{ Chapter Seven }
Sicilian painter (died 1730), born in Palermo. His works can be found in Palermo in the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, the Church of the Immacolatella, and in the Oratory of the SS. Rosario in Santa Cita. AC, 92.
Don Vincenzo Bongiovanni
Sicilian sculptor (1656-1732) who worked mainly in stucco. With an unmatched technique he covered entire walls of oratories and chapels with a magnificent decorative style that gave the impression of marble. His major works are in the Oratory of San Lorenzo, the Oratory of Santa Cita, and the Oratory of Rosario di San Domenico. AC, 93.
An oratory was a confraternity established by an order of the church. It constituted a kind of rich man’s club, comparable to a guild, where members could attend ceremonies and services in a private chapel. It served both a religious and a social function: Jeremy Dummett, Sicily, Island of Beauty and Conflict, 244.
Giacomo Serpotta
Oratorio di Santa Cita
Sicilain painter, architect, and engraver (1660-1718). His works can be found in these churches: The Church of the Gesù, Sant’Agostino, Santa Chiara, San Francesco di Paola, and the Oratory of the Dame al Ponticello. AC, 93.
Antonio Grano
A large area created by King Roger II of Sicily, full of caves and dells, a great sanctuary for birds, and waters stocked with every kind of fish. Also called the Favara, from the Arabic Buheira, meaning lake. John Julius Norwich, The Kingdom of the Sun (London: Longman, 1970), 156-157.
I would like to go to Maredolce
A beach, in the present day locality of Romagnolo.
Scoglio di Mustazzola
Guglielmo Borremans (1670-1744) Flemish painter, active for many years in Palermo, leaving a great number of works in important churches and noble palazzi. AC, 93.
Borremans
The Theatines are a religious order of the Catholic Church, founded by Saint Cajetan, Paolo Consiglieri, Bonifice da Cole, and Giovanni Petra Carafa in the sixteenth century. Carafe was bishop of Chieti (Theate), a town in Abruzzo, from which the congregation adopted its name. In Italian, the adjectival form is teatino, and its inhabitants are called teatini.
give her lessons with a Theatine priest
Gioacchino Vitagliano (1700-60) Sicilian sculptor of many statues and bas-reliefs in Palermo churches. AC, 95.
Vitagliano
Since the fourteenth century, communities of citizens from other cities, called “nations”, existed in Palermo. Among those were the Genoese, Pisan, Lombardian, Neapolitan, and Catalan communities. Each had their own church, usually dedicated to the patron saint of the city of origin. Beginning in the following century, confraternities and societies linked to the arts and crafts were added to these laic communities. During the most important festivals, the various communities competed with each other, setting up decorative structures along the streets, some of them arches, designed by the great architects of the time and put up by the craftsmen themselves or by illustrious artists. AC, 95.
the “nations”
My statue of Knowledge for the Oratory of Santa Cita
Giacomo Serpotta filled the walls of the oratory with putti, cupids, angels, and Virtues made of stucco.
An actual person (Palermo 1700 ca.-Rome 1770), she studied painting and music but above all excelled at poetry. She moved to Rome in 1172 and published Riposte a nome di Madonna Laura alle Rime di messer Francesco Petrarca (Replies in the Name of Madonna Laura to the Rhymes of Petrarch), which earned her great fame. AC, 94.
Pellegra Bongiovanni
Roger II (1095-1154), the first king of Sicily, crowned in Palermo Cathedral on Christmas Day 1130.
the crown of Roger
The coronation of Roger II. 12th century mosaic, Church of la Martorana, Palermo
(1194-1250) King of Sicily and Holy Roman Emperor, known as Stupor Mundi, the “wonder of the world”. An intellectually curious ruler, he employed Jews from Sicily to translate works from classical Greece and Rome. A poet himself, he helped promote Sicilian poetry, and the language developed around his court
“De Arte Venandi cum Avibus was written shortly before the year 1250 by Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Sicily and Jerusalem, in whose court, with its remarkably cosmopolitan and highly intellectual life, may be found the real beginning of the Italian Renaissance. In spite of its title, it is far more than a dissertation on hunting. There is a lengthy introduction dealing with the anatomy of birds, an intensely interesting description of avian habits, and the excursions of migratory birds.” – from the Stanford University press edition.
