ... Heraldry is the science and art of describing coats-of-arms (also referred to as armorial bearings or simply as arms). Its origins lie in the need to distinguish participants in battles or jousts and to describe the various devices they carried or painted on their shields. ... Sicilian Baroque. ...

Interiors

Illustration 14: La chiesa del Gesù, Palermo (1564–1633), with abundant use of polychrome marble on the floor and walls.

Sicilian church exteriors had been decorated in elaborate styles from the first quarter of the 17th century, with profuse use of sculpture, stucco, frescoes, and marble (Illustration 14). As the post-earthquake churches were becoming completed in the late 1720s, interiors also began to reflect this external decoration, becoming lighter and less intense (compare illustration 14 to the later interior of illustration 15), with profuse sculpted ornamentation of pillars, cornices, and pediments, often in the form of putti, flora, and fauna. Inlaid coloured marbles on floors and walls in complex patterns are one of the most defining features of the style. These patterns with their roundels of porphyry are often derived from designs found in the Norman cathedrals of Europe, again demonstrating the Norman origins of Sicilian architecture. The high altar is usually the pièce de resistance: in many instances a single block of coloured marble, decorated with gilt scrolls and swags, and frequently inset with other stones such as lapis lazuli and agate. Steps leading to the altar dais are characteristically curving between concave and convex and in many cases decorated with inlaid coloured marbles. One of the finest examples of this is in the church of St Zita in Palermo. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1200x1600, 692 KB) Beskrivelse 2005, Niels Elgaard Larsen Gesu church, Palermo. ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1200x1600, 692 KB) Beskrivelse 2005, Niels Elgaard Larsen Gesu church, Palermo. ... Polychrome is one of the terms used to describe the use of multiple colors in one entity. ... Marble For the glass spheres, see marbles. ... A sculpture is a three-dimensional, man-made object selected for special recognition as art. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Fresco by Dionisius representing Saint Nicholas. ... (For other meanings of Porphyr, see Porphyry) Porphyry is a very hard igneous rock consisting of large-grained crystals, such as feldspar or quartz, dispersed in a fine-grained feldspathic matrix or groundmass. ... A block of lapis lazuli Lapis lazuli is one of the oldest of all gems, with a history of use stretching back 7,000 years. ... Agate is a term applied not to a distinct mineral species, but to an aggregate of various forms of silica, chiefly chalcedony. ... Dais (French dais, estrade, Italian predella), originally a part of the floor at the end of a medieval hall, raised a step above the rest of the building. ...

The building of Sicily's churches would typically be funded not just by individual religious orders but also by an aristocratic family. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of Sicily's nobility did not choose to have their mortal remains displayed for eternity in the Capuchin catacombs of Palermo, but were buried quite conventionally in vaults beneath their family churches. It has been said, though, that "the funeral of a Sicilian aristocrat was one of the great moments of his life".^[10] 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 in any specific year. For instance, those from the first half of the 17th century are of simple white marble decorated with an incised armorial bearing, name, date, etc. From circa 1650, small quantities of coloured marble inlay appear, forming patterns, and this can be watched growing until, by the end of the century, the coats of arms and calligraphy are entirely of inset coloured marble, with decorative patterned borders. Long after Baroque began to fall from fashion in the 1780s, Baroque decor was still deemed more suitable for Catholic ritual than was the new pagan-based neoclassicism. The Capuchin catacombs of Palermo are burial catacombs in Palermo, Sicily. ... In architecture, a vault is an arched structure of masonry, forming a ceiling or canopy. ... Underwater funeral in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea A funeral is a ceremony marking a persons death. ... A modern coat of arms is derived from the medi val practice of painting designs onto the shield and outer clothing of knights to enable them to be identified in battle, and later in tournaments. ...

Illustration 15: Church of San Benedetto, Catania, with frescoes by Giovanni Tuccari.

Illustration 16: The nun's choir in the Church of San Benedetto, Catania.

