THE FORUM OF ANTONELLO GAGINI IN THE CATHEDRAL OF PALERMO
(get back to: The Cathedral of Palermo)
Plastic reconstruction by Salvatore Rizzuti and the students of the Sculpture Chair of the Academy of Fine Arts of Palermo 1998-2000
Taken from: www.salvatorerizzuti.com (2005)
RESEARCH
Reasons and aims of this study
The Academy of Fine Arts of Palermo, the highest institution of the state in the field of visual arts, was born in 1886. Within it, artists such as Ernesto Basile, Mario Rutelli, Benedetto Civiletti worked as Directors or Teachers, Ettore Ximenes, Archimede Campini, just to name a few. All characters who strongly contributed to the cultural and artistic growth of the city of Palermo between the end of the 800th century and the beginning of the 900th century. To this noble tradition, even today, we want to keep faith, imparting to the students not only the didactic lesson aimed at creativity, but also stimulating them to research and rediscover the artists of the past and their works. Among these, Antonello Gagini and sons, architects of the grandiose Tribune, erected in the Cathedral of Palermo from 1510 to 1574, and disastrously demolished during the renovation of the Cathedral which took place from 1781 to 1801. In fact, in the academic years '98 -'99 and '99 -'00, as part of the research program of my Chair, I carried out, together with the sculpture students, an in-depth research aimed at the scale reconstruction of the destroyed Tribune. The purpose of this research was to make the students acquire an awareness of history, bringing to light, also visually, the original configuration of the Tribune. Thus, the study was not aimed only at a mere didactic and aesthetic exercise, but assumed a scientific value. Without claiming to have faced and solved all the problems inherent to the Tribune, we have tried to solve those problems, albeit minimal, that we have encountered, in the most reasoned way possible, in relation to our skills as sculptors. In any case, the 1:10 scale reproduction we made could provide a small contribution to the research of other scholars. It is obvious, in fact, that the reconstruction of the Tribune, especially in the absence of some precise technical data, may not be entirely truthful, but the meticulous description of the chroniclers of the time certainly helped us in the most reliable approximation. What matters is that the common user can be made aware of what we had, and that we no longer have due to the ignorance of those who knew how to destroy in a moment what had been built in sixty-four years by generations of sculptors. .
History of the Tribuna
Between the end of the 1459th and the beginning of the 1492th century, what will be considered the most important Sicilian Renaissance sculpture workshop was established in Palermo: the Gagini workshop. It is headed by Antonello, son of Domenico Gagini, originally from Bissone, who settled in Sicily around 28. When Domenico died in 1507, Antonello, just fourteen, already showed the qualities of the one who would become the greatest exponent of Renaissance sculpture in Sicily. In fact, he will be the head of a thriving workshop where artists such as Giuliano Mancino, Antonio and Bartolomeo Berrettaro, Vincenzo Carrara, Fedele Da Corona and others will work. With a first contract, drawn up by Notary Pietro Tagliante on July 64, 1510, Archbishop Giovanni Paternò entrusts Antonello's creative flair with what will be considered the greatest sculpture of the Renaissance in Sicily: the marble tribune of the Cathedral of Palermo, whose construction will last for 1574 years, from 1536 to 1, and on which Antonello himself will work until his death in 25, and which will be continued by his sons Antonino, Giacomo and Vincenzo. It occupied the central apse of the Cathedral. For a detailed description of the whole story of the Tribuna, and of how it should have been configured according to the first contract, please refer to Gioacchino Di Marzo. 1510 With the second contract of 2 January 1781, stipulated between Paternò himself and Antonello Gagini, at the Notary Antonino Lo Verde, what will then be the definitive configuration of the Tribune is established, for the description of which we always refer to Di Marzo. 1801 In the last twenty years of the eighteenth century, that is from 1797 to 3, under the direction of Venanzio Marvuglia, Salvatore Attinelli and Frate Felice La Licata from Palermo, the radical transformation of the Cathedral took place, making it as we see it in its current state. current. In this phase of restructuring, around 1767, the Tribuna was literally demolished by La Licata. This deplorable gesture will be undeservedly charged to Ferdinando Fuga, especially by Di Marzo. XNUMX It is known, in fact, that the renovation project of the Cathedral was entrusted to Fuga, who, around XNUMX,
1) - Gioacchino Di Marzo, The Gagini and sculptures in Sicily in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, pp. 218-220, Palermo, 1884. 2) - Ibid, pp. 222-226. 3) - Ibid, pp. 226, 227.
