Messina 1509–1557: A Centre for Artistic Experimentation

Anna Chiara Giusa

This PhD project takes as its subject sixteenth-century Messina as a dynamic centre for artistic experimentation over a period of nearly fifty years (1509–1557). The inquiry adopts an interdisciplinary approach that analyses the socio-economic, political, cultural, and religious characteristics of this international port city and investigates why Messina was one of the most original artistic centres in sixteenth-century Italy.  This doctoral research focusses on the original works produced in Messina by artists coming from the peninsula, such as Cesare da Sesto, Polidoro da Caravaggio, Giovan Battista Mazzolo, and Giovan Angelo Montorsoli, as well as by locals like Girolamo Alibrandi, Antonello Gagini, and Stefano Giordano. The project has a twofold purpose: on the one hand, to shed light on the relationships between Messina and other important centres like Naples, Rome, and Genoa; on the other, to explore how four viceroys from different backgrounds affected Messinese patronage: the Spanish Hugo de Moncada, the Calabrese Ettore Pignatelli (1509–1535), the Mantuan Ferrante Gonzaga (1535–1546), and the Spanish Juan de Vega (1547–1557).