The Church of St Benedetto in Catania (Illustrations 15 and 16) is a fine example of a Sicilian Baroque interior, decorated between 1726 and 1762, the period when Sicilian Baroque was at the height of its fashion and individuality. The ceilings were frescoed by the artist Giovanni Tuccari. The most spectacular part of the church's decoration is the nun's choir (Illustrations 16), created circa 1750, which was designed in such a way that the nuns' voices could be heard during services, but the nuns themselves were still quite separate from and unseen by the less spiritual world outside. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (752x943, 307 KB) Author : Urban Description : Chiesa San Benedetto, Catane, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (752x943, 307 KB) Author : Urban Description : Chiesa San Benedetto, Catane, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque ... Location within Italy Catania is the second largest city of Sicily with 306,464 inhabitants, has the second highest population density on the island and is the capital of the province which bears its name. ... Fresco by Dionisius representing Saint Nicholas. ... Giovanni Tuccari was an 18th century Sicilian artist, of paintings and frescos during the Sicilian Baroque era. ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (768x1024, 280 KB) Author : Urban Description : Chiesa San Benedetto, Catane, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (768x1024, 280 KB) Author : Urban Description : Chiesa San Benedetto, Catane, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque ... Nun in cloister, 1930; photograph by Doris Ulmann In general, a nun is a female ascetic who chooses to voluntarily leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent. ... A choir or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. ... Giovanni Tuccari was an 18th century Sicilian artist, of paintings and frescos during the Sicilian Baroque era. ...

With only a few notable exceptions, the interiors of the palazzi were from the start less elaborate than those of Sicily's Baroque churches. Many were built without ornate Baroque interior decoration, simply because they took so long to build; by the time they were completed Baroque had passed from fashion, and the principal rooms were decorated in the new neoclassical style known as "Pompeian". Often one can find a fusion of the two styles, as in the ballroom wing of the Palazzo Aiutamicristo in Palermo, built by Andrea Giganti in 1763, where the ballroom ceiling was frescoed by Giuseppe Cristadoro with allegorical scenes framed by Baroque gilded motifs in plaster; this ceiling was already old-fashioned when it was finished, and the rest of the room was decorated in a far simpler mode. Changing use over the past 250 years has simplified palazzo decor further, as the ground floors are now usually shops, banks, or restaurants, and the upper floors divided into apartments, their interiors lost. Pompeii is a ruined Roman city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania. ... A ballroom is a large room inside a building, the designated puprose of which is holding dances (balls). ... Andrea Giganti (1731 - 1787) was a Sicilian architect of the the Sicilian Baroque era. ... An allegory (from Greek αλλος, allos, other, and αγορευειν, agoreuein, to speak in public) is a figurative mode of representation conveying a meaning other than and in addition to the literal. ... To cover something in a thin layer of gold or a material that looks like gold. ... This article is about the building material. ...

A third reason for the absence of Baroque decoration, and the most common, is that most rooms were never intended for such decoration. Many of the palazzi were vast, meant for huge numbers of people. The household of the 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. There were also paid employees, often including a private chaplain or confessor, a major domo, governesses, secretary, archivist, accountant, librarian, and innumerable lower servants, plus a porter who rang a bell for a prescribed number of times according to the rank of an approaching guest. Often the servants' extended families, especially if elderly, also lived in the palazzo. Thus many rooms were necessary to house the household. These everyday living quarters, even for the "Maestro and Maestra di Casa", were often simply decorated and furnished. Further rooms were required by the Sicilian tradition that it was a sign of poor breeding to permit even mere acquaintances to stay in local inns. Any visiting foreigner, especially an Englishman, was regarded as a special trophy and added social prestige. Hence the Sicilian aristocrat's home was seldom empty or quiet. A majordomo is the head (major) person of a domestic staff (domo), one who acts on behalf of a usually absent owner of a typically large residence. ...

