New Book | Art and Architecture of Sicily
From Lund Humphries:
Julian Treuherz, Art and Architecture of Sicily (London: Lund Humphries, 2023), 320 pages, ISBN: 978-1848226043, £40 / $80.
Sicily’ s strategic position in the centre of the Mediterranean led to settlement or conquest by a succession of different peoples—Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Muslims, Normans, Germans, French, Spanish—each one leaving its traces on Sicilian culture. This book provides a chronological survey, each section opening with a brief historical overview which is followed with an authoritative and engaging account of the development of the period’ s art and architecture. The leading architects, artists and stylistic currents are all discussed and outstanding individual buildings and works of art are analysed in detail, while archaeology, urban development, patronage and decorative arts are also covered. This is not a story of artistic conquests, but as a successive layering of different cultures: the way each one interacted with its predecessors produced art and architecture quite distinct from anywhere else in Europe.
Julian Treuherz is an art historian who was Keeper of Art Galleries for National Museums Liverpool between 1989 and 2007. He has written many books, articles and exhibition catalogues, and over the last twenty years he has spent part of each year in Sicily studying its art and architecture.
c o n t e n t s
• Introduction
• Prehistoric Sicily
• The Greeks come to Sicily: The Archaic Period
• The Greeks in Sicily: The Classical Period
• Punic Sicily
• The Greeks in Sicily: The late Classical and Hellenistic Periods
• Sicily, Province of Rome
• Early Christian, Byzantine, and Arabic Sicily
• The Normans in Sicily: A New Architectural Style
• The Normans in Sicily: The Royal Workshops, the Pleasure Pavilions, and the Later Cathedrals
• Sicily under the Hohenstaufen Emperors
• Late Medieval Sicily: German, French, and Aragonese Rule
• Sicily under the Spanish Viceroys: The 15th Century
• Sicily under the Spanish Viceroys: The 16th Century
• The Coming of the Baroque to Western Sicily
• The Earthquake of 1693 and the Rebuilding of Eastern Sicily
• Late Baroque Architecture in Western Sicily
• Baroque Painting, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts
• Neoclassicism in Sicily
• The Search for a New Style: Sicily, 1840–1918
• Sicily after 1918
Call for Papers | Architectural Ideas between Malta and Europe
From ArtHist.net:
People, Books and Models: The Order of St John and the Circulation of Architectural Ideas between Malta and Europe, 16th–18th Centuries
Online and in-person, Valletta, 17–19 April 2024
Proposals due by 30 September 2023
This conference aims at encouraging a multidisciplinary discussion, set in a broad European and Mediterranean context, of the spread of ideas, models for architecture, and construction techniques in Malta during the early modern age, via the networks of the Order of St John. In particular, it intends to investigate this dissemination of architectural theoretical and technical knowledge through the circulation of sources such as books, treatises, manuals of mathematics and geometry, catalogues, and collections of architectural images and drawings, as well as people, from architects to patrons, from engineers to intellectuals. The conference also aims to address a thorny methodological issue: the origin, dispersion, and fragmentation of the Hospitaller conventual library and, at the same time, the genesis of the library collections in Malta that include architectural sources, especially (but not only) at the National Library, for a better understanding of their provenance and context.
Taking Valletta and its civil architecture and historical construction sites as the main starting point of this investigation, the key role played by the city-convent was twofold. On one hand, the city was the core of the Hospitaller network, mirroring in its palaces, construction sites, and library collections the European dimension of the Order’s political, social, and cultural relationships. For this reason, the intense exchange between Malta and the Hospitaller offices in Europe will also be considered as well as the reciprocal influences between the Order and various political powers. On the other hand, there were also in Malta other important political stakeholders—from the Diocese to the Inquisition, from the many religious orders (like the Jesuits) to private individuals and travellers—that diversified the cultural scenario in Malta. These all need to be further investigated.
Finally, interpreting the Order as a powerful engine for the European circulation of drawings, books, and architectural models, the conference aims at serving as a forum where new research and methodologies can be discussed and fostered, not only to explore Malta and the other European nodes of the Hospitaller network, but also to better understand the broader European context from an original perspective.
Contributions delving into the following key topics are very welcome: migration of architectural languages, construction techniques, and circulation of drawings for architectural projects between the Maltese environment and Europe; analysis of architectural models from printed sources in the context of Hospitaller patronage; and the genesis of the Maltese and Hospitaller libraries and book circulation and production (with a focus on architectural sources).
The conference will be held as a hybrid event, with a Zoom link provided closer to the date of the conference. After the conference, participants will be invited to contribute to an edited volume to be proposed for inclusion in a peer-reviewed publication. Participants who wish to contribute are invited to send their text in English, along with related illustrations (including permission for publication) by 1 June 2024.
Abstract submissions will be open from 21 August 2023 to 30 September 2023. The submitted abstracts will be evaluated by the scientific committee and acceptance will be communicated by 23 October 2023. Selected speakers are invited to prepare 20-minute contributions. To apply, please send the following items to peoplebooksmodels2024@um.edu.mt
• 400-word abstract in English
• Contact information and affiliation
• Short CV (max 150 words) in English
The conference is the first step in an international project entitled Malta & Europe, Europe & Malta: Dissemination of Knowledge, Sources, and Architectural Models through the Network of the Order of St John run jointly by the University of Palermo (Dr Armando Antista), Politecnico di Torino (Dr Valentina Burgassi), and the University of Malta (Dr Valeria Vanesio).
Conference Directors
• Armando Antista (University of Palermo)
• Valentina Burgassi (Politecnico di Torino)
• Heléna Perez Gallardo (Complutense University of Madrid)
• Valeria Vanesio (University of Malta)
Scientific Committee Chairs
• Fernando Bouza Álvarez
• Sabine Frommel
• Marco Rosario Nobile
• William Zammit
Enfilade 
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