Architecture as Civilisational Rebirth - the Sicilian Baroque by Western Exile

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Architecture as Civilisational Rebirth - the Sicilian Baroque

“Build Back Better” is an expression which has been much used and abused in recent years. There is, however, an extraordinary example to be found in this world where men indeed sought to rebuild something better than before, and achieved it. That example is the island of Sicily, and the breathtakingly beautiful cities that were rebuilt there after a cataclysmic earthquake in the 17th century.

Above all other regions of Europe, what has characterised Sicily from the dawn of recorded history is her near continual change in masters. From the indigenous Sicel tribes who gave Sicily her name, to the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Swabians, Aragonese, Spanish and Italians, each culture left its mark on the island, from traditions and architecture to even her cuisine.

Noto, once called Netum, is a prime example of this. Originally a stronghold of the indigenous Sicels, nestled deep in the Hyblaean Mountains, her relative isolation would spare the city from many of the conflicts which ravaged ancient Sicily, as she passed from subject of Syracuse to loyal ally of Rome. Such geopolitical apathy would reap grand rewards for Netum with the coming of the Aghlabids, and the Arab conquest of Sicily. With the Muslim conquest of Sicily completed in the 10th century, the island was divided into three provinces, known as the Valli - the Val di Mazara to the west, the Val Demone to the northwest, and the Val di Noto in the southeast. Now a capital, Netum flourished with the Arab trade in silk, and the vast citrus plantations they established in the hills which surrounded her. Under the Spanish who followed, Netum, now Noto, was one of the wealthiest cities of the Italian South.

1693 - The Great Catastrophe

Such was all that was lost on the 11th January 1693, when a catastrophic earthquake, as high as 7.3 in magnitude, razed the entire Val di Noto to the ground. At least 60,000 perished, and according to at least one report forwarded to the Spanish authorities in Madrid, 93,000 victims had been recorded. Of the 64 monasteries in the diocese of Syracuse, only 3 remained standing. Sixty cities crumbled upon their foundations, and incalculable was the loss of heritage, as Noto was utterly destroyed, along with Ragusa, Scicli and many other ancient centres of culture. Sicily, mourning and in shock, was in the direst of need.

But the Spanish Crown, in one of the Iberian monarchy's finest hours, would bring far more than humanitarian aid to the desperate Sicilians. Fortunately for all concerned, the Viceroy of King Charles II of Spain in Sicily, Juan Francisco Pacheco, 4th Duke of Uceda, was the very paragon of diligence, with an extraordinary talent for organisation and a clear sense of urgency. The Viceroy immediately established two emergency commissions, one to coordinate civilian aid, and another for the considerable population of clergy in the affected areas. This would be followed by the appointment of local nobleman Giuseppe Lanza, Duke of Camastra, as Vicar General, charged with bearing immediate aid to Val di Noto, restoring law and order, overseeing the clearing of rubble, and drawing up plans for reconstruction according to clear standards of safety and access.

Speed was paramount, and as Lanza moved to establish a base of operations in Catania, a remarkable record was set in the ruined town of Grammichele, where on the 14th January, just three days after the earthquake, Prince Carlo Maria Carafa Branciforte of Butera had already seen to the delivery of emergency supplies, with all survivors evacuated to a new site barely forty eight hours later.

Yet Mother Nature would not allow such rapid relief elsewhere. So profound was the instability triggered by the earthquake that Val di Noto was plagued by aftershocks for two entire years, complicating the work of the Spanish reconstruction commissions, and forcing a series of difficult decisions. Dissatisfied by the conditions of Noto, which had been razed to the ground bar a few modest sections of her fortifications, Lanza ordered the new city to be rebuilt at a new location five miles to the south east, on lower ground.

Beauty from Ruin

In addition to balancing multiple crises at once, from reimposing public order across a vast area now highly vulnerable to crime, and taking action to prevent the outbreak of disease, Lanza assembled a remarkable team for the reconstruction of the cities.

First, from the far north of the European Spanish Empire, the Flemish architect and military engineer Carlos de Grunenbergh, who had previously advised the Knights of Malta, was summoned to direct the rebuilding of the defences of Syracuse, and then the new urban layout of Catania and indeed Noto. Then there was the Noto-born mathematician Giovanni Battista Landolina, who would lend his skills to designing the new grid layout of his new hometown streets, where the three principal piazze were to be connected by streets set at right angles. But the third pillar of this collaboration would be the cultured Jesuit brother Angelo Italia, whose passionate embrace of the High Baroque would ensure that the city's new buildings would be a sight to remember.

With almost sixty cities either partially or entirely destroyed, the pain of loss would soon give way to the excitement of what would rise in their place. As has ever, and shall ever be, the case, reconstruction efforts swiftly divided into two camps, those who favoured a conservative approach, rooted in a continuity with Sicily's past and a classical, restrained aesthetic style, and those who favoured innovation, advocating a break from the Renaissance and early Baroque styles and seeking inspiration, though not imitation, in the increasingly intricate decoration prevailing in France and Germany.

Ultimately, a path of 'phased' innovation would prevail, endorsed by the Spanish authorities, and encouraged too by the Houses of Savoy and Habsburg, when the fallout of war in Europe would see Sicily ceded to Savoy in 1713 and Austria in 1720, before returning to the bosom of Spain in 1734. As a result, subtle influences from Turin and Vienna, as well as Rome, where many Sicilian architects had trained, would ultimately give birth to a new movement of architecture - the Sicilian Baroque.

With over a thousand commissions approved by the Spanish for religious architecture alone, Val di Noto was transformed into the world's largest laboratory of urban planning and aesthetics, where visionaries lacked no opportunity, and no man who could wield a chisel or a shovel would want for work. Indeed, over the course of the 18th century, multiple generations of Sicilian architects would both begin and crown their careers in the worksites of Val di Noto.

In Noto, the epicentre of the disaster, the Church of San Francesco all'Immacolata was one of the first projects to be greenlit, with construction beginning in 1704 and indeed continuing through Savoyard and Austrian rule before its completion in 1745. It is here that we can admire an elegant solution to one of the core tenets of the Spanish-approved guidelines - that sight lines to church façades should not be obstructed from the parallel street in front.

A Sicilian Baroque

The scale of the reconstruction in Val di Noto was certainly remarkable. What perhaps makes it truly extraordinary, however, is the long-term commitment to it that was maintained for generations to come.

Indeed Rosario Gagliardi, the greatest of the Sicilian Baroque architects, was only a child when the earthquake struck in 1693. He would go on however to become the shining example of the 'second generation' that matured on the vast construction sites of southeastern Sicily which arose in the wake of the calamity, especially following his move to Noto in 1708. There he would work on the new Church of San Domenico, but it was in 1738, almost half a century after the earthquake, that he began work on what is perhaps his masterpiece, the Duomo di San Giorgio in Ragusa. With his signature 'tower-façades' and focus on the vertical perspective, his churches, and those of many other architects of Sicily, he had established a clear break from the trends of continental Italy, and established a unique, Sicilian, Baroque.

Even a century after the Spanish had launched the emergency response to the earthquake, architects, stonemasons, sculptors and artists were still at work in the scores of affected cities, which since 2002 have rightly been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The legacy they have left to the world, in Noto, Ragusa, Scicli, Modica and beyond, are cities that form a monument to more than mere aesthetics. Their very existence is a spectacular incarnation of the will to live, the search for perfection, and the truth that in calamity lies opportunity. As the explosion of tourism to Val di Noto in the 21st century attests, it was an opportunity that magnificently taken.

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Until Next Time,

World Scholar