Illustration 17: The ballroom at the Palazzo Gangi, Palermo

The finest and most decorated rooms were those on the piano nobile, reserved for guests and entertaining. Entered formally from the external Baroque double staircase, these rooms consisted of a suite of large and small salons, with one very large salon being the principal room of the house, often used as a ballroom. Sometimes the guest bedrooms were sited here too, but by the end of the 18th century they were more often on a secondary floor above. If decorated during the Baroque era, the rooms would be profusely ornamented. Walls were frequently mirrored, the mirrors inset into gilded frames in the walls, often alternating with paintings similarly framed, while moulded nymphs and shepherdesses decorated the spaces between. Ceilings were high and frescoed, and from the ceiling hung huge coloured chandeliers of Murano glass, while further light came from gilded sconces flanking the mirrors adorning the walls. One of the most notable rooms in this style is the Gallery of Mirrors in Palermo's Palazzo Gangi (Illustration 17). This room^[11] with its frescoed ceiling by Gaspare Fumagalli is however one of the few Baroque rooms in this Baroque palazzo, which was (from 1750) extended and transformed by its owner Marianna Valguarnera, mostly in the later neoclassical style. Image File history File links Palazzo_Gangi. ... Image File history File links Palazzo_Gangi. ... Nickname: Palermu Motto: {{{motto}}} Official website: http://www. ... Kedleston Hall. ... Salon may refer to: a room in a house used for receiving guests. ... Hylas and the Nymphs by John William Waterhouse In Greek mythology, a nymph is any member of a large class of female nature entities, sometimes bound to a particular location or landform. ... In a draw in a mountainous region, a shepherd guides a flock of about 20 sheep amidst scrub and olive trees. ... Fresco by Dionisius representing Saint Nicholas. ... A chandelier in the U.S. vice presidents ceremonial office in the White House A chandelier is a ceiling-mounted fixture with two or more arms bearing lights. ... A shop with boats, Murano Murano is usually described as an island in the Venetian Lagoon, although like Venice itself it is actually an archipelago of islands linked by bridges. ... Sconce on the Medici palace, Florence, Italy. ...

Furniture during the Baroque era was in keeping with the style: ornate, gilded and frequently with marble used for tabletops. The furniture was transient within the house, frequently moved between rooms as required, while leaving other rooms unfurnished. Sometimes furniture was specifically commissioned for a certain room, for example to match a silk wall panel within a gilt frame. The furniture would always be arranged against a wall, never in the later conversational style in the centre of a room, which in the Baroque era was always left empty so as better to display the marble, or more often ceramic, patterned floor tiles. Silk weaver Silk is a natural protein fibre that can be woven into textiles. ...

The common element to both church and palazzi interior design was the stucco work. Stucco is an important component of the Baroque design and philosophy, as it seamlessly combines architecture, sculpture, and painting in three-dimensional form. Its combination with trompe l'oeil ceilings and walls in Baroque illusionistic painting confuses reality and art. While in churches the stucco could represent angels and putti linked by swags of flowers, in a private house it might represent the owner's favourite foods or musical instruments. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Trompe-lœil mural on building in Narbonne, France. ... The complex and ambitious Italian tradition of illusionistic painting applied the Renaissance confidence in handling perspective to projects for ceilings and overcame the problems of applying linear perspective to the concave surfaces of domes in order to dissolve the architecture and create illusions of limitless space. ...

Final period

Illustration 18: Palazzo Beneventano del Bosco, Syracuse, designed by Luciano Alì between 1779–88 in restrained late Sicilian Baroque. The wrought iron balconies and sweeping curves, however, keep the approaching neoclassicism at bay.

As with all architectural styles, people eventually tired of Baroque. In some parts of Europe, it metamorphosed into the rococo, but not in Sicily. No longer ruled by Austria, Sicily, from 1735 officially the Kingdom of Sicily, was ruled by the King of Naples, Ferdinand IV. Hence Palermo was in constant association with the principal capital Naples, where there was architecturally a growing reversion to the more classical styles of architecture. Coupled with this, many of the more cultured Sicilian nobility developed a fashionable obsession with all things French, from philosophy to arts, fashion, and architecture. Many of them visited Paris in pursuit of these interests and returned with the latest architectural engravings and theoretical treatises. The French architect Léon Dufourny was in Sicily between 1787 and 1794 to study and analyse the ancient Greek temples on the island. Thus Sicilians rediscovered their ancient past, which with its classical idioms was now the height of fashion. The change in tastes did not come about overnight. Baroque remained popular on the island, but now Sicilian balconies, extravagant as ever, would be placed next to severe classical columns. Dufourney began designing in Palermo, and his "Entrance Temple" (1789) to the Botanical Gardens was the first building in Sicily in a style based on the Greek Doric order. It is pure neoclassical architecture, as established in England since 1760, and it was a sign of things to come. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (768x1024, 473 KB) Author : Urban Description : Palazzio Beneventano Del Bosco, Syracuse, Italy, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (768x1024, 473 KB) Author : Urban Description : Palazzio Beneventano Del Bosco, Syracuse, Italy, Sicilia Body : Canon Powershot A80 Date : August, 2005 File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque ... Map of central Mediterranean Sea, showing location of Syracuse on the island of Sicily. ... A wrought iron railing in Troy, New York. ... Neoclassicism (sometimes rendered as Neo-Classicism or Neo-classicism) is the name given to quite distinct movements in the visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The following is a list of monarchs of Naples and Sicily: See also: List of Counts of Apulia and Calabria Hauteville Counts of Sicily, 1071-1130 Roger I 1071-1101 Simon 1101-1105 Roger II 1105-1130 Hauteville Kings of Sicily, 1130-1198 Roger II 1130-1154 William I 1154... The following is a list of monarchs of Naples and Sicily: See also: List of Counts of Apulia and Calabria Hauteville Counts of Sicily, 1071-1130 Roger I 1071-1101 Simon 1101-1105 Roger II 1105-1130 Hauteville Kings of Sicily, 1130-1198 Roger II 1130-1154 William I 1154... King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies (January 12, 1751 - January 4, 1825). ... Naples (Italian Napoli, Neapolitan Napule, from Greek Νέα Πόλις - Néa Pólis - meaning New City; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is the largest city in southern Italy and capital of Campania Region and the Province of Naples. ... The Greeks began to build monumental temples in the first half of the eighth century BC. The temples of Hera at Samos and of Poseidon at Isthmia were among the first erected. ...

