Trapani Architectures: Between Baroque and Art Nouveu

The city of Trapani has a varied architectural landscape rich in art, which preserves ancient testimonies that date back to 1300.

Its position in the center of the Mediterranean and the succession of various dominations have influenced, as well as history, its urban fabric; thus in the historic center there is the medieval quarter, the Arab settlement (with small narrow streets) and the fourteenth-century area revisited in the Baroque era.

The Fountain with the Statuette of the God Saturn, in the square of the church of S. Agostino, and the portals of via Badiella and via Sette Dolori date back to the fourteenth century, works in which a Gothic style prevails, characterized by the predominance of vertical lines and the sixth arch acute; as well as the imposing Cathedral of San Lorenzo built in 1300, but with a prevalent Baroque style.

Continuing in the architectural history of Trapani, the bell tower of the church of S. Domenico which dates back to 1400 and the remains of the Trinity Chapel built in 1542 deserve to be included; Palazzo Ciambra in via Giudecca, a district where the Jews once resided, dates back to the 16th century.

In 1671, by Carlos de Grunemberg, Torre di Ligny was built in the extreme tip of Trapani, in order to safeguard the city from a possible invasion by the Turks, which currently, in addition to allowing a panoramic view of the two seas, the Mediterranean and the Tyrrhenian Sea, hosts an interesting museum of prehistory.

Among the buildings built between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries there are beautiful examples of eclectic architecture and floral or liberty style. By eclectic taste we mean the style of those who do not follow a precise address, but elaborate their own theory, resulting from the coordination of elements of different origins, which characterized the architecture of the late nineteenth century and which are: the Palazzo della Provincia built in 1878 , the Palazzo del Municipio erected in 1904, the Palazzo della Dogana in 1924, the Harbor Master's Office in 1930 and the former Grande Hotel in Piazza Garibaldi.

Among its many artistic and architectural facets it is on the presence of the Baroque that we want to pause, imagining a walk through the streets of the historic center, between the elegance of the noble palaces and the architecture of the churches, in search of those buildings that most present this style, both overt and mixed with other elements.

Baroque architecture developed between the 16th and 17th centuries, and is easily recognizable because it is richly adorned with sculptures and decorations, especially on the portals, cornices and pediments, while on the walls and floors we find stuccoes, frescoes and polychrome marbles.

From the fourteenth century, Sicily was dominated first by the Aragonese and then by the Spaniards: the cities of the viceroyalty were affected by the cultural influence of the Baroque, which in Spain reached its peak in the seventeenth century.

In Trapani, where the citizens had been accustomed to the richness and opulence of Byzantine and Arab architectural decorations, this style easily takes hold and masterpieces such as the church of San Francesco d'Assisi, San Pietro and the church of the Anime del Purgatorio are built. . But above all, the Annunziata complex, built in the 1300s, was transformed in the 1700s in Baroque style by the Trapani architect Biagio Amico, who also included elements of the Renaissance tradition.

With the advent of the Baroque in Trapani, Via Garibaldi and Corso Vittorio Emanuele became home to noble and ecclesiastical palaces that testify to the ease of the nobility of the time.

As already said so far, Trapani is not made of baroque only. There is also a modernist city that, between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, chose Art-Nouveau to create villas and palaces for a bourgeoisie who wanted to feel at the height of the old city aristocracy.

Art Nouveau, which locally took on different denominations, and better known in Italy as Liberty Style, was a true revolutionary artistic and philosophical movement and was characterized by its internationality, for the great importance given to the curved line, to the decorations inspired by the shapes plants and especially the stylizations of flowers, involving both the major and minor arts. However, short-lived.

Art Nouveau proposed itself as an open and international refined culture, creating an elitist environment of use, allowing the use of new languages ​​mainly to the privileged classes, patrons of Liberty.

The diffusion, in fact, was not widespread, but the prerogative of the most developed territorial areas, that is, those that possessed an industrial economy capable of bearing costs.

Trapani, at the end of the 19th century, was a great protagonist of the industrial and mercantile economy of western Sicily, represented by a ruling class who loved the avant-gardes and elite models, and which, in the years of post-unification urban transformation, built their own new homes using the representative canons of Art Nouveau.

These are impressive buildings, mainly built by a few professionals who are sensitive to new suggestions.

 To make his debut in this architectural adventure in Trapani was the engineer Giuseppe Manzo with the villa and the chapel of Hon. Nunzio Nasi, on the rock of the same name (1898-1899), followed by the prospectus of the Agueci house, in Via San Michele (1907) and the prospectus of the Occhipinti house in via Ammiraglio Staiti (1912).

The one of Alberto La Barbera in Via Osorio, was instead the first liberty house of Francesco La Grassa, the most prolific of the Trapani designers, also author, among others, of the projects of the Chalet Fiorino (the Casina delle Palme) of 1920, Montalto house (1924) and the Palazzo delle Poste, inaugurated in 1927 and Villa Platamone.

Among these projects there are some elegant creations of railings and wall decorations, works by "masters of art" who filled the facades of the buildings in Trapani with suggestions, when the trace left by the executor was considered an added value that eternally marked the 'building work.