Il patrimonio artistico della Fondazione Banco di Sicilia

This volume, which is part of the celebrations for the centenary of the collection of the Fondazione Sicilia, is the last in a series of no fewer than seven books published between 2009 and 2021. In addition to providing an overview of the works already published, it offers readers the latest information on both the collections and the facilities housing them. For both Palazzo Branciforte and Villa Zito, together with their objects of art, play key roles in the book, representing integral parts of the collection in their own right. Leafing through these pages, there can be no mistaking the importance of this body of works of art, as varied as it is priceless, in the panorama of Sicilian art and history. The postage-stamp and print collections are like no others on the island, followed by the archaeological artefacts and paintings on exhibit, including some of Sicily’s most important landscape works.

Massimiliano Marafon Pecoraro (Palermo 1973) graduated from the University of Florence, going on to do postgraduate work in Rome, before earning a doctorate in the history of Medieval, Modern and Contemporary Art in Sicily from the University of Palermo. Having taught the History of Modern Art, Iconography and Iconology at the University of Palermo, in 2019–2020 he was a visiting professor at the Netherlands campus of Emerson College of Boston, and in the fall of 2023 he will serve in the same capacity at the University of Tel Aviv. An active researcher, especially in the art of the 18th to early 20th centuries, he has written and edited L’Antico Stabilimento Balenare di Mondello (Palermo 2008), Palazzo d’Orleans Borbone (Palermo 2010), Palazzo Alliata di Pietratagliata (Milan 2011), Ernesto Basile e il ritratto (Palermo 2012), Lo Studio Basile (Palermo 2013) and Villa Niscemi (Palermo 2018). In addition to these monographs, he has contributed to numerous volumes, conference proceedings and scholarly reviews. A founding member of Palermo’s Week of Cultures, he is the curator of the Alliata Marassi archives of Pietratagliata, Termine Licata of Baucina and Francavilla.

Contents

Branciforte Palace and Villa Zito, a Century of Collections (1923-2023)

Stamps and Stamp Collecting in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

The Maiolica Collection: Masterpieces from the 16th to the 19th Centuries

Prints and Drawings: the Image of Sicily in the Modern Age

The Archaeological Collection of the Fondazione Sicilia

The Palazzo Branciforte Coin Collection

The Fondazione Sicilia Collections – Paintings

Bibliography
edited by Salvatore Mercadante