I disegni di Rosario Gagliardi conservati presso il Dipartimento di Architettura di Palermo

Abstract

The Department of Architecture of Palermo keeps some drawings related to the activity of one of the greatest architects to have worked in Sicily in the eighteenth century: Rosario Gagliardi (Syracuse, ca. 1690-Noto, 1762). The importance of the small corpus - coming from a collection already constituted in the 18th century (the Mazza Collection) - is also linked to the fact that the drawings include famous edifices of Sicilian Baroque architecture: from the cathedral of San Giorgio in Ragusa to the churches of Santa Chiara and San Domenico in Noto. The thorough examination of the drawings offers the opportunity for a more general reflection on the characteristics of architectural design in eighteenth-century Sicily. An overall picture emerges where the methods and techniques that guide representation become a distinctive tool and take on a decisive role within his professional career.