Architecture, Opportunity, and Conflict in Eighteenth-Century Sicily: Rebuilding after Natural Disaster

Martin Nixon, Zayed UniversityFollow

Document Type

Book

Publication Date

2023

Abstract

The catastrophic Sicilian earthquake of 1693 led to the rebuilding of over 60 towns in the island’s south-west. The rebuilding extended into the eighteenth century and gave opportunities for the reassertion and the transformation of power relations. Although eight of the towns are now protected by UNESCO, the remarkable architecture resulting from this rebuilding is little known outside Sicily. This is the first book-length study in English of this interesting area of early modern architecture. Rather than seek to address all of the towns, five case studies discuss key aspects of the rebuilding by approaching the architecture from different scales, from that of a whole town to parts of a town, or single buildings, or parts of buildings and their decoration. Each case study also investigates a different theoretical assumption in architecture, including ideas of the Baroque, rational planning, and the relegation of decoration in architectural discourse.

ISBN

9789463725736

9789048551767

Publisher

Amsterdam University Press

Disciplines

Architecture | History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology

Keywords

Early Modern, Sicily, Architecture and Power, Urbanism, Baroque

Indexed in Scopus

no

Open Access

no

Link to Full Text

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