Palermo, Piazza Pretoria, from Wikipedia
The visit I made to Palermo on 30 December 1980 until New Year's Day of 1981 would was far more compelling if at that time had already had more precise knowledge to what occurred in that city over the centuries XV, XVI, XVII: a great revolution and urban beautification of the city that had attracted skilled workers, especially architects, sculptors and painters, as well as bricklayers, carpenters and labor jointly by the villages of Lake Como ; people looking for work, too lacking in their homeland at that time. And so at that time was that famous immigration backwards from Lake Como to Palermo , during which many inhabitants of the Alto Lario moved, especially in Palermo, leaving them empty and deserted their villages in the mountains. Therefore no exaggeration to say that I believe at that time the mountain villages of the districts of Dongo, Gravedona e Gera divennero di fatto dei paesi fantasma. In virtù di quel lungo periodo migratorio possiamo anche ben dire che molti dei siciliani attuali hanno sicuramente antiche origini lombarde, perchè da Palermo detti immigrati sicuramente si espansero poi per tutta la regione, contribuendo anch'essi al forte incremento demografico sviluppatosi nell'Isola in quell'epoca. Quell'evento migratorio prolungato, e fatto su larga scala, in questo caso renderebbe plausibile la creazione di un gemellaggio tra le due regioni, Sicilia e Lombardia, o quantomeno tra le due province di Palermo e Como; istituzione che, in questo caso, sarebbe supportata da quegli antichi forti legami di sangue.
C'è un libro, La Signora della Painting (*), masterfully written by Daniela Pizzagalli, which annually publishes the biography of a great woman of those times, but then slowly falls into almost oblivion, which describes very well the period of Palermo we're telling. His descriptions are bombastic, just as was the case in the history of the early '500 Correggio . The description that makes Palermo's time is also so accurate that I just have to transcribe it in full, trusting that the author has tacitly to grant me permission to publish his next song.
°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
""Chissà se anche *, sbarcando a Palermo, sentì nell'aria quella fragranza di violette che il Falzello, nel suo De Rebus Siculis pubblicato nel 1558, assicurava deliziasse tutti i visitatori: un effetto del sale marino scaldato ai raggi del sole cocente.
Dal congestionato traffico del porto, sulle cui banchine si riversavano preziose merci da tutto il mondo, comprese di non essere arrivata in una languida periferia dell'impero, ma nel cuore del Mediterraneo, in un attivo centro di smistamento e di scambi animato da una società colta e raffinata.
Don Fabrizio de Moncada era probabilmente ad attenderla sul molo * and, over the embarrassment of the first meeting due to his outgoing character and experience in any code of conduct, let himself be guided, excited and curious to explore his new home.
The beautiful walled city stood a thousand layers: due to its strategic position sicani, eliminated, Greeks, Phoenicians had popular success that hill, perpendicular to the coastline, located in the inner part of a broad bay protected from the wind, where landings were facilitated by the presence of two streams, one to the north, Papireto, fed by numerous springs, the other to the south, Kemonia, torrential character.
The first great city walls, on top of Hill, Carthage and was dated to the sixth century BC The city was conquered by the Romans, Byzantines and Arabs, who made a capital in the tenth century. Palermo
In this role he had lived an intense and complex urban development, the old core on top of the hill, called by Arab al-Kasr, then the Cassaro, joined by other neighborhoods, built on the banks of two rivers. The emir was installed at the port, with four doors in the citadel Kalsa Cassaro but remained at the heart of the city with the "green marble" flanked by the buildings of the leading families and mosques, including the cathedral itself, transformed into a place of Islamic worship. With
the Norman conquest del'undicesimo century Cassaro was back to being the center of the town, with the royal palace of Altavilla and homes in the new feudal ruling class, while the port area was divided among the various communities of maritime merchants, "nations" of Amalfi, of Pisa, Genoa and also of foreign groups.
