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That landscape beloved by artists of all times

Present-day Ispica stands on the plateau adjacent to the famous Ispica gully, where the ancient town was located and prospered until the 1693 earthquake. Until 1935 the name of this very civilised little town was Spaccaforno, a term deriving from lspicae Fundus, a name given to the place since very ancient times. This is not the place to dwell on the value of the archaeological site and the historical and religious remains in the Ispica gully: we need only mention the fascination exerted on writers and artists over the centuries by the grottoes, the hermitages, the necropoles, the churches and the rich landscape of the gully.

Ispica went through the hands of various noble Sicilian families, the Lanzas, the Chiaramontes, the Cabreras, the Carusos and lastly the Statellas, and then with the abolition of feudalism it became a free comune, developing around its historical nucleus, where the most important monuments are. We must mention the cathedral church, dedicated to the apostle San Bartolomeo; it was built by the the Statellas. Another fine church is the one dedicated to the Annunziata, whose interior is embellished by a rich cycle of stuccoes by the Pale rmo artist Gianforma, showing scenes from the Old Testament up to the Nativity of Christ. The most prestigious religious building is the Santa Maria Maggiore basilica, a work by the Noto artist Vincenzo Sinatra, whose facade is enriched by an artistic wrought iron gate leading into a broad parvis surrounded by very elegant porticoes; the interior of the basilica has fine frescos by Olivio Sozzi, showing magnificently done scenes from the Bible and ecclesiastic history. In the church people worship Christ flagellated at the column, which comes from the Ispica gully and is the object of a cult which historically is deep-rooted and is expressed in forms of intense popular religious sentiment during Holy Week. Non-religious architecture in Ispica boasts one of the best art nouveau monuments in Sicily: Palazzo Bruno di Belmonte, which is the Town Hall. It was done by Ernesto Basile, who began work on it in 1910. It shows pertect harmony between its massive and imposing structure and the lines of the design, which in the variegated interplay of towers and little loggias, balconies and railings, lighten the construction and confer elan and elegance on the whole building.

Commissioned of Ernesto Basile in 1906 by a deputy of the Italian Parliament, it reveals the encounter between the prestigious architect and a tenacious local building tradition. The compromise led to one of the most original works by Basile. The compact structure of the Palazzo is partially denied by a particular distribution of the parts and the gallery at the back. The high corner tower completes the building which is, so to speak, out of scale in the regular texture of small dwellings surrounding it - almost like a return to an imposing feudal edifice, softened by the fresh modernist decoration.

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Foto © Studio Scivoletto