page_title: Sicilian Baroque
section_title: Late Sicilian Baroque
hierarchical_section_title: Sicilian Baroque / Late Sicilian Baroque
caption_attribution_description: English: Palazzo Beneventano del Bosco, Syracuse, Sicily
context_page_description: Sicilian Baroque is the distinctive form of Baroque architecture which evolved on the island of Sicily, off the southern coast of Italy, in the 17th and 18th centuries, when it was part of the Spanish Empire. 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.
  The Sicilian Baroque style came to fruition during a major surge of rebuilding following the 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.
context_section_description: Baroque eventually went out of fashion. In some parts of Europe, it metamorphosed into the Rococo, but not in Sicily where the Rococo is only found internally. 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. Dufourny began designing in Palermo, and his "Entrance Temple" (1789) to the Palermo Botanical Garden 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.
  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 Belmonte Riso (Illustration 21), a good example of the period of architectural transition, combining both Baroque and neoclassical 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.
  By the closing years of the 18th century, impoverished Sicily was ruled from Naples by the weak Ferdinand IV and his dominant wife. In 1798 and again in 1806, the King was forced by the invading French to flee Naples to Sicily. The French were only kept at bay from Sicily 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  Sicily's first tax, at a single stroke alienating his aristocracy.
  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 Belmonte Riso 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, which is almost English in its interpretation of Baroque. However, this was only 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 Palermo Botanical Garden. Sicilian architects – even Andrea Giganti, once a competent architect in Baroque – now began to design in the neoclassical style, but in the version of the neoclassical adopted by fashionable France. An example is his Villa Galletti at Bagheria, inspired by the work of Ange-Jacques Gabriel. A contemporary traveller, the Comte de Borch, noted the French influence, describing the villa as "décorée à la française, avec trumeaux, boiseries légères, etc."
caption: Illustration 18: Palazzo Beneventano del Bosco (1779), Syracuse, designed by Luciano Alì in restrained late Sicilian Baroque. The wrought iron balconies and sweeping curves, however, keep the approaching neoclassicism at bay.
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