The reorganization of the defensive circuit, between the twelfth and the fourteenth century, had also incorporated a stable residential areas and more than Papireto Kemonia. With the conquest of southern Italy by the French Anjou, Palermo lost the role of capital in favor of Naples, recovering after the war of Vespers with the occupation of Aragon. Under the dynasty Aragonese in Sicily criteria were introduced to streamline administrative and processing building.
The English king Ferdinand of Aragon in 1482, according to the Palermo magistrate for permission to demolish the streets and squares for decoration and adornment of the city, at the beginning of the sixteenth century even enjoyment of the rebuilding of the walls according to the new technique ramparts and ditches.
In a city that lived near the Mediterranean all the military events in the years of greatest tension between the English and turkish empire, was to undergo a substantial renovation planning. The commitment to the renewal of the fortified walls predominated in the intentions of the various viceroys who succeeded, from Ferrante Gonzaga che poi, trasferito a Milano, avrebbe portato avanti lo stesso progetto.
La potente cinta bastionata, i cui lavori si sarebbero protratti fino a metà Seicento, avrebbe inglobato la Cittadella realizzata sull'antico Castello a Mare ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3jtGfyyavU ), sconvolgendo l'assetto urbanistico. La funzione di piazzaforte comportava un adeguamento degli spazi pubblici e una diversa dislocazione delle sedi politiche e militari.
Il vicerè Giovanni de Vega a metà del Cinquecento installò la sua sede nell'antico palazzo reale normanno, attorno al quale fu creata una spianata, fiancheggiata dal nuovo quartiere militare spagnolo.
Sempre motivazioni the military in 1565 led the move Viceroy Garcia de Toledo to lay the foundations of a great port to the northwest, separated from the city, and in '67 to expand and correct the path of Cassaro, then prolonging it in a straight line to the Navy, with a substantial evisceration in the medieval.
It was so accomplished a flashy urban planning operation which, in close connection with the work of fortification, renewed as the central area of \u200b\u200bthe city, creating a longitudinal axis of communication in honor of the viceroy was called Via Toledo ( hours Corso Vittorio Emanuele ), which also ceremonial high representation, along which we arranged the squares with the major civic institutions and the most prestigious aristocratic and religious buildings.
In 1567 was opened the square named after the Bologna family, between the cathedral and the square of Pretoria, where, in turn, the municipal government renewed its head, paving the streets to turn on via Toledo in front of the Senatorial Palace.
The road straight, born with clear strategic requirements, remained dominant even when under the next Viceroy, Marcantonio Colonna, took office in '77, they became less pressing military needs: after the victory of Lepanto, in which the column had validly contributed to the Turkish threat seemed loose.
L'intera Sicilia viveva un periodo di prosperità. Se all'inizio del Cinquecento contava poco più di mezzo milione di abitanti, a metà del secolo era arrivata a ottocentomila: solo a Palermo, la popolazione era passata da venticinquemila a centomila anime.
L'assetto sociale cittadino presentava l'incontrastato dominio dell'élite nobiliare che, facendo parte del Parlamento, era costretta a risiedere nella capitale, rinsaldando così i legami tra Palermo e i feudi rurali disseminati in tutta l'isola. La classe baronale viveva con magnificenza, accumulando forti redditi dalle proprietà terriere, la cui produzione agricola era molto richiesta sui mercati internazionali.
The voice was the main export crop, but they were also strong growth in the culture of the vine, the mulberry, an important trade in raw silk, and almost as developed as sugar cane. I "trapetti" Sicily, that the manufactures in which the juice of boiled Cannamele to turn it into sugar, were the oldest in Europe, planted at the time of Arab rule, but was moving forward foreign competition, especially the Dutch, benefiting the labor of slaves in the colonies produced sugar rates.
The landed gentry had made lavish lifestyle city, multiplying festivals and celebrations, of which the Church triumphant post tridentine tended, as in the rest of Italy, to take the initiative and guidance, involving the entire population. The competitiveness with which the different nations and guilds of merchants built churches and chapels show the influence of ecclesiastical institutions in the life of the city. "
(*) The name of the Lady of the painting will be announced to coincide with the publication dedicated to the subject of another post.
0 comments:
Post a Comment