Tra le nuove mete dei forestieri. Il restauro ottocentesco della chiesa di Santa Maria della Catena a Palermo

Abstract

Throughout the nineteenth century and up to the first half of the twentieth century, the histo- ry of the revival also affected Sicily, intersecting in various aspects with the history of restora- tion. If restoration interventions generally in- volve architecture identified as Arab-Norman, already in the 19th century a marked interest in restoration began to emerge which, initially with a philological attention and subsequently with an increasingly restorative attitude, would celebrate what was recognized today, thanks to the development of subsequent studies of the twentieth century, as the Mediterranean Gothic architecture in Sicily. The contribution, on the basis of archival doc- uments, aims to critically analyze the nine- teenth-century restoration of the church of Santa Maria della Catena in Palermo, bringing out an early interest in the architecture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Sicily, which will influence the numerous restoration inter- ventions that will develop starting from the end of the 19th century and throughout the first half of the 20th century.