Building the Cathedral of Noto

Proceedings of the First International Congress on Construction History, Madrid, 20th-24th January 2003, ed. S. Huerta, Madrid: I. Juan de Herrera, SEdHC, ETSAM, A. E. Benvenuto, COAM, F. Dragados, 2003. Building the cathedral of Noto Stephen Tobriner The Cathedral of Noto still dominates its city with continued into the late 18th century. When grace and majesty despite its gutted interior and earthquakes rumbled through the new city of Noto in broken dome. The collapse of S. Nicolo on 13 March 1727, 1780, 1818 and 1848 each damaged or 1996 was just the latest misfortune in a long collapsed S. Nicolo. The last earthquake to strike the succession.] From shortly after the inception of the city in 1990 opened cracks in the church which city of Noto on its present site in 1693 until the late directly contributed to its failure in the rainstorm of 20th century collapses and closures caused by 1996 (Gavarini 2000). earthquakes plagued the church. The foundations of Since S. Nicolo experienced multiple earthquakes the original Chiesa Madre of S. Nicolo can be still be it is fair to ask whether the architects and seen seven kilometers northwest of the present city stonemasons chosen to build or repair it attemptcd to among the ruins of old Noto (Noto Antica), destroyed make the church seismically resistan!. Only in the earthquake of 1693. The Baroque city of Noto construction documents corroborated by the mins of and its Chiesa Madre of S. Nicolo are products of a the building itself can definitively answer this massive earthquake reconstruction effort which question. The challenge is to try to understand the architect' s or builder' s intention. The methods 18th- century Sicilians used to insure stability in earthquakes might differ markedly from our own. For example, one commonly held principie of antiseismic design derived from Classical authors and advised by architectural theorists like Antonio Averlino (11 Filarete), Andrea Palladio, and Francesco Milizia (Laner and Barbisan 1986, 13-27, 30-35, 56) was that buildings should be constructed over caverns or incorporate vertical shafts and hollow walls to avoid inhibiting vapors expelled from the earth during an earthquake (Guidoboni 1989). This idea is so counterintuitive we might miss it even if we saw a building intentionally built over a void. Other Figure 1 intuitive ideas about how to stabilize a building are S. Nicolü. Fa~adc overlooking the main piazza of Noto with closer to our own. The Mannerist architect, Pirro a fragment of the dome stillstanding in 1998 (phata: authar) Ligorio, after examining the mins of Ferrara after the 1980 S. Tobriner earthquake of 1570, offered his own observations damaged was the marb]e main porta] in the about building safety (Guidoboni 1997). He criticized earthquake of 1727 that it was at risk of tota] ruin. buildings that were simply too old, built with thin This decorative feature and the stone around it which walls, lacking in reinforcement, bonded with inferior had previously collapsed with the old church in 1693, mortar. He blamed the craftsman guilds working nearly faiJed after it was installed in the new. The without the guidance of a trained architect (like interior of the church must have been at risk as well himself, of course) for the poor design and execution because authorities removed the precious Arch of S. of the buildings that failed. His remedy was first to Corrado (the patron saint of Noto) and installed it for build well' with the best of materials and to use iron safe keeping in the church of S. Domenico. The 1727 ties where necessary to bond walls together. He saw earthquake not on]y damaged S. NicoJo. The facade evidence of heavy exterior walls oscillating at of the church of S. Francesco broke apart, the vault of different frequencies and striking one another. He S. Agata fell, the cross of the church of SS. Trinita suggested heavier than usual interna] partitions to tumbled off, S. Maria di Gesu was damaged, and a help stabi]ize these walls. He proposed uniform wal! portion of the facade of the Jesuit seminary facing the thickness as a way of insuring that buildings moved present Piazza XVI Maggio collapsed (Canale 1976, together in earthquakes and hypothesized that regular 58,363,288-89; Boschi et al. 1995; Gallo 1964). ground plans were far more resistant to shaking than The 1727 earthquake should have proven to the irregular ones. Ligorio's intuitive reasoning seems people of Noto that seismic events recurred and that considered, and generally in accord with present-day they were extremely dangerous to masonry structures. ideas of seismically resistant designo He, and Yet no evidence of antiseismic construction countless architects who followed him, had to face techniques appears in the first church of S. Nicolo, the problematic behavior of brittle