Pirro Ligorio and Sicilian Antiquities: Indifference Or an Unwitting “Short Circuit”?
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Chapter 6 Pirro Ligorio and Sicilian Antiquities: Indifference or an Unwitting “Short Circuit”? Federico Rausa Scrutiny of the description of the main towns and cities of ancient Sicily in the alphabetical encyclopaedia of Pirro Ligorio, which is set out in the docu- mentary appendix, reveals a surprising gap with respect to the amount and the tenor of the information provided in the works of Sicilian historiographers published in the decades between 1537 and 1573.1 A synoptic reading of Ligorio’s passages and those of contemporary Sicilian authors of the 16th century opens up to the reader a diametrically opposed panorama. Ligorio is recapitulatory with regard to references to literary sourc- es and does not mention monumental evidence, except for isolated cases of citations of epigraphs.2 In the Sicilian sources, there is instead a wealth of in- formation on the vestiges of the past that populated the island and were still unknown and mysterious. An attempt will be made here to provide an explanation of this lacuna in the world of Ligorio’s antiquarian knowledge and to understand the reasons for this. 1 Sicilian Antiquities in Historical Writings on Sicily in the 16th Century For the 16th century one cannot speak of the existence in Sicily of antiquar- ian studies strictly so termed. Interests in the topography and the corography of ancient Sicily, which from the second half of the 15th century were already evident in Sicilian humanists following the 14th-century chroniclers, were the consequence of adhering to the historiographic methods indicated by Flavio 1 The same considerations also pertain to the description of the island (Turin, ASTorino, a.II.3.J.16, s.v. “Sicilia,” fols. 163v–164v), which consists of a summary of the information on the historical and geographical sources for the myths, cults, and physical geography of Sicily. 2 In only two cases is it possible to note comments by Ligorio on the contemporary situation of the places described: in the headings in the alphabetic encyclopaedia of the ancient world that are dedicated to Palermo and Syracuse, respectively (see Appendix 5a and 8a). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004385634_008 Pirro Ligorio and Sicilian Antiquities 99 Biondo in his reconstruction of the historical events of the island and of its once famous cities. The works of humanists in the days of Alfonso II, mainly those belonging to the religious orders—such as Pietro Ranzano (1428–1492);3 Angelo Monteverde, known as Callimaco (mid-15th century–?);4 Lucio Cristóbal Scobar (1460–1515);5 and Gian Giacomo Adria (1485–1560)6—must be placed in this dimension, being those responsible for the first references to ancient Sicilian monuments.7 It was the task, nevertheless, of the foremost exponents of the successive generation of scholars to pursue this research on the history of the island and, putting aside any municipalistic spirit considered to be the distinctive trait of Sicilian 16th-century historiography, “to reveal Sicily to the eyes first and fore- most of Sicilians themselves”.8 Monuments and ruins of a glorious and distant 3 Author of a lost De Sicilia and of an Opusculum de primordis et progressu felicis urbis Panormi—still in manuscript today; on Ranzano, see G. Uggeri, Tommaso Fazello fondatore della topografia antica. Il contributo alla conoscenza della topografia ella Sicilia orientale, in Atti del Convegno di studi in onore di Tommaso Fazello per il quinto centenario della nascita, ed. N. Allegro (Sciacca: 2003), p. 99 (with bibliography). 4 Author of a historical work in verse, Rhegina (1504), that contains a summary description of the main Sicilian cities; on Angelo Callimaco, see G. Schizzerotto, s.v. “Callimaco, Angelo,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 16 (1973) online (with bibliography), and Uggeri, Tommaso Fazello fondatore, p. 100. 5 A grammarian and lexicographer, he was “ciantro” of Agrigento in 1515. He composed De antiquitate Agrigentina, printed in Venice in 1522, and produced in the climate of humanistic interests that characterized the presence at Agrigento of Cardinal Giuliano Cybo (1506–1537). On Scobar’s contribution to lexicography, see M. Pfister, “Die italienische Lexicographie von Anfängen bis 1900,” in Wörterbücher, Dictionaries, Dictionnaires. Ein internationales Handbuch zur Lexikographie, eds. F.-J. Hausmann et al. (Berlin: 1990), 2, col. 1849, and H.-J. Niderehe, “Frühe italienisch-spanische Sprachbeziehungen im Spiegel von Glossaren, Wörterbüchern und Grammatiken,” in Lingua et Traditio. Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft und der neueren Philologien, eds. R. Baum et al. (Tübingen: 1994), pp. 100–102. Whereas there is still no study on his historical-antiquarian work. 6 Author of a lost Historia Sicula and of De topographia inclytae civitatis Mazarae (1516), which he identified with the ancient Selinunte; on Adria, see R. Zapperi, s.v. “Adria, Gian Giacomo,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 1 (1960) online (with bibliography), and Uggeri, Tommaso Fazello fondatore, pp. 100–101. 7 Among the pioneers “of this research” Bartolomeo de Grande is also noted, as the author of an unpublished manuscript titled De Siciliae insulae, situ, montibus, fluminibus et locis, see O. Belvedere, “Il contributo di Tommaso Fazello alla conoscenza della topografia antica della Sicilia occidentale,” in Tommaso Fazello, p. 93. 8 F. de Stefano, Storia della Sicilia dall’XI al XIX secolo, 2nd ed. (Bari: 1977), p. 150 (it. “svelare la Sicilia agli occhi anzitutto dei siciliani stessi”); on the question, see S. Correnti, Cultura e storiografia nella Sicilia del Cinquecento (Catania: 1972); A. Momigliano, “La riscoperta della Sicilia antica da T. Fazello a P. Orsi,” in Storia della Sicilia, ed. R. Romeo (Naples: 1979), 1, pp. 767–780; see as well D. Mack Smith, Storia della Sicilia medievale e moderna, 5th ed. (Bari: 1998), p. 243..