Page 116 - The Rough Guide of Sicily

Galleria Regionale della Sicilia

Via Alloro 4 • Tues–Fri 9am–6pm, Sat & Sun 9am–1pm • €8, €10 with Palazzo Mirto • 091 623 0011,
regione.sicilia.it/beniculturali/palazzoabatellis

Sicily’s finest medieval art collection is displayed in the Galleria Regionale della
Sicilia, which occupies the princely Palazzo Abatellis, a fifteenth-century building that
still retains elements of its Catalan-Gothic and Renaissance origins. There are some

wonderful works here, by all the major names encountered on any tour of the island,
starting with the fifteenth-century sculptor Francesco Laurana, whose white marble
bust of Eleonora d’Aragona is a calm, perfectly studied portrait. Another room is
devoted to the work of the Gagini clan, mostly statues of the Madonna, though

Antonello Gagini is responsible for a rather strident Archangel Michael, with a
distinct military manner. Highlight of the ground floor, though, is a magnificent
fifteenth-century fresco, the Triumph of Death, by an unknown (possibly Flemish)
painter. It’s a chilling study, with Death cast as a skeletal archer astride a galloping,
spindly horse, trampling bodies slain by his arrows. He rides towards a group of smug
and wealthy citizens, apparently unconcerned at his approach; meanwhile, to the left,
the sick and the old plead hopelessly for oblivion.

The first floor

There are three further frescoes (thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Sicilian, and rather
crude) above the steps up to the first floor, which is devoted to painting. The earliest
works (thirteenth- to fourteenth-century) are fascinating, displaying marked Byzantine
characteristics, like the fourteenth-century mosaic of the Madonna and Child, eyes

and hands remarkably self-assured. For sheer accomplishment, though, look no further
than the collection of works by the fifteenth-century Sicilian artist Antonello da
Messina: three small, clever portraits of saints Gregory, Jerome and Augustine (with
a rakish red hat), followed by an indisputably powerful Annunciation, a placid
depiction of Mary, head and shoulders covered, right hand slightly raised in
acknowledgement of the (off-picture) Archangel Gabriel.