Table 1
produced the drawings - later destroyed in the fire of 1860 - of which there is a copy of a plan by Villabianca.4 But a meticulous and documented study by Nino Basile, published in 1926, will show that Ferdinando Fuga was not at fault , and how, instead, the destruction was to be attributed to the aforementioned Marvuglia, Attinelli and La Licata. 5 Today, after alternating vicissitudes, the forty statues of the niches, the Assumption, the risen Christ, the three soldiers, the fourteen tondi with angels, the fourteen stories (Tav . 1) and fourteen pilasters (Plate 3); it is not known what happened to all the other elements, apart from a few fragments kept in the deposits of the Diocesan Museum of Palermo.
4) - Nino Basile, The Cathedral of Palermo: the work of Ferdinando Fuga and the truth about the destruction of the Tribuna by Antonello Gagini, R Bemporad, Florence, 1926. 5) - Ibid.
Interior of the Cathedral of Palermo
(on the shelves anchored to the pillars of the central nave you can still admire the statues that were part of the Tribuna by Antonello Gagini, demolished in 1797).
Table 1. Current position of the statues of the Tribune inside the Cathedral
The fourteen angels and the fourteen panels of the first order of statues are shown here as in the real position inside the Cathedral, that is, placed respectively above and below the statues to which they belong. The statues of the second and third order are located along the central nave and under the southern portico. The risen Christ and the three soldiers are positioned on the High Altar. The Assumption is located in the Chapel of S. Maria degli Angeli, the second to the left of the central nave. Below the Assumption there is also the "Sepolcro di Lei" of which Di Marzo writes. On the Altar of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary there is the (hypothetical?) "Coffin" of which Di Marzo always writes.
Table 2
Print by Gramignani (1761) with the tribune still existing
Detail of the Tribune (from the Gramignani press)
Ancient plan of the Cathedral, before the eighteenth-century reconstruction (taken from The Cathedral of Palermo from the origins to the present state of A. Zanca) - the part colored in red indicates the site of the Tribuna before the demolition of 1797. Prospectus of the Tribune, elaborated by HW Kruft based on the description of Di Marzo, and the print of Gramignani
The realization of the model
From a technical point of view, the reference data for the realization of the Model was the graphic reconstruction made by the German scholar HW Kruft (Table 2). The first operation was to redesign that prospect on a 1:10 scale (i.e. the dimension in which the model would later be made), and consequently to obtain the vision and planimetric dimension. At first that operation was done by applying the measures given by Kruft slavishly. Subsequently, certain checks have led to make some changes, not indifferent, in relation to the dimensions in width, which we will see later. For example, it had to be noted that the width of the niches could not be 100 cm as reported by Kruft, but at least 110 cm, since the width of some statues (see for example St. Christopher) is 98 cm, and therefore it is unlikely that statues of this size could have been contained in niches just two cm wider. This thesis can be confirmed by the width of the current niches within which some of the statues are contained, which, in fact, is 110 cm; and from the fact that the statue-niche ensemble is sufficiently proportionate. Another check made during the work concerned the size of the pilasters, in fact the width (including the frame) of some pilasters considered original, currently located inside the Chapel of Santa Rosalia in the Cathedral (Plate 3), is 55 cm, while in the Kruft elevation it is 50 cm. This modification, however, was not made in time to apply it in the model, since the discovery took place when the elements of the model had already been made, and assembly had already begun. On the other hand, it is understandable that these details were not relevant for the purposes that Kruft set out. The discovery of these two details, apparently irrelevant, for us, on the contrary, represented the birth of a problem that is not easy to solve, to which, at present, and with the means of knowledge at our disposal, we would not be able to give any solution. definitive. In fact, following a careful and meticulous survey made on the apsidal area of the Cathedral, it was possible to verify that the distance between the medial margins of the side apses corresponds to 17,18 m, i.e. 1,70 m less than the maximum length of the our assumption that it is 18,88 m. Therefore the frontal flaps of the Tribuna had to cross over into the side apses (Plate 4).
