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Mapping the early modern city

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2009

Helen Hills
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Abstract

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.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , August 1996 , pp. 145 - 170
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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Footnotes

1

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.

References

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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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18 Time Vindicated, a masque written for performance at court in the Banqueting House on Twelfth Night 1623, boasted a set representing the exterior of the same Banqueting House. Orgel, S. and Strong, R., Inigo Jones: The Theatre of the Stuart Court (London and Los Angeles, 1973), vol. I, 348Google Scholar and fig. 122,356–7. Similiarly, a design for Cupid's Palace for an unknown masque of c. 1619–23 bears close visual similarities to examples of Inigo Jones' built architecture, the Prince's Lodgings at Newmarket. Ibid., vol. I, 329 and fig. 41.

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25 This was not the case in published verbal descriptions of the city. As early as 1609 a pamphlet was published describing the cross and the square at its intersection. Maringo, G.B., Fama del'Ottangolo palermitano. Piazza Vigliena e Theatro del Sole (Palermo, 1609).Google Scholar

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30 In effect, Crown control of the Sicilian episcopate was complete, due to the absolute authority of the judge of the Monarchia and his court. Sicilian bishoprics were little more than prizes for the Spanish Crown to distribute to its faithful servants. The presence of the Spanish Inquisition in Sicily further subordinated the Church to the Spanish Crown. Wright, A.D., ‘Relations between church and state: Catholic developments in Spanish-ruled Italy of the Counter-Reformation’, History of European Ideas, 9 (1988), 386, 388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the Apostolic Legateship, see Scaduto, F., Stato e Chiesa nelle Due Sicilie (Palermo, 1969), vol. 1, 160–3Google Scholar and Catalano, G., Studi sulla legazia apostolica di Sicilia (Reggio Calabria, 1973).Google Scholar

31 See note 21 above.

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33 Ibid., 93.

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36 They perhaps additionally underscore Sicily's claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem (a claim that was invigorated in Sicily at this time), since the Salamonic columns refer to the Temple of Jerusalem. For the links between spiral columns and Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, see Ward-Perkins, J.B., ‘The shrine of St Peter's and its twelve spiral columns’, Journal of Roman Studies, 42 (1952), 24Google Scholar and Ramirez, J.A., ‘Guarini, Fray J. Ricci and the complete Salamonic Order’, Art History, 4 (1981), 24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For Sicily‘s claim to the Kingdom of Jersualem, see Mongitore, A., Discorso Istorico sull'Antico Titolo di Regno Concesso all‘Isola di Sicilia (Palermo, 1735)Google Scholar. A full discussion of this issue is given in Hills, H., ‘Marmi Mischi in Palermo’ (unpublished University of London Ph.D. thesis, 1992), 120–36.Google Scholar

37 See Koenigsberger, H.G., The Government of Sicily under Philip II of Spain (London, 1951)Google Scholar; Koenigsberger, H.G., The Practice of Empire (London, 1980)Google Scholar; , J. and Schneider, P., Culture and Political Economy in Western Sicily (New York, 1976)Google Scholar; for a more general discussion, see Wallerstein, I., The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York, 1974).Google Scholar

38 The weaknesses of the Spanish administration throughout the seventeenth century are brilliantly described and analysed by John Elliott. Elliott, J.H., The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline (Yale, 1986), especially 600–13.Google Scholar

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41 Quoted by Smith, Mack, History of Sicily, 153.Google Scholar

42 ‘questo è il governo della città proprio in cui ha minima parte né s'ingerisce il re, né i suoi ministri, ma lasciasi a Palermo una certa di Repubblica’: Bisaccioni, Maiolino, Historia delle guerre civili di questi ultimi tempi (Bologna, 1653), 361.Google Scholar Quoted by Benigno, F., ‘La Questione della Capitale: Lotta politica e rappresentanza degli interessi nella Sicilia del Seicento’, Società e Storia, 47 (1990), 40.Google Scholar See also Romano, A., ‘Fra assolutismo regio ed autnomie locali. Note sulle consuetudini delle città di Siclia’, Cultura ed Istutuzioni nella Sicilia Medievale e Moderna (Messina, 1992), 9–49, 230–6.Google Scholar But for an example of the Spanish Crown's willingness to deprive Sicily in favour of other parts of its empire, see Sella, D., Crisis and Continuity: The Economy of Spanish Lombardy in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1979), 66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 Smith, Mack, History of Sicily, 153.Google Scholar

44 The degree to which the principal cities of Sicily were physically separate from each other in this period should not be underestimated. Palermo was frequently inaccessible by road from other parts of Sicily, and even by boat it was sometimes two or three days from Messina. Smith, Mack, History of Sicily, 72, 222. One has only to reflect that the main autostrada linking Palermo and Catania was not built until 1950 to appreciate how long the tendency against centralization has persisted in Sicily.Google Scholar

45 Messina assumed a sort of religious leadership after the discovery of the bones of St Placido in 1589: Benigno, , ‘La questione della capitale’, 44.Google Scholar For the Messinese celebrations of this occasion, see Alberti, D.S., Dell'Istoria della Compagnia di Gesù – La Sicilia (Palermo, 1702), 702–3.Google Scholar For the struggles amongst the religious orders who feared marginalization along with the city where their power was based, see Fazello, T., Le Due Deche dell'Historie di Sicilia (Venice, 1623 and Palermo, 1628)Google Scholar and Maurolico, F., Sicanicarum rerum compendo (Messina, 1562), 58–62.Google Scholar

46 For a broad discussion of these reasons, see Villari, R., ‘La Spagna, l'Italia e l'assolutismo’, Studi Storici – Istituto Gramsci, 4 (1977), 4–22Google Scholar and Benigno, F., ‘Messina e il Duca d'Osuna: un conflitto politico nella Sicilia del Seicento’, in Il Governo della Città: Patriziati e politica nella Sicilia moderna (Catania, 1989), 173–207.Google Scholar

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48 Judges of the Gran Corte, for instance, represented distinctly Palermo, Messina, Catania and the rest of the Kingdom. Benigno, , ‘La questione della capitale’, 42–3.Google Scholar For other Messinese privileges during the seventeenth century, see ibid., 44.

