Noto
It all happened in a moment! On 9 January 1693 a terrible earthquake killed thousands of people in Val di Noto. But the worst was yet to come: two days later, on 11 January, earth cracked and sea receded to trigger a downright tsunami. Everything was destroyed by a shake comparable to a magnitude 8 earthquake. The end came: towns built over millenniums of different dominations, perfectly integrated and blended, were literally swept away in a few seconds. Both the sumptuous palazzos and the modest houses of the farmers became rubble and debris. Noto, on the Mount Alveria, became what is still visible in the site of Noto Antica.
However the reaction was immediate: the Spanish authorities ordered that the ingenious Netum was rebuilt in a nearby place, on a less steep slope, that is the hill Meti. In 1702 the reconstruction of the new town began. The plan divided the town into two sections on orthogonal axes: one section housed the districts of the power (political and religious power), the other the poor districts. The reconstruction was entrusted to “very important persons” in the field of Baroque architecture, as Rosario Gagliardi, Paolo Labili and Vincenzo Sinatra. The collective undertaking of the architects - along with stonemasons, workers and master-builders- resulted in a splendid town marked by over-elaborate forms, colors, lines, volumes and perspectives which has no equal in the world.
Noto has been recently entered the
World Heritage list (2002) by UNESCO and defined “
the culmination and final flowering of Baroque art in Europe”, although it was “snubbed” by the travelers in 1700, first and foremost Patrick Brydone and Goethe, and considered an affront to culture. Eventually the heritage of the whole area in general and of Noto in particular has been acknowledged, but its beauty had to wait long time for a right definition. In 1977 Cesare Brandi named it
Stone Garden. The Council of Europe has defined
Noto the Capital of Baroque.
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