Imágenes urbanas y coleccionismo geográfico en la Sicilia de Edad Moderna

Resumen

Scholars have analysed the military purpose of the first Sicilian atlases of Tiburzio Spannocchi (1578), Camillo Camiliani (1584) and the one of Francesco Negro and Carlo Maria Ventimiglia (1640), with reference to the political messages of the maps and cityscapes. Less effort has been devoted to the study of Sicilian manuscript of cities¿ atlases (16th¿17th centuries) and their relation with European production. Thus, the analysis of their derivation, the states of elaboration of various images, their dating, purposes, patronage, cultural milieu, and authorship have often hitherto been discussed in highly simplistic ways. The PhD dissertation aims at filling that gap by elaborating on the case¿study of the Sicilian atlases, offering insight into those topics. Challenging the traditional view of the mapping corresponding exclusively to a military purpose, the study reveals the interdependence between art, patronage, and political cartography. Starting from Madrid and Sicily it relates the creation and dissemination of city atlases in early modern Europe and how these cartographic collections have become important forms of art in the princely courts of the continent. Furthermore, it shows something perhaps unexpected: the Spanish viceroys that governed Sicily were the patrons that commissioned these atlases during the second half of the 17th century. Thus, the atlases allow to understand the links between clients and artistic production through the analysis of the historical context in which these products were created. The last part of the work made it possible to treat in a more systematic way the unpublished atlases created in the second half of the seventeenth century. I have tackled the importance of the viceroy and his passion for cartographic collections. The focus of this study culminates with the artistic patronage of the late seventeenth century and polarizes especially around the artistic patronage of the Spanish viceroys: Claude de Lamoral, III Prince of Ligne, the Anielo de Guzmán, Marquis of Castel Rodrigo, the bastard son of Philip IV, Juan José de Austria, and finally the Francisco de Benavides, IX Count of Santisteban del Puerto. The basis of the documentation for this work mainly consists of archival and iconographic documents of Archivo General de Simancas (Valladolid); in addition other documents, such as chorographic descriptions of the seventeenth century, have been added to the main body. The documents, along with the wide range of images, have been transcribed and reproduced in the appendix in volume II of the thesis. The examination of the, largely unpublished, iconographic documentation found has allowed me to speculate or confirm the authorship of artists, opened spaces to reflect on the value of cartographic collections in Sicily during the second half of the seventeenth century, and has facilitated the identification of iconographic models and their diffusion.