The 10 Year Plan: Travels in Italy--Noto (Part 1 of 3)

Our wandering in Sicily continues, with a visit to Noto.

Noto is a town in southeastern Sicily. Noto and the surrounding towns are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

What makes Noto unique is its Baroque architecture throughout the town. Typically, Italian towns are a mix of architectural styles from different periods. For example, in Florence, you can find Medieval, Gothic, Renaissance, Mannerist, Baroque Neo-Classical and Modernist architectural styles, to name a few.

In Noto, however, the style is mostly Baroque from the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The explanation is a mix of tragedy and Sicilian resiliency.

Sicily and Southern Italy are prone to devastating earthquakes and volcanic explosions. In the case of Noto, an earthquake in 1693 devastated Noto and much of southeastern Italy. The earthquake had a maximum intensity of XI on the Mercalli scale. (Only a XII is worse.) Today, the earthquake would be estimated at 7.4 on the Richter scale. The earthquake devastated a large area--more than 2,000 square miles--and scores of inland and costal towns and cities were destroyed causing abut 60,000 deaths.

Noto was destroyed and the survivors faced a decision--rebuild or abandon the down. They decided to rebuild about 6 miles away. The new town rose in the years following the earthquake. The new town's buildings were built in the Sicilian Baroque style. Typical characteristics include:

external staircases
curved façades

curved topped windows and doors
decorated rustication, e.g. leaves, fish-scales, shells
extravagant statuary
single columns
grotesque masks
balconies, with intricate wrought iron balustrades
a belfry on top of a church's façade
inlaid, colored marble in church interiors.
an arched city gate, with its moldings and scrolls

According to UNESCO, the architecture of Noto and other towns rebuilt nearby represent "the culmination and final flowering of Baroque art in Europe".

In the photos below, you can see for yourself.

We especially enjoyed visiting Noto's Cathedral, a truly beautiful Baroque building.

The façade of the Cathedral of Noto. (The church is known as the Basilica Cattedrale di San Nicolò.)

The main door of the cathedral

A model of the cathedral

The nave of the cathedral

In 1996, after being weakened by time and period earthquakes, the dome of the cathedral collapsed unexpectedly, destroying the nave and the right aisle of the church. After a decade of effort, the cathedral was rebuilt and reopened in 2007. Much of the architectural decoration and artwork inside the church is new.