It was Dufourny's great friend and fellow architect Giuseppe Marvuglia who was to preside over the gradual decline of Sicilian Baroque. In 1784 he designed the Palazzo Riso-Belmonte,^[12] the finest example of this period of architectural transition, combining both Baroque and Palladian motifs, built around an arcaded courtyard providing Baroque masses of light and shade, or chiaroscuro. The main façade, punctuated by giant pilasters, also had Baroque features, but the skyline was unbroken. The pilasters were undecorated, simple, and Ionic, and supported an undecorated entablature. Above the windows were classical unbroken pediments. Sicilian Baroque was waning. Giuseppe Venanzio Marvuglia (Palermo, 1729 – Palermo, 1814) He received received his first architectural training in his native Palermo. ... A villa with a superimposed portico, from Book IV of Palladios I Quattro Libri dellArchitettura, in a modestly priced English translation published in London, 1736. ... Sacred Love versus Profane Love by Giovanni Baglione. ... In architecture, pilasters comprise slightly-projecting pseudo-columns built into or onto a wall, with capitals and bases. ... Architects first real look at the Greek Ionic order: Julien David LeRoy, Les ruines plus beaux des monuments de la Grèce Paris, 1758 (Plate XX) The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and... An entablature is a classical architectural element, the superstructure which lies horizontally above the columns, resting on their capitals. ... A pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of a triangular section or gable found above the horizontal superstructure (entablature) which lies immediately upon the columns. ...

Another reason for the gradual decline in the development of Sicily's Baroque and building in general was that the money was running out. During the 17th century, the aristocracy had lived principally on their landed estates, tending and improving them, and as a result their income also. During the 18th century, the nobility gradually migrated towards the cities, in particular Palermo, to enjoy the social delights of the Viceroy's court and Catania. Their town palazzi grew in size and splendour, to the detriment of the abandoned estates, which were still expected to provide the revenue. The land agents left to run the estates over time became less efficient, or corrupt, often both. Consequently, aristocratic incomes fell. The aristocracy borrowed money using the estates as surety, until the value of the neglected estates fell below the money borrowed against them. Moreover, Sicily was by now as unstable politically as its nobility were financially. Ruled from Naples by the weak Ferdinand IV and his dominant wife, Sicily had declined to the point of no return long before 1798 and again in 1806 when the King was forced by the invading French to flee Naples to Sicily. The French were kept at bay from Sicily only by an expeditionary force of 17,000 British troops, and Sicily was now ruled by Britain in effect if not in name. King Ferdinand then in 1811 imposed the first taxes, at a single stroke alienating his aristocracy. A surety is a person who agrees to be responsible for the debt or obligation of another. ... King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies (January 12, 1751 - January 4, 1825). ... The British Army is the land armed forces branch of the British Armed Forces. ... A tax is a compulsory charge or other levy imposed on an individual or a legal entity by a state or a functional equivalent of a state (e. ...