Table 3
Width dimensions of the 14 original pilasters of the Tribune, currently located inside the Chapel of St. Rosalia in the Cathedral of Palermo
A - cm 47 B - cm 55 C - cm 47 D cm 47 E - cm 55 F - cm 44 G - cm 36 H - cm 36 I - cm 45 L - cm 55 M - cm 48 N - cm 47 O - cm 55 P - 48 cm.
The corner pilasters B, E, L, O contain the original frames; all the others contain nineteenth-century stucco frames.
As for the Kruftian solution, developing the plan on the basis of its data, we would obtain a maximum width of 17,40 m, that is, a dimension as large as possible, even if only 22 cm wider than the 17,18 m. But our reasoning has shown us that some Kruft data should be corrected, and these corrections would support our hypothesis. What are these data, in my opinion, certain? 1 - the width of the statues tells us that the niches do not
they could be less than 110 cm in width; 2 - the width of the pilasters, according to the hand, could not be less than 55 cm;
3 - the space between the niche and the pilaster, as a possible relationship, could not be less than 10 cm, and Kruft himself reports it to this size;
4 - the width of the central niche, as Kruft always deduces, could not be less than about 200 cm in order to contain Christ and the three soldiers.
If these data are taken for certain, and the perfect semicircular shape of the Tribune is also taken for certain with the advancement of the straight walls towards the nave, we can affirm that the extreme margins of the Tribune necessarily had to cross over into the side apses (Tav . 4). As far as the height measurements are concerned, we have slavishly followed those indicated by Kruft, which establishes a total height, from the floor to the top of the crowning cornice, of 17,65 m. This top should correspond to the level of the arch of the arch that precedes the apsidal basin and of the apsidal basin itself. Now, if we take into account that, with the width measurements hypothesized by us, the chord of the arch would be 10,34 m, and that the pointed arch built on this chord probably had to have the compass centers on the two thirds of the string itself, an arrow of 6,60 m would be obtained. Therefore a total height, from the floor to the apex of the intrados, of 24,25 m. If, again, at least one meter of arch thickness is added, a maximum height of 25,25 m is obtained. At this point it is legitimate to ask whether the original Gualtierian structure reached those heights; and whether the odds reported by Kruft are entirely reliable. The doubt also arises based on what Di Marzo reports on a figure from the first contract:
“It had to be the one from the floor to the top of ten rods high and
6
four palms (21,63 meters) ... ".
6) - Op. Cit., P. 218.
Table 4
A - Current plan of the apses of the Cathedral.
B - Hypothetical position and width of the Grandstand, based on the changes in width measurements made by us on the Kruft version, and made in the Layout.
But we know that with the second contract things changed. Unfortunately, there are few reliable data, and the only visual testimony of how the Tribune could be remains the famous Gramignani print, published by Di Marzo (Plate 2) - on which Kruft himself had to base himself - however it too not very explicit, since, for example, there is no double base where the tiles with the stories of the saints were to be contained; the niches of the third order are smaller than the other orders, and so on. Fortunately, the testimony of the Mongitore, on which Di Marzo himself relied heavily, was precious on the general mechanism of the Tribune and on the position of the statues. 7 Equally fortunately, almost all the most important sculptures that adorned the Tribune have come down to us, and are still located inside the Cathedral (Plate 1). Excluding perhaps some bas-reliefs as well as by Di Marzo himself: "In the lower part, in correspondence with the precious stories around, underlying the statues of the first order, there was as a base a niche wider than high, inside you on the right in small figures in relief the Virgin Mary lying dead, with Christ in the act of welcoming her soul courted by the angels into heaven, and on the left in a portico the apostles and disciples of Jesus, carrying the body of his mother in procession on the coffin. She followed her sepulcher naturally above, decorated on the front with a porphyry cross, with two figures of virgins kneeling on the sides praying with book in hand, and behind her knees the Mother of God, raised her arms aloft and as if exhaling the immaculate spirit.… ”. 8 Works probably lost, as Di Marzo always reports, with the bitter conclusion: "... perhaps a leftover of some half figures of the apostles, in the purest Gaginesque style, or seen among some artificial ruins near a pond in the Serradifalco Garden at 'Olivuzza; deplorable sign of the vandalism squandering of so many precious marbles
9
that that ancient and precious temple adorned. ". To be honest it must be said that there is a high relief, currently placed on the altar of the chapel of the Assumption, responding, in part, to the description of the procession of the coffin of Mary, but its width (177 cm) does not fit the symmetrical positioning with another high relief of equal size, since an overall width of 354 cm would be obtained, that is almost double compared to the approximately 200 cm width of the large central niche. Instead, one wonders if it is possible that the figure of Mary lying, currently placed in the same niche as the Assumption in the chapel of
