Matteo Carnilivari - Pere Compte. 1506 - 2006. Two masters of international gothic

During the fifteenth century the architectural civilation in Sicily seems to be strictly connected with the aragonese world and with the events which concern great Mediterranean towns like Barcellona, Napoli, Palma di Maiorca e Valencia. From this sphere rises a kind of architecture that merges history and local traditions with the distinctive features of the international gothic. This year, 2006, is the five hundredth anniversary of the death of the most important protagonists of the Mediterranean gothic architecture: Matteo Carnilivari, original di Noto, and Pere Compte who worked in Valencia.

Undiscussed protagonist of the sicilian art of fifteenth century, Matteo Carnilivari performs the duties of planner - contractor from Noto to Syracuse, from Augusta to Agrigento, from Misilmeri to Carini and Cefalú. In Palermo he realizes two of the most prestigious aristocratic buildings of the town: the Abatellis and Aiutamicristo palaces; he is probably involved, as a planner, in the yard of the church S. Maria della Catena and he offers his advice for the Steri palace, at that time royal residence.

To connect his activity to that developped by Pere Compte is not a change pretext. It is probably that these two masters knew each other and they surely shared their work in some great yard. It would be enough to compare the windows realized in the Abatellis palace with that, quite contemporaneous, designed by Compte for the tower in the loggia of Valencia, to perceive the reasons which induce to accomplish mutual enterprises, like the exhibition in Noto conceived simultaneously with the exhibition that will take place next december in Valencia. This exhibition wants to guide the visitor inside the Mediterranean world of fifteenth century by sections which investigate, everytime, the international environment, the great yards of the past, Pere Compte's activity in Valencia, to proced to the realization of Matteo Carnilivari in Palermo. It shows the sides of the project and of the yard in Sicily; the reconstruction of the work - table of the architect by sources, models and books which were reference of the architectonic culture of the Mediterranean late gothic art.

Near the theories and the idea's history this exhibition wants to place even the material history of the yard and of the building beginning from the stone - desser's shop: where were realized sole pieces, wonderful carvings, daring stereotomies for winding staircase and spiral columns.

Compasses, squares, drills and saws to cut the stone are placed close to precious founds like capitals and keystones, basements and rose - windows which testify the refined culture of the stone architecture. finally, beetween the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, the world of mediterranean gothic exerts its spell over travellers and artists, architects and builders, noble and bourgeois purchasers.

Through the different aspects of the project of the history and of the restoration even the contemporaneous culture takes again possession of a tradition which dip its own roots into the Mediterranean.

Curator: Marco Rosario Nobile

Catalogue (240 pp.) is available in http://www.edizionicaracol.it/editoria_architettura.htm