49 Ibid., 34.

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53 The more democratic nature of Messinese government was probably never as attractive to the Spanish monarchy as its more subservient ‘spagnola’ Palermitan counterpart. Messinese defence of their economic interests rarely found favour with the Spanish, especially after the dash with Osuna over the tax on silk in 1612. But the most salient difference in their administrations concerned jurisdiction. In Palermo juridical appointments were left to the Viceroy, while in Messina they were elected. For this and other civic differences which contributed to the independence of Messina from the Spanish Crown, see Benigno, , ‘La questione della capitale’, 32–8.Google Scholar

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57 The Messinese rebellion differed markedly in character from the revolt in Palermo in 1647. In Messina the rebellion was organized not by the desperately poor facing famine, as had been the case in Palermo, but by the rich trying to defend their privileges from Spanish rule, from Palermo and from threat to the monopoly on silk exports. Pocili, A., Delle Rivolutioni della Città di Palermo avvenute l';anno 1647 (Verona, 1648)Google Scholar; Laloy, F., La révolte de Messine (Paris, 1929–1931)Google Scholar; Petrocchi, M., La rivoluzione cittadina messinese del 1674 (Florence, 1954)Google Scholar; Giarrizzo, G., ‘La Sicilia dal Cinquencento all'Unità d'Italia’, in Galasso, G. (ed.), Storia d'Italia: La Sicilia dal Vespro all'Unità d'Italia, vol. XVI (Turin, 1989) 332–42.Google Scholar

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61 The eagle was a symbol of Palermo. Mungitore, A., ‘Diario Palermitano’, in Di Marzo, Diari della città di Palermo, vol. 7, 174.Google Scholar For a full discussion of this symbolism see Fagiolo and Madonna, , Il Teatro del Sole, 20–21Google Scholar and Strada, F., Le Glorie dell'Aquila Trionfante (Palermo, 1682), 1–11.Google Scholar

62 In Del Giudice's words: ‘che tutte sono le più speciali Provincie, e Città, o difese da' morbi aggressori, o presidiate co' Palladij di qualche reliquia, o ossequiose all'impareggiabile gloria, e che tutte stimano lor pregio accompagnare anco cattive del proprio affetto il Trionfo della Palermitana Eroina’: Del Giudice, Palermo Magnifico, 34.

63 See Galasso, G. and Russo, C., Per la Storia Sociale e Religiosa del Mezzogiorno d'Italia (Naples, 1980)Google Scholar, and Gajano, S.B. and Sebastiani, L. (eds), Culto dei Santi, istituzioni e classi sociali in età preindustriale (Rome, 1984).Google Scholar

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65 It was always vigorously supported by the Jesuits, who involved themselves prominently in the annual festino, maintaining a significant presence in the processions, and tirelessly producing elaborate apparati which promoted the Society. For an early description of the Jesuits' involvement in the festino of 1625, see Paruta, O., Relations delle feste fatte in Palermo nel MDCXXV per lo trionfo delle Gloriose Reliquie di S. Rosalia Vergine Palermitana (Palermo, 1651).Google Scholar For a discussion of the development and growth of the cult of St Rosalia, see Petrarca, V., Di Santa Rosalia Vergine Palermitana (Palermo, 1988).Google Scholar

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67 Since nothing has survived of this macchina and no other descriptions of this fireworks display has survived, I am forced to rely on Del Giudice's account. As Montagu has noted, ‘[n]othing is harder to understand than the description of seventeenth-century fireworks’: Montagu, , Roman Baroque Sculpture, 187.Google Scholar

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70 For a discussion of Troy as a potent topos in art, see McKendrick, S., ‘The Great History of Troy: a reassessment of the development of a secular theme in late medieval art’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 54 (1991), 43–82. Further research is needed into the significance of Troy in medieval and post-medieval representations of cities.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

71 Del Giudice lists the monarchs as Count Roger, King Roger, William the Good, Frederick II, Peter of Aragon, Ferdinand, Philip I, Charles V, Philip II, Philip III, Philip IV, Charles II: Giudice, Del, Palermo Magnifico, 121.Google Scholar G.C. Argan describes these figures as the ‘Mothers’ and ‘Fathers’ of Sicily: Argan, G.C., ‘Premessa’, in Fagiolo and Madonna, Teatro del Sole, 7.Google Scholar

72 Giudice, Del, Palermo Magnifico, 97.Google Scholar

73 Given the tremendous local and popular enthusiasm for St Rosalia, it was prudent for the Spanish Crown not only to seek to identify its fortunes with this saint, but also to ensure that it controlled how she was used.

74 There have been few attempts to interpret seventeenth-century Italian processions, but for a useful discussion of the functions of processions in Counter-Reformation Milan, see Dallaj, A., ‘Le processioni a Milano nella Controriforma’, Studi Storici, 23 (1982), 167–83.Google Scholar