The cathedral of Messina, locally called ‘Duomo’, is currently a unique building not only for its historical and artistic importance but also for the singular events that have affected it in the last centuries: two earthquakes (1783; 1908) and one bombing (1943). For this reason, in order to reconstruct the practice of reuse within the complex, it is not enough to dwell on the building as a result of the reconstruction after the Second World War, but it is necessary to make a journey backwards, through period descriptions, accounts and photographic material of the time, sprinkled with a series of difficulties due to the troubled historical events that have affected it and to the lack of documents.¹

Unlike the other Norman cathedrals of Sicily, there is no specific studies on the spolia incorporated here, albeit in key positions.  The reasons are probably to be found in the fact that the numerous restorations have altered the building several times, resulting in major alterations.

Key elements to follow the events of the building are the capitals in the Museum’s collection.²

Retracing the fate of this group of capitals coincides with the reconstruction of the events that affected the building during the first half of the 20th century. The church was almost entirely destroyed during the earthquake of 1908. In the following twenty years, after long discussions on the methods of intervention,³ it was rebuilt according to the anti-seismic criteria with the use of reinforced concrete, incorporating the surviving parts between the pillars.⁴

The question remains whether this is a faithful reconstruction and, if so, on what it was based, or whether it is an exemplary reconstruction.

Two capitals can be taken as examples, leaving the others for a more detailed discussion. A capital, which according to the reconstruction should have stood on the 13th column on the left of the main nave of the Cathedral, can be compared to some examples of the Hadrianic age, which can be traced back to a typology that was born and developed starting from the Flavian age, remaining productive also in the following decades and particularly in the 2nd century.⁵ The capital can be dated, in fact, to the first thirty years of the 2nd century. 

The oldest specimen of the capitals’ group conserved at the Regional Museum must have been placed in the 13th right column, where the cast is today. Based on comparisons, it is dated from the second twenty-five years of the 1st century.⁶ The abacus of the capital shows the signs of a reworking that, having smoothed the edges, has redesigned the sides making them tangent to the kalathos: in this way the point of view of the capital is modified because the main side is the angular face of the original capital. The intervention is revelatory of a lack of understanding of the ancient capital and its original orientation and could go back to a probable reuse of the same one subsequently to its recovery it is not possible to know if previous or successive to its reuse in the cathedral.

Messina, however, is a prime example because of the singular events that have affected the building and the city. The reconstructions of the Cathedral, the first one very troubled and the second one faster, show how there has been a precise will to preserve the places and to give back the shape before the disasters. Nevertheless, the image that emerges of the new cathedral is very different from the one that existed before 1908. The precepts that inspired the restorers were, in fact, those of highlighting the Norman structures, eliminating, for example, the eighteenth-century stuccoes. In this context one understands the choice of the restorers who, not being able to use the original spolia for structural reasons, have preserved the memory by placing in their place casts.

References

• Agnello, G., 1966: “I capitelli bizantini del Museo di Messina”, Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana, 1-4, p. 9-29.
• Chillemi, F., 2012: Messina. Un centro storico ricostruito, Messina
• De Lachenal, L., 1995: Spolia. Uso e reimpiego dell’antico dal III al XIV secolo,Milano.
• Di Stefano, G., 1979: Monumenti della Sicilia normanna (seconda edizione aggiornata e ampliata a cura di  W. Krönig), Palermo.
• Fuduli, L., 2013: “I capitelli romani del Museo Regionale di Messina”, Quaderni di Archeologia, 3, p. 47-72.
• Fuduli, L., 2018: “Spolia Sicula. Reimpiego e riuso nella Sicilia nord-orientale tra antico e moderno”, Babesch, 93, p. 217-234.
• Fuduli, L., forthcoming: “The spolia in middle-Byzantine urban landscape of Athens”, Mitteilungen des Deutsches Archäologische Institut, Athens Abteilung, 2020.
• Genovese, C., 2010: Francesco Valenti. Restauro dei monumenti nella Sicilia del primo Novecent, Napoli.
• Giuliano, A., 2012: Una significativa novità sulle origini del Duomo di Messina, Archivio Storico Messinese 93, p. 399-410.
• Hittorff, J. J. & Zanth, L.,1835: Architecture moderne de la Sicile, Palermo.
• Krönig, W., 1965: Il duomo di Monreale e l’architettura normanna in Sicilia, Palermo.
• Oteri, A.M., 2007: “La città fantasma. Danni bellici e politiche di ricostruzione a Messina nel secondo dopoguerra (1943-1959)”, Storia Urbana, 114-115, p. 63-112.
• Pensabene, P., 1973: I capitelli, Scavi di Ostia VII, Roma.
• Pensabene, P., 1990: “Contributo per una ricerca sul reimpiego e il «recupero» dell’Antico nel Medioevo. Il reimpiego nell’architettura normanna”, Rivista dell’Istituto Nazionale di Archeologia e Storia dell’arte, 3, p. 5-138.

Notes

1. Di Stefano 1979, 56-58, tavv. 81-83.
2. Fuduli 2013, 47-62.
3. Genovese 2010, 110-123.
4. Genovese 2010, fig. 69.
5. Fuduli 2013, 53.
6. Fuduli 2013, 49-50.