S. Maria degli Angeli, may be part of that "sepulcher of her" even if Di Marzo does not mention it.
7) - Ibid. 8) - Ibid, p. 225. 9) - Ibid, p. 426.
Model of the Tribune by Antonello Gagini - Plaster - 1998-2000
In the realization of this work, our choice was to reproduce only the still existing works, leaving out all those parts of the Tribune that no longer exist or are missing, including the vault with the great Padreterno in stucco, the work of Vincenzo Gagini. Of the original pilasters, currently placed in the chapel of Santa Rosalia, all with different decorations, we have reproduced only three, of which one adorns the entire first order of the model; one the straight internal and front walls of the second order, and one the apse of the second order. We have reproduced only one type of capitals among those illustrated graphically in Di Marzo's work, and we have used them for the entire model. We have developed the horizontal moldings according to the Kruft scheme and measurements.
Salvatore Rizzuti
TECHNICAL DATA OF THE FORUM PLASTIC
The model was made in 1:10 scale. It is made up of poplar plywood boards at 16 mm for the supporting structure, and plaster for the sculptural elements. It is divided into eight assemblable sectors, three of which constitute a first level comprising the first order of niches and the cornice that separates it from the second order; three others constitute the second level comprising the second and third order of niches and the crowning cornice; one includes the apsidal basin; one includes the front crowning arch (Plates 5, 6). The model as a whole measures 196,5cm wide x 112cm deep x 254cm high; and rests on a base (also in plywood) measuring 214 x 122 x 40 cm. The base is equipped with six interdirectional wheels which allow it to be moved easily (Tables 7, 8). All the sculptural elements of the Tribune were reproduced by the students, with the exception of the assembly of each element of the model, which was dealt with, in particular, by the pupil Nicola Busacca. Archival research was carried out by the pupil Davide Iovino. All under the direction of Prof. Salvatore Rizzuti.
ESSENTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
1) - Gioacchino Di Marzo, The Gagini and sculptures in Sicily in the 1884th and 2th centuries, Palermo, 1926. 3) - Nino Basile, The Cathedral of Palermo: the work of Ferdinando Fuga and the truth about the destruction of Antonello's Tribune Gagini, R Bemporad, Florence, 233. 271) - Dante Bernini, History of Sicily, Architecture and sculpture of the fifteenth century, (pages 1981-4), Publishing Company History of Naples and Sicily, XNUMX XNUMX) - Antonio Zanca, La Palermo Cathedral from its origins to the present state, National Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts of
Palermo, 1989. 5) - Donald Garstang, Giacomo Serpotta and the plasterers of Palermo, Sellerio Editore, 1990. 6) - Maria Antonietta Spataro, Raphael and the Spasm of Sicily, National Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts of Palermo, 1991. 7 ) - Dante Bernini, Gagini, in Sicilian Masters, Kalos magazine, Ariete Editions, Palermo, July-October 1992. 8) - Benedetto Patera, Francesco Laurana in Sicily, Novecento Editions, Palermo, 1992. 9) - Various authors, The Cathedral of Palermo, studies for the eighth centenary of the foundation, by Leonardo Urbani, Sellerio Editore,
Palermo, 1993. 10) - Luigi Sarullo, Dictionary of Sicilian Artists, Sculpture, edited by Benedetto Patera, Edizioni Novecento, 1994. 11) - Francesco Negri Arnoldi, Sculpture of the sixteenth century in Southern Italy, Electa Napoli, 1997 12) - Maria Concetta Di Natale, Masterpieces of Art of the Diocesan Museum, Editions O.DI.PA., 1998 13) - Giuseppe Bellafiore, The Cathedral of Palermo, Flaccovio Editore, Palermo, 1999.
