paul

Sicily was controlled or settled at various times by Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Saracens, Normans and Spaniards.  This view is Monreale, in the north, east of Palermo. The island of Sicily has a central location in the Mediterranean Sea which has made it the most conquered region in Italy, and perhaps the world.  Even the Normans who ruled England also went to Sicily.  Despite the violence of the Middle Ages, today we can recognize that era in Sicily as providing an example of cross-cultural cooperation which is to be admired.  Islam, Judaism, Greek Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism lived in tandem and with tolerance during most of that period.  The different religious and cultural groups poured the best work of various artistic traditions in to the building of Monreale Cathedrale, about 8 miles outside of Palermo. Bonnano of Pisa cast the bronze doors in 1185 A Norman ruler, William II (1154-89), built Monreale Cathedral between 1174 and 1185. When the Roman...

In the huge Villa Romana del Casale in Piazza Armerina, Sicily, a girl is can be seen through the corridor....................not one, but the room has 10 of these bikini girls engaged in some athletic activities. They are made of pieces of finely cut stone, set into mortar for a smooth finish on the floor. Mark Schara took these photos of the largest series of floor mosaics in the Roman Empire. Their games include the discus throw, weight lifting and ball tossing. One with a palm and crown may be a winner. From the mosaics in ancient Sicily we can trace the art of stone floor mosaics, backwards. Villa Romana del Casale in Piazza Amerina, covered by a landslide in the 13th century but now uncovered, has the largest group of extant mosaics from the Roman world. The cut marble stones decorated floors, not walls, of the palace. It is not known who built or owned the huge villa in the early 4th century, but it may be connected to the emperors, or gladiators in the late Roman Empire. ...

In Selinunte, Sicily, the remains of several Greek temples from the 6th- 5th century BC can reveal much about temple construction, although they fell to Carthaginian invasions and earthquakes not long after their building.                     Architect Mark Schara, with his good eye for detail, took almost all of these photos.  Temple E has most of its outer colonnade, the peristyle , restored . Classical harmony is apparent in the rhythm of fluted columns, continuing up into the triglyphs raised to the sky. . But many of the capitals have fallen. On the ground level, we can appreciate their large scale. Temple F was badly damaged . Much of the white stucco facing for the fluted limestone column on right is still visible. Tem ple G, below, was the largest of the 7 temples of Selinunte, the ancient city of Silenus. This temple had columns about 54 feet tall. Here, we see the c...

(Thanks to Mark Schara for the use of his photographs) The North Baths of Morgantina, in east central Sicily, date to the 3rd century BCE and may in fact represent the earliest dome that has been excavated in the ancient Mediterranean world. Like everything in the buried settlement of Morgantina, it was built before the Roman conquest in 211 BCE. This new evidence suggests that Hellenistic Greeks, not Romans, invented the first dome. However, unlike the concrete used by Romans to make domes, the construction material would have been terra cotta tubes found on the site; the sizes and formation of these tubes suggest they were used to make a domed space. Public baths were a staple of the ancient towns and cities. Morgantina was a small settlement and the dimension of its baths are modest. Yet the roofing of the North Baths structure appears very significant. Two oblong rooms and one circular room were found to have curved ceilings made of these interlocking tube...

This tall elegant Charioteer of Mozia or "Giovane of M ozia," was excavated in 1979. It brings up problems of identity, meaning and dating in Greek Art. A life-size statue was dug up in 1979 in Mozia, ancient Motya, a tiny island adjacent to the west coast of Sicily. The slightly larger than life-size Youth of Mozia demonstrates why it is necessary for art historians to constantly re-evaluate conceptions of style, meaning and dating in art. Everyone agrees it belongs to the 5th century BCE, and, based on exact location of the find and the layer in which it was buried, it cannot be later 397 BCE. Yet Mozia was a Carthaginian settlement and the Carthaginians were constantly at war with Greeks who controlled most of Sicily. The questions are: * Who is the subject? * What is the date? * Where was it made? * Why did it end up in Mozia? This statue has physical beauty, elegance, grace and transparent drapery. Feet and arms are missing but remnants of one hand dig into the correspo...

This is the first of 5 blogs on archeology in Sicily which will cover topics in art and architecture that can trace the island's history from the Archaic Greek period through the late Roman period in Sicily. I must thank Mark Schara and Kelli Palmer who have shared their photos. As with so many archeological sites, the excavation of a Greek settlement in east central Sicily, Morgantina, was subject to theft and sale of its treasures, notably a cache of fine silver and the Morgantina Acroliths, statues with only the marble heads hands and feet. The rest of the bodies may have been wood or cloth. These acroliths can be compared to the “Warka Mask,” a marble head dating back at least five millennia to ancient Uruk in Iraq, which was looted in 2003 but recouped by authorities at the Iraq Museum in Baghdad. The Morgantina acroliths have also returned close to home recently, on display since 2008 in Aidone, a town of about 6,000 inhabitants near Morgantina. For t...

In the hills of central Sicily the Cathedral of Caltagirone--its dome covered with ceramic tiles--is just one the many wonders in this city of colorful tile (Baroque and A rt Nouveau buildings, too). Ceramics everywhere.......I resisted the temptation to buy more pottery (my house has enough and there's no more room), except one small putto, because I can look at these beautiful photos and remember how it felt to be there. The green pinecone i s a prominent symbol in this region. It reminds me of the pineapples in Williamsburg. A stroll through the local park reveal planters, light fixtures, fences in a variety of colors. The common colors for the tiles are blue, green, yellow and orange, in an endless variety of creative patterns. Figural designs and shapes are thoroughly Italian, especially with the masks, but some geometric designs in the tiles hint of an Arabic background. Nearby is a ceramics museum. Scalloped arches are an Islamic feature. The town'...

The Cathedral of Sircusa (Syracuse), Sicily is built within the colonnades of Greek temple to Athena from the early 5th century BC. Byzantine Christians converted the ruins of it into their Cathedral in the 7th century. The fluted columns are engaged in the outer side wall, along with triglyphs, metopes, etc. (the parts of the Doric Order in Greek architecture). The arched windows and crenelated top date from the Middle Ages. (It even had been a mosque at one time.) However, around the corner, the facade is thoroughly Baroque, built in 1700s! Old and new don't clash, though -- because they aren't seen simultaneously. Behind the door of this Cathedral's Baroque facade, the simplicity of an actual Doric temple colonnades are hidden. The medieval barrel vault comfortably meets the ancient Greek colonnade to form a side aisle. The temple's floor plan easily adapts to the 7th century Basilican plan church. The darkest components of this plan belong to the origina...