The tax was rescinded by the British in 1812, who then imposed a British style constitution on the island. One legal innovation of this time of particular consequence for the aristocracy was that creditors, who had previously only been able to enforce repayments of the interest on a loan or mortgage, could now seize property. Property began to change hands in smaller parcels at auctions, and consequently a land-owning bourgeoisie immediately began to flourish. Revolts against the Bourbons in 1821, and 1848 divided the nobility, and liberalism was in the air. These factors coupled with the social and political upheaval of the following Risorgimento in the 19th century meant the Sicilian aristocracy was a doomed class. Furthermore, because of their neglect and dereliction of noblesse oblige, an essential element of the feudal system, the countryside was often ruled by bandits, and the once grand country villas were decaying. The building mania of the Sicilian upper class was over. A creditor is a party (e. ... A loan is a type of debt. ... A mortgage is a method of using property as security for the payment of a debt. ... An auctioneer and her assistants scan the crowd for bidders An auction is the process of buying and selling things by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder. ... Bourgeoisie (RP [], GA []) in modern use refers to the wealthy or propertied social class in a capitalist society. ... The House of Bourbon is an important European royal house. ... Italian unification, also known as Risorgimento (resurrection), was a historical process by which the Kingdom of Sardinia (ruled by the Savoy dynasty with Turin as its capital) gradually conquered the Italian peninsula, including the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the Duchy of Modena, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchy... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... In French, noblesse oblige means, literally, nobility obliges. ...

Illustration 19: Palazzo Ducezio, Noto, by Vincenzo Sinatra, with Baroque on the ground floor, neoclassical above.

However, the British influence in Sicily was to provide Sicilian Baroque with one last flourish. Marvuglia, recognising the new fashion for all things British, developed the style he had first cautiously used at Palazzo Riso-Belmonte in 1784, combining some of the plainer, more solid elements of Baroque with Palladian motifs rather than Palladian designs. The late Sicilian Baroque was similar in style to the Baroque popular in England at the beginning of the 18th century, popularised by Sir John Vanbrugh with such edifices as Blenheim Palace. An example is Marvuglia's Church of San Francesco di Sales, ^[13] which is almost English in its interpretation of Baroque. However, this was a temporary success and the neoclassical style was soon dominant. Few aristocrats could now afford to build, and the new style was mainly used in public and civil buildings such as those at the Botanical Gardens in Palermo. Sicilian architects — even Andrea Giganti, once a competent architect in Baroque — now began to design in the neoclassical style, but in this case in the version of the neoclassical adopted by fashionable France. Giganti's Villa Galletti at Bagheria is clearly inspired by the work of Ange-Jacques Gabriel. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x768, 132 KB) Summary Main square of Noto, Italy with the town hall. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x768, 132 KB) Summary Main square of Noto, Italy with the town hall. ... Noto, a city of Sicily, in the province of Syracuse, and 20 miles southwest of it, 520 feet above sea-level. ... Palazzo Ducezio, Noto by Vicenzo Sinatra Vincenzo Sinatra was an 18th century Sicilian architect from Noto. ... Neoclassicism (sometimes rendered as Neo-Classicism or Neo-classicism) is the name given to quite distinct movements in the visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture. ... Giuseppe Venanzio Marvuglia (Palermo, 1729 – Palermo, 1814) He received received his first architectural training in his native Palermo. ... Sir John Vanbrugh in Godfrey Knellers Kit-cat portrait, considered one of Knellers finest portraits. ... Blenheim Palace, The Great Court. ... Andrea Giganti (1731 - 1787) was a Sicilian architect of the the Sicilian Baroque era. ... Bagheria is a town of approximately 40,000 inhabitants in the neighbourhood of Palermo in Sicily, Italy. ... Château of the Petit Trianon in the park at Versailles Ange-Jacques Gabriel (October 23, 1698 – January 4, 1782) was a prominent French architect. ...

As with the early days of Sicilian Baroque, the first buildings of the new neoclassical era were often copies or hybrids of the two styles. The Palazzo Ducezio (Illustration 19) was begun in 1746, and the ground floor with arcades creating play of light and shadow is pure Baroque. 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. The Sicilian Baroque was gradually and slowly being superseded by French neoclassicism.

Legacy

Illustration 20: The Church Of Anime Santes Del Purgatorio, Ragusa, constructed in the latter half of the 18th century.