Table 5
Table 6
Model of the Grandstand - (Exploded view)
Table 7
Table 8
CATALOG OF THE ORIGINAL SCULPTURES OF THE FORUM
currently kept inside the Cathedral and in the Diocesan Museum of Paler mo
All the sculptures: statues, angels and tiles are in Carrara marble. The statues measure an average height of 220 cm. The angels and the tiles, excluding the frame, measure an average width of 80 cm
In the caption of each work there is the name of the author according to the attributions made by Gioacchino Di Marzo
"The Gagini and Sculpture in Sicily in the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries"
published in Palermo in 1884
1 - (Antonello and assistants) 2 - (Antonello and assistants) 3 - (Antonello and assistants)
1 - S. Paolo (Antonello) 2 - S. Bartolomeo (Antonello and helpers) 3 - S. Filippo (Antonello)
1 - Conversion of St. Paul (Antonello) 2 - Skinning of St. Bartholomew (Antonello) 3 - St. Philip and the subjugated dragon (Antonello) 4 - (Antonello and assistants) 5 - (Antonello and assistants) 6 - (Antonello and help)
4 - S. Tommaso (Antonello) 5 - S. Giacomo minor (Antonello) 6 - S. Giovanni (Antonello)
4 - St. Thomas touches the wounds of Christ (Antonello) 5 - Martyrdom of St. James the less (Antonello) 6 - St. John in front of the Latin door (Antonello) 7 - (Antonello and helpers) 8 - (Antonello and helpers) 9 - (Antonello and helpers)
7 - S. Pietro (Antonello and assistants) 8 - S. Andrea (Antonello and assistants) 9 - S. Giacomo Maggiore (Antonello)
7 - Delivery of the keys to S. Pietro (Antonello) 8 - Vocation of S. Andrea (Antonello) 9 - Vocation of S. Giacomo Maggiore (Antonello) 10 - (Antonello and assistants) 11 - (Antonello and assistants) 12 - ( Antonello and helpers)
10 - S. Matteo (Antonello) 11 - S. Simone (Antonello) 12 - S. Giuda Taddeo (Antonello)
10 - St. Matthew leaving the telonio (Antonello) 11 - Beheading of St. Simon and St. Taddeo (Antonello) 12 - St. Judas Taddeo converts Abagaro (Antonello) 13 - (Antonello and helpers) 14 - (Antonello and helpers )
13 - S. Mattia (Antonello) 14 - S. Giovanni Battista (Antonello)
13 - S. Mattia between the Apostles (Antonello) 14 - Presentation of the head of the Baptist to Herod (Antonello) 15 - S. Cristoforo (Antonio) 16 - S. Ambrogio (Antonello) 17 - S. Ninfa (Antonio)
18 - S. Cristina (Antonio) 19 - S. Domenico (Antonio) 20 - S. Cosma (Antonio) 21 - S. Luca (attribution uncertain) 22 - S. Marco (attribution uncertain) 23 - S. Damiano (attribution uncertain )
24 - S. Francesco (Antonio) 25 - S. Lucia (uncertain attribution) 26 - S. Oliva (uncertain attribution) 27. S. Agostino (Antonello) 28 - S. Sebastiano (Giacomo) 29 - S. Gregorio (Antonello)
30 - S. Maria Maddalena (Antonio) 31 - S. Caterina (attribution uncertain) 32 - S. Antonio (Antonio) 33 - S. Lorenzo (Antonio) 34 - S. Giovanni Evang. (Attribution uncertain) 35 - S. Matteo (Antonello)
36 - St. Stephen (James) 37. St. Benedict (James) 38. S. Agnese (attribution uncertain) 39 - S. Agata (attribution uncertain) 40 - St. Jerome (attribution uncertain) 41 - Risen Christ (attribution uncertain)
42 - First soldier (attribution uncertain) 43 - Second soldier (attribution uncertain) 44 - Third soldier (attribution uncertain)
45 - Assumption of Mary (Antonello) - 46 - Tomb of Mary (attribution uncertain) - 47 - Procession of the fretro di Maria (?) (Attribution uncertain)
Original ornamental elements from the Tribuna by Antonello Gagini preserved in the Diocesan Museum of Palermo
1 - Capital 2, 3 - Fragments of pilaster strip 4 - Ornament of string course cornice
