a virtual museum of mediterranean gothic architecture

museo virtual de la arquitectura gótica mediterránea

GothicmedSiteMap
/gothicmed/GothicMed/virtual-museum/sicily/Palermo/Steri-Palace.html

The remaining rooms were probably used as private and service rooms. Among them, in the south wing on the piano nobile, there was the family chapel (Chapel of St. George or of the Most Holy Trinity), later the palace chapel, with a circular window in pierced tufa and an apse looking to the east in accordance with the tradition. The adjoining little Sant'Antonio Abate church, to the east of the building, was done in the fourteenth century; it has no side aisles and the nave is divided into two spans, and covered by a cross vault; it was done at the behest of Manfredi I Chiaramonte as an ex voto to the protector saint of the family. The access of the gentlemen or court dignitaries to the chapel was to the east of the building and on the piano nobile, via a wooden runner still supported by a visible arch, the first of a long series in the direction of the stables.  There exists a third elevation of the Steri never completed, corresponding to the north wing; a big room, known as the room of the “trusses” from the covering solution, it is in line with the great hall below. The incompleteness of this level is testified by the presence of a passage on the east side of the room, which must have led into the adjacent wing, never built. On the outside, in line with the cornerstones on the ground floor, the building presents the characteristic motif of Norman descent of alveolate columns, probably loaded with symbolic meanings and intended to signal the importance of the founding family. The prismatic block is then characterized, as a whole, by a horizontal subdivision of the levels through the use of thin stringcourse cornices, dentellated or decorated with floral motifs. A clear-cut distinction can be seen, relating to the system of apertures, between the base part and the other levels. While the former reinforces the character of a closed, massive and isolated block, almost as if it were a real fortress, through thin and elongated single-light windows corresponding to the small intermediary room, the hallway and the staircase space, the first and second levels instead present big mullioned and double mullioned windows, with perpendicular or parallel broken cords on the fronts, with mullions in line with the architraves and capitals underlined by a horizontal cornice, in relief on the outside wall. The double mullioned windows indicate on the outside the location of the great hall (or room of the barons) and of the room of the trusses above, and inside the room there are double stone seats. The taste for variety emerges from detailed observation of the decorative system adopted in it, which ranges from refined bichrome effects, obtained through a technique of lava inlays and saw-tooth mouldings with strong chiaroscuro relief and zigzag batons, with pierced oculi between the arches.  

Page
Virtual visit
Image gallery
Related documents