Sicilian Baroque is today recognised as an architectural style, largely due to the work of Anthony Blunt. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (768x1024, 475 KB) Picture by User:GiorgioPro Italy, Ragusa, Chiesa delle Anime del Purgatorio File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque Cant (architecture) ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (768x1024, 475 KB) Picture by User:GiorgioPro Italy, Ragusa, Chiesa delle Anime del Purgatorio File links The following pages link to this file: Sicilian Baroque Cant (architecture) ... Ragusa can refer to: The city of Ragusa in Sicily, Italy. ... (17th century - 18th century - 19th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800. ... Anthony Frederick Blunt (September 26, 1907 – March 26, 1983) was an English art historian and the Fourth Man of the Cambridge Five, a group of spies working for the Soviet Union during the Cold War. ...

Most of the Baroque palazzi continued in private ownership throughout the 19th century, as the old aristocracy either married middle-class money or fell further into debt. There were a few exceptions and some of these retain the ancestral palazzo still today. Thanks to the continuing religious devotion of the Sicilian people many of the Sicilian Baroque churches are today still in the use for which they were designed.

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 the political agendas of successive socialist governments. Some of the finest Baroque villas and palazzi, including the Palermo palace of the Prince of Lampedusa, are still in ruins following the United States bombing raids of 1943. Often no attempt has been made to restore or even secure them. Those that survived the raids in good repair are often sub-divided into offices or apartments, their Baroque interiors dismantled, divided, and sold. Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (born Palermo, December 23, 1896, died Rome, July 23, 1957), was Duke of Palma and Prince of Lampedusa. ... Massive ordinance air-burst bomb. ...

The remaining members of the Sicilian aristocracy who still inhabit their ancestral palazzi have refrained from filling their gardens with wild animals to lure in the masses to view their homes (unlike their English counterparts, who spurned Baroque as vulgar excess). The remaining in situ Princes, Marquesses, and Counts of Sicily have preferred to live in splendid isolation, surrounded often by beauty and decay. It is only today both owners and the state are awakening to the possibility that if action is not taken soon it will be too late to save this particular part of the Sicilian heritage.

As Sicily now becomes a more politically stable and secure and less corrupt environment, the Baroque palazzi are very slowly beginning to open their doors to the eager paying public, albeit American and British rather than Italian. A few years ago the Gangi Palace ballroom was alone in its status of having been a film set, but today long-shrouded salons and ballrooms are hosting corporate and public events. Some palazzi are offering a bed and breakfast service to paying guests, in this way once again providing impressive hospitality to visitors to Sicily, the purpose for which they were originally intended. B&B is also an acronym used for the American CBS soap opera The Bold and The Beautiful or the MTV cartoon Beavis and Butthead. ...

In 2002, UNESCO selectively included baroque monuments of Val di Noto into its World Heritage List as "providing outstanding testimony to the exuberant genius of late Baroque art and architecture" and "representing the culmination and final flowering of Baroque art in Europe" [14]. UNESCO logo The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, commonly known as UNESCO, is a specialized agency of the United Nations system established in 1945. ... Val di Noto (English: Valley of Noto) is a geographical area of south east Sicily; it is dominated by the limestone Iblean plateau. ... World Heritage Site #86: Memphis and its Necropolis, including the Pyramids of Giza (Egypt). ...

Notable architects of Sicilian Baroque

• Antonello Gagini
• Rosario Gagliardi
• Andrea Giganti
• Guarino Guarini
• Stefano Ittar
• Paolo Labisi
• Giulio Lasso
• Giuseppe Venanzio Marvuglia
• Tomasso Napoli
• Andrea Palma
• Vincenzo Sinatra
• Giovanni Battista Vaccarini

Antonello Gagini (1478-1536); was a Sicilian sculptor. ... Church of San Giorgio, Ragusa. ... Andrea Giganti (1731 - 1787) was a Sicilian architect of the the Sicilian Baroque era. ... Camillo-Guarino Guarini (1624 - 1683), Italian monk, writer and architect, was born at Modena. ... Sicilian Baroque. ... Paolo Labisi was an 18th century Sicilian architect. ... Early Sicilian Baroque: Quattro Canti, Palermo built circa 1610 Giulio Lasso (died 1617) Little is known of him other than he was a 17th century Florentine architect, best know for his work in Palermo, Sicily. ... Giuseppe Venanzio Marvuglia (Palermo, 1729 – Palermo, 1814) He received received his first architectural training in his native Palermo. ... Tomasso Maria Napoli was an early 18th century Dominican order monk who published an architectural treatise on perspective. ... Cathedral in Syracuse Andrea Palmas cathedral facade (begun in 1728). ... Palazzo Ducezio, Noto by Vicenzo Sinatra Vincenzo Sinatra was an 18th century Sicilian architect from Noto. ... Giovanni Battista Vaccarini was born in Palermo in 1702, he did in 1768 He was a Sicilian architect, notable for his work in the Baroque style in his homeland during the period of massive rebuilding following the earthquake of 1693. ...

