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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Le cupole in pietra d’età medievale nel Mediterraneo (Sicilia e Maghreb)

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In area mediterranea nell’arco temporale compreso tra il IX e il XII secolo, coincidente in Sicilia con la dominazione araba e con la prima età normanna, le cupole in pietra negli edifici religiosi e civili mostrano una certa varietà di soluzioni formali, che il testo indaga dal punto di vista storico e costruttivo. Le cupole con calotte lisce, lobate e plissettate, oppure quelle a nervature intrecciate o a muqarnas, testimoniano dell’alta specializzazione raggiunta nel taglio della pietra e una comune sapienza costruttiva che, benché sfaccettata e ricca di declinazioni locali, si protrae fino alle soglie dell'età moderna. The Romanesque period in Sicily coincided with Norman rule over the island which was brought back to Christianity after the long phase of Muslim domination. Historiography has long stressed that the peculiar nature of Sicilian architecture in the eleventh and twelfth century lies in the merging of different cultural and stylistic elements from Byzantine, Islamic and more typically “European” art brought precisely by the Normans. In churches, stone domes were a constant presence and became one of the distinctive characteristics with their small raised cupolas on the roof. The masonry of these structure reveals skilled workmanship and the use of stone-cutting techniques. Based on a system of ancient origin, the dome is in fact the result of an overlapping series of progressively smaller rings. Another peculiarity was the transition solution used to join the dome and the four underlying walls by means of angular niches. Starting from the examples still found in Sicily and the Maghreb, the study investigates the many types of domes: smooth, with bays, pleated, etc. These examples testify to the building expertise and the high level of specialization reached in stone cutting among many peoples of the Mediterranean, which, though multi-faceted and rich in local variations, share common roots, namely ninth and tenth-century Islamic architecture. Stone domes on angular niches enjoyed widespread and lasting appreciation in Sicily, so much so that between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, matched by the slow introduction of Renaissance styles, these models were replicated in numerous churches and chapels.