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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 February 2009
This paper analyses in their political context the festival decorations created by Paolo Amato, architect to the Senate of Palermo, in 1686 for the festival of the patron saint of that city. One of these decorations, that of the main altar in the cathedral, is of particular interest in that it represents a map of the city itself. An analysis of this map in relation to other seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century maps of Palermo reveals its political and social aim and biases, but also shows that it was unusually up to date and accurate as a representation of the city at that date. Such a representation not only marks a striking cul-de-sac in the history of the development of cartography, but sheds light on the relationship between forging politically acceptable identities for a city and their representation in the early modern period. The map in particular, but all the decorations, or apparati, in general are interpreted in the context of the weakened Spanish empire (to which Sicily belonged) and of the internal politics of the island and of Palermo.
I should like to thank the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill which facilitated the research for this paper with a Junior Faculty Development Award in 1994. Earlier versions of this paper were given at the College Arts Association meeting in San Antonio, Texas and at Essex University; I am grateful to David Friedman and Valerie Fraser for their kind invitations and to all those who asked questions and made comments afterwards. In addition, I would like to thank Francesco Benigno for his kind help; colleagues at Chapel Hill, in particular Frances Huemer and Tom Tweed for their suggestions; and Mike Savage for his generous comments throughout. The criticisms of Richard Rodger and of an anonymous reader for Urban History were also very helpful.
2 For the role of the Architect of the Senate, see Meli, F., ‘Degli Architetti del Senato di Palermo nei secoli XVII e XVIII’, Archivio Storico per la Sicilia, V (1939), 305ff.Google Scholar For Paolo Amato, see Amato, P., La Nuova Pratica di Prospettiva (Palermo, 1714)Google Scholar; Mongitore, A., Memorie dei Pittori, Scultori, Architetti, Artefici in Cera Siciliani, ed. Natoli, E. (Palermo, 1977), 25 and 120Google Scholar; Gangi, G., Il Barocco nella Sicilia Occidentale (Rome, n.d.), 27–8Google Scholar; Garstang, D., Giacomo Serpotta and the Stuccatori of Palermo (London, 1984), 53–7.Google Scholar The only monograph on the subject is lively, but lacking in rigour: Tricoli, M.C. Ruggieri, Paolo Amato: La Corona e il Serpente (Palermo, 1986).Google Scholar
3 I know of no examples outside Palermo of a map being used in a festival.
4 There is now a very considerable literature investigating the nature of urban interventions at all levels from macro to micro in seventeenth-century cities. Richard Krautheimer was a pioneer in this field and his brilliant example has been followed by a generation of able urban and architectural historians. See, in particular, Krautheimer, R., The Rome of Alexander VII 1655–1667 (Princeton, 1985)Google Scholar; Pollak, M., Turin, 1564–1680 (Chicago and London, 1991)Google Scholar; Ballon, H., The Paris of Henri IV: Architecture and Urbanism (New York, 1991).Google Scholar An outstanding example of a dose investigation of urban rivalries at a local level is Connors, J., ‘Alliance and enmity in Roman baroque urbanism’, Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana, XXV (1989), 207–94Google Scholar; John Pinto provides a model analysis of one specific urban area over many centuries in Pinto, J., The Trevi Fountain (New Haven and London, 1986).Google Scholar
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6 Ballon, , Paris of Henri IV.Google Scholar Similarly, in her riveting study of Turin, Martha Pollak is much quicker to treat as propagandistic engraved images of Torinese streets than the many maps of that same dty. Pollak, , Turin, 1564–1680.Google Scholar
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12 The aim here is to shed light on the main apparato, which so strikingly incorporates the map of Palermo, rather than to seek to explore all the arcane imagery and references of the other apparati used in the festival. The other apparati are therefore discussed only in so far as they illuminate the principal altar decoration.
13 I am, of course, aware that identities are plural and contingent, but understand this image to be an attempt by particular elites of the city, the Senate and the cathedral clergy to create a specific identity to be embraced by leading citizens.
14 A good general account of urbanism in baroque Palermo is Guidoni, E., ‘L'arte di costruire una capitale. Istituzioni e progetti a Palermo nel Cinquecento’, in Fossati, P. (ed.), Storia dell'arte italiana (Turin, 1983), 265–97.Google Scholar
15 Jennifer Montagu has drawn attention to the difficulties of interpreting seventeenth-century festival descriptions. She provides a striking example of the discrepancies between seventeenth-century accounts of processions in her discussion of the possesso of Innocent X of 1644. Montagu points out how the engravings published in two contemporary accounts show triumphal arches which are completely different from each other and do not correspond either to the written descriptions, or to the image that can be derived from the payments. Montagu, J., Roman Baroque Sculpture (London, 1989), 183, 187.Google Scholar
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