The dented Red Fiat Nuova 500 only just fitted on the corner of Palermo’s Via Riccardo Wagner and Via Principe Granatelli just in from Via Roma: one of the capital’s elegant 19th century wide thoroughfares created in the jumbled historic heart as part of the city’s renewal after Italian Unification. And I can imagine that little car could have just run the length of this well designed arterial of Palermo.
Starting in Piazza Giulio Cesare whizzing past Palermo’s 1886 animated, grand railway station, at the southern end of Via Roma, and coolly crossing lanes through Piazza Guilio Cesare - dodging both errant pedestrians and chaos - the little red Fiat would have stopped at the red lights leading to Via Roma, ignoring both the faded lane markings and a band of Tunisians moving in to clean the windscreen.
It would then have scooted through the 1932 monumental entry to Via Roma and joined the vespa dotted traffic heading north, past: 19th century palaces, where aristocratic pastimes were extravagant, the 18th century Church of San Domenico and piazza were two Anti -Mafia judges were collectively mourned, an iron gated small theatre – Teatro Biondo, Palermo's Rationalist Style Post Office commissioned by Mussolini, which houses some of the best Italian Futurist paintings known painted by leading futurist artist Benedetta Cappa Marinetti in the early 1930s, and a grand hotel since 1874- Grand Hotel delle Palme where inspired travellers like Wagner and Renoir wiled away some time composing and drawing and where Mafia boss Lucky Luciano is said to have held the “1957 Palermo mafia Summit.”
And past the department store, La Rinascente, which, housed in a modernised 19th century palace serves fabulous aperitivos on a top terrace bar next to the bell towers of San Domenico.
I want to share a bit more about two of these buildings which line Via Roma.
The Church of San Domenico and the Piazza
Soaring palm trees are seen about half way down on the right hand side of Via Roma and they mark the edge of the sun filled Piazza San Domenico. Here the imposing golden and white façade of the 17th century baroque Church of San Domenico looms at the back of the piazza where a jumble of crooked side streets and Palermo’s famous street market, La Vucciria lead off from.
The storied and well stocked department store, La Rinascente and open air cafes, like Tripoli, line opposite sides of the piazza. And inside the cavernous cool interior of the church is where Rosaria Schifani, the widow of Falcone’s bodyguard, assassinated along with Falcone in May 1992, was captured on film by the passionate and brave Sicilian photographer Letizia Battaglia. The city of Palermo collectively mourned the loss of Giovanni Falcone and months later Judge Paolo Borsellino here.
Related: Unique Palermo and a Photgraphic Exhibition
The Rationalist Style Palermo Post Office and Benedetta Cappa Marinetti‘s five Futurist murals
Built in the 1930s, when Italy was under the Fascist thumb of Benito Mussolini and Rationalist architecture was sweeping Europe, rallying against Romanticism, the Post Office was and still is said to be one of the finest examples.
Designed by state architect Angiolo Mazzoni the gigantic grey columned structure dominates Via Roma with an imperial sensibility: one which Mussolini understood well. The soaring form of the design is superb.
Inside one of the conference rooms hangs five large scale murals painted by leading Italian Futurist artist Benedetta Cappa Marinetti. Commissioned in the early 1930s Benedetta’s painted murals, the “Synthesis of Communication” are (I came to learn) a fabulous example of the Futurist movement where the desire 'to return to Italy’s origins' was paramount.
And, they are currently exhibited in New York at the Guggenheim – the ‘capstone’ of the museum’s "Italian Futurism 1909- 1944: Reconstructing the Universe” exhibition which ends in September. A synopsis of Benedetta Cappa Marinetti and her rare murals which anchor the exhibition was featured in the New York Times in January.
They will be back in Via Roma, Palermo after September – worth calling the post office to check for tour details.
The red Fiat 500 probably turned left not long after Palermo's impressive post office and The Grand Hotel delle Palme and ducking down Via Principe Granatelli nosed into the corner of Via Riccardo Wagner just across from Grand Hotel Wagner - both named in honour of the famous composer, Richard Wagner who composed the third act of Parisfal at the Grand Hotel delle Palme.
Salve,
Suzanne
Edited 5/9/2015 Please note: The article referred to in the original blog 'Guggenheim Is to Show rare murals by a Futurist' Jan 20/2014 was background reading.