masonry wal!s badly damaged in the earthquake of 1727, even which lack resilience when subjected to lateral forces though this first church was built within memory of generated by earthquakes. the great earthquake of 1693. Just the year before, in The temporary church of S. Nicolo built in 1693 1726, a major earthquake destroyed scores of was certainly influenced by the fear of earthquakes. buildings in Sicily's capital city of PaJermo, only a Because citizens feared the return of the deadly few days ride from Noto. Palermo had initiated some earthquakes which leveled not only Noto, but more surprisingly avant-garde antiseismic construction than forty cities in Southeastern Sicily, they built methods (La Duca 1995). For example, after the 1726 small low structures throughout the 1690s (Tobriner Palermo earthquake we know that antiseismic 1982). The baracca of S. Nicolo, like others in the so]utions for domes made of stucco and wood instead city, was modest. But within a decade, al! over Noto, of stone were discussed and implemented. the temporary buiJdings were being replaced by Strengthening of damaged structures through the larger ones in stone. Among these permanent building copious use of iron was introduced. Even a law was S. Nicolo, begun in 1696. Like other building s in prohibiting the use of heavy balconies was the new Noto, S. Nicolo, was a patchwork of newly promulgated. quarried and previously cut stonework. As What effect did the lessons of the Palermo stonemasons established quarries on the slopes of the earthquake of 1726 and the earthquake of ] 727 ha ve new site of Noto, they sent mule train after mule train on reconstruction in Noto? An aristocrat writing to Noto Antica to excavate stone from the ruins. The Noto's early history states that after the earthquake marble portal of the main doorway of S. Nicolo, Iying «the walls of convents, pa]aces and churches were in in ruin s in Noto Antica, was transported to the new such poor condition, so full of fissures, that they had city in 1696 and incorporated in the new fa~ade. In to be repaired either with buttresses or iron chains.» 1718 the insignia ofthe city found in Noto Antica was Variations on these techniques are used after solemnly affixed to the fa~ade of the new Chiesa earthquakes in present day Sicily. Rosario Gagliardi, Madre clearly underscoring the transfer of the city. the most famous architect working in 18th century In the midst of reconstruction a major earthquake Noto, must have known about how to built struck Noto in 1727, badly damaging the new stone S. antiseismical1y. For example, Gagliardi was Nicolo for the first time (Boschi et al. 1993). So badly employed as the architect of the new church of S. Building the cathedral.ofNoto 1981 Maria la Rotonda in 1730 in whieh the walls were Between October 8, 1745 and August 21, 1746, for strengthened with iron rods. Twenty years later in reasons still unclear, the campaign to finish the first 1750 in an assessment of the ehureh of S. Miehele in church was abandoned and an entirely new church the Sicilian town of Scicli he proposed two solutions begun. Perhaps the earthquake of 1727 had dealt the to roofing in relationship to earthquakes (Nifosi 1988, first church a fatal blow, the extent of which experts 32, 37). He advised that light vaults of wood and eane only realized over time. lt is possible that the initial and plaster would resist earthquakes more effectively damage caused further failures much later just as the than stone arches. Gagliardi's diseussion of vaults in damage from the 1990 earthquake contributed to the Seicli proves he was cognizant of seismie hazards and failure of S. Nicolb in 1996. Social and aesthetic understood antiseismic strategies. Yet no seismic reasons eould also aecount for the abandoning the strengthening is recorded at S. Nicolb. While workers 1696 designo Perhaps the first church, still seem to have been repairing the «pietra d'intaglio» incomplete, was insufficiently large or grand in [ashlar masonry] of the «arehes, pilasters, and relation to new mother churches being erected in windows», Gagliardi was employed to take down and other eities of southeastern Sicily. The new second to remount the bells of the ehurch. It seems that church begun in the 1740s was designed encapsulate Gagliardi was adding a single belfry to the facade, the nave of the first church. Documents record that perhaps a miniature or full-scale tower fa<;:ade. What stone is delivered to the site as early as 1746. The is not described are the antiseismie iron rods or chains shipments of stone are presumably for the new waJls he used in S. Maria la Rotonda. Instead, the upper for the apse and chapels being built at the northern part of the facade, probably ruined in the earthquake, end of the church.

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