Notes

1. ^  "Palazzo" (pl. palazzi): any large building in a town, state or private (often much smaller than the term palace implies in the English-speaking world). While palazzo is the technically correct appellation, and postal address, no Sicilian aristocrat would ever use the word, instead referring to his or her own house, however large, as "casa". "Palazzo" followed by the family name was the term used by officials, tradesmen, and delivery men.
2. ^  Messina, once Sicily's second city, fell into poverty and obscurity following punitive measures against it by the Spanish following an uprising in 1626. Closely related for geographical reasons to mainland Italy, Messina once contained some of Sicily's finest buildings. The combined effect of earthquakes in 1693, 1783 and 1908, and bombing raids in 1943, robbed the city of virtually all of these.
3. ^  Blunt, 9 & 31.
4. ^  Friederich Munter, eighteenth century travel writer.
5. ^  The Prince of Lampedusa author of The Leopard wrote in his book Places of my Early Childhood of his family's six homes: a townhouse in Palermo, a villa at Bagheria, a palazzo at Toretta, a country house at Reitano, a "great" castle at Santa Marherita de Belice, and "two where we never went": a castle and house at Palma de Montechiaro.
6. ^ Mary Miers. Country Life Magazine. 1 Nov. 2004
7. ^  Blunt, Sicilian Baroque.
8. ^  Blunt, 150.
9. ^  Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach had begun to rebuild Schönbrunn Palace in 1686 in a simple form of Baroque; this form was later to be reproduced in Sicily in the final years of its Baroque era. The palace also had an external staircase (removed in 1746) similar to those that later evolved in Sicily.
10. ^  Gérard Gefen, Land of the Leopard Princes.
11. ^ This room was used as the film set for the ballroom scene of Scorsese's The Leopard.
12. ^  The Palazzo is today a shell, badly damaged by bombing in World War II.
13. ^  Church of San Francesco di Sales Late Sicilian Baroque, completed 1818.

An anglophone is someone who speaks English natively or by adoption. ... Location within Italy Messina with a population of about 260,000 is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, Italy and the capital of the province of Messina. ... Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (born Palermo, December 23, 1896, died Rome, July 23, 1957), was Duke of Palma and Prince of Lampedusa. ... Il Gattopardo (The Leopard) is a novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa that chronicles the changes in Sicilian life and society during the Risorgimento. ... Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (1656- 5 April 1723) was an Austrian architect in the Baroque period. ... Schönbrunn Palace, as seen from the gardens Image:SP3. ... Martin Scorsese at Cannes in 2002 Martin Scorsese (pronounced as Scor-SEH-see) (born November 17, 1942 in Queens, New York, USA) is a multi-Oscar nominated Italian American film director, of Sicilian descent. ... Combatants Allied Powers Axis Powers Commanders {{{commander1}}} {{{commander2}}} Strength {{{strength1}}} {{{strength2}}} Casualties 17 million military deaths 7 million military deaths World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a mid-20th century conflict that engulfed much of the globe and is accepted as the largest and deadliest...

References

• Barocco ibleo, (in Italian)
• Blunt, Anthony (1968). Sicilian Baroque, Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
• Drago, Francesco Palazzolo (1927). Famiglie nobili siciliane, Arnaldo Forni, Palermo.
• Du Pays, A J. (1877). Guide d'Italie et Sicile, Hachette.
• Gefen, Gérard (2001). Sicily, Land of the Leopard Princes, Tauris Parke.
• Hamel, Pasquale (1994). Breve storia della societa siciliana (1790-1980), Sellerio di Giorgianni, Palermo.

External links

• Buildings of Ragusa
• Churches of Ragusa
• Palazzi interiors including Palazzo Gangi
• Palazzi of Palermo in the 21st century
• Palazzo Biscari
• Photographs of some Sicilian Baroque churches
• The Sicilian Aristocracy
• Val di Noto