Palermo in the 14th Century: Between Latins and Catalans

Sicily during the middle ages is characterized by a great plurality of influences and styles due to the position of the island, between the West and the East, in the Mediterranean basin making it a border land where different cultures lived together influencing each other. The Norman dominion created a unique kind of cultural syncretism, made from Norman’s architecture, Byzantine decoration and Arabic art, which was typical of this region until the 15th century. This unity was due to the central power of the Hauteville family, in the Norman period (1071–1198), and the Swabian dominion (1198–1268). After the end of the Swabian dominion and after the Sicilian Vespers (1282), when the island revolted against the Angevin dominion, the crown of the Sicilian kingdom was offered to Peter III of Aragon (1273/74–1337). The new king had no real power and the baronial families ruled the island causing a division from Latins and Catalans fractions. Those families showed their power with the construction of their residences and financing the realization of new ecclesiastical buildings, family chapels or their redecoration. In Palermo this division is visible, thanks to the use of the Arabic lithic inlaid, or tarsia, in the decoration of private palaces, like the Chiaramonte’s palace, also known as Steri, built after 1306 and Sclafani’s palace built in 1330. The lithic tarsia was also used in the religious buildings, like the façade of the St. Augustine, built at the end of 13th century, or the Calvello’s chapel in St. Francis built at the beginning of the 14th century, both build by private commission. The use of this kind of decoration in this period was maybe used as a political demonstration of the Latins families against the Catalans, Iberian families, who arrived in the island with the Aragon’s king. Only in the second half of the century a new kind of architectural decoration found its way in the structures, for example in St. Antonio at Steri built by Manfredi III Chiaromonte (†1391) where the lithic decoration is abandoned and a new language is used, like the ribbed vaults and a rib-vaulted apse. Another Chiaramonte commission St. Maria in Baida shows the use of the Catalan’s gothic in the architectural decoration. The focus of this paper is to underline how the island in its condition of border land was subjected to the influence of other cultures that expanded its horizons in the arts and architecture.