PALAZZO ABATELLIS A PALERMO COME “PALINSESTO”, IL RESTAURO TRA IL 1943 E IL 1953

Abstract

In the history of architectural, the conservation is an integral part of a culture that produced, between the end of the nineteenth century and the mid-twentieth century, the cancellation or transformations of part of historical architecture. A story, also "authentic" in its specificity, which deserves to be more recognized in identifying the values of the cultural heritage to be preserved and enhanced, since it is a tangible phase in the evolution of the architectural culture of this country. Not even the history of the current Regional Gallery of Palazzo Abatellis in Palermo is exempt from this inexorable process of transformations. In Sicily, the domus magna Abatellis, one of the most prestigious sym- bolic buildings of Sicilian Renaissance architecture, is today the result of the restoration, consolidation and reconstruction interventions car- ried out by the Superintendency of Palermo in the immediate post-war period, by Mario Guiotto, Armando Dillon and Giuseppe Giaccone. Only later would the palace also be affected by the refined and cultured work of museum layout and furnishings carried out by Carlo Scarpa for its transformation into the Regional Gallery of Sicily, which would be opened to the public on 23 June 1954.