Le miracle de la nature et de l’art - Palermo barocca nel diario di viaggio di Albert Jouvin de Rochefort

Abstract

The date of Albert Jouvin de Rochefort’s journey, recounted in his Voyage d’Italie et de Malthe, in 1672, places him among the authors who were at the forefront of the Grand Tour phenomenon, which experienced its golden age between the second half of the 18th century and the first half of the following century. Palermo was the first stop on his journey to Sicily and Jouvin was fascinated by it. The closeness of the author to the baroque aesthetic is widely reflected in Palermo not only in the main monuments of the city, but in the entire urban layout, conceived as a Theatre of the World, in which coexist, in a multitude of monumental and decorative solutions, the fundamental social and cultural landmarks of the population: the Saints object of devotion, the monarchs, the allegories of natural elements, the pagan deities. From the author’s narration emerges the image of the city as a symbolic and narrative machine, which contributes to the definition of a strong and coherent collective identity, aware of the role of Palermo in the Mediterranean and already, in many ways, multicultural.