L’architettura civile a Palermo al tempo di Carlo V: élite urbana, tradizioni mediterranee e modelli “all’antica”

Abstract

During his triumphal tour through Sicily, following the victory in the battle of Tunis in 1535, when arrived in Palermo, Carlo V was hosted in the Aiutamicristo palace, an imposing building commissioned by a rich banker in the last decade of 15th century and still considered at that time the most beautiful and suitable for housing the emperor and his entourage. It is right after this event that new trends in the field of civil architecure can be traced in the capital city of the Island, both in urban palacies and suburban residences of pleasure. New or renewed buildings testify to the “complex genesis” of modern palace in Sicily at the time of Charles V; it is true also for the villas in the surroundings of Palermo. New “all’antica” models start to replace previous lingustic, technic and spatial solutions, concived in the trail of Mediterranean Gothic, but also other external inputs - linked to the visual culture of a multifaceted group of clients - conditioned the final results.