The history of Lipari
LIPARI IN THE 1500S
The city of Lipari, which after the Saracen raids of the ninth century had been rebuilt by the will of the Norman monarchs, appeared in the early sixteenth century still fresh from the Middle Ages. A particularly active land and shipowning bourgeoisie dominated on the island, which maintained relations with the busiest port cities of the Tyrrhenian and lower Adriatic.
Of the nine thousand individuals who inhabited Lipari, about two thousand dwelt within the perimeter of the upper town. The rest of the population resided in houses leaning against the slopes of the fortress or on the high ground of the Maddalena; or in rural settlements scattered throughout the surrounding plains and hills and on the island’s interior plateaus.
In the Borgo, or lower town, the center of worship and reference, was the convent of the Franciscan friars with the adjoining church of St. Bartholomew, the temple that for centuries guarded the body of the Apostle. At either end of the Marina di San Nicolò (Marina Lunga), but quite a distance from the shore, stood the chapels of St. Catherine of Alexandria and St. Oliva, while on the granite platform, just off the Marina di San Giovanni (Marina Corta), stood the small church of St. Mary of the Snows, later renamed the Anime del Purgatorio.
On the upper town, amid a dense patchwork of hovels or casalini, stood the many dwellings of the bourgeoisie, the bishop’s palace, the ‘touch of the jurors,’ and five or six churches which, with the exception of the Cathedral, were all of very modest size. At either end and in the center of the esplanade facing the sea stood three turrets, the same ones that had given rise to the civic coat of arms in the 13th century but were now very dilapidated.
Although conditioned by its insularity, the city of Lipari constituted, in the early sixteenth century, a complete human environment where the constant concern for common defense did not prevent contact, even cultural contact, with the civilization of the outside world.
A certain part of the wealth that Lipari’s navvies brought to the island was committed to works and expressions typical of Renaissance art. One of these achievements was the renovation of the Cathedral, the ancient Benedictine-Norman church, of which we have news thanks to a document from 1517.
In that year, in fact, the Liparians asked Charles V of Spain for resources for the expansion and decoration of the Cathedral: choir, organ, furnishings for the altars, a worthy tabernacle and the final outer door. Bishops and private citizens also provided for its embellishment in later years, adorning the ceiling with richly painted planking and the walls with sacred paintings, as historian Pietro Campis attests in the late 1600s.
Another report from the early 1500s concerns the concession by the Bishop of Lipari Gregorio Magalotto, a resident of Rome, of the sulfur and alum quarries of the islands, and in particular of the island of Vulcano, in favor of Genovese and perhaps also Veneti: a clear sign of the attention and interests that were accruing on the Aeolian Islands at that time by traders operating on the entire Mediterranean scene. In the same document, in addition to mining products from Vulcano, there is also mention of the export of ‘passole and passoline’ (raisins of different sizes) to Constantinople.
THE ‘RUINA’ of 1544
The event that marked a real rupture in the history of the island community was the terrible sack of the city of Lipari by the Turkish pirate Ariadeno Barbarossa, the so-called “ruina,” which, in addition to the total loss of documents predating this event caused, by reason of the massacre and the inhabitants being led into slavery, a significant population turnover.
Barbarossa’s fleet, after attacking numerous ports and cities in the Tyrrhenian Sea, aimed at Lipari on its return voyage to Constantinople. After a good ten days of siege (July 1 to 11), during which there was no lack of attempts at negotiation, Barbarossa’s men managed to penetrate the fortress of Lipari Castle, which had withstood numerous shots from enemy artillery placed in the ward “above the Land.” Once inside the City, Barbarossa looted the dwellings and desecrated the churches. According to chronicles of the time, the town of Lipari burned for several weeks and the inhabitants led into slavery numbered about eight thousand.
THE RECONSTRUCTION
The terrible devastation of Lipari wrought by the Turks had to move both Emperor Charles V and Pope Paul III, who took an interest in aiding the reconstruction of the city, encouraging its repopulation.
In order to restore a new urban layout and sufficient military security, Charles V disbursed large sums for reconstruction, even sending a colony of Spaniards. Work on the construction of the walls, led by Captain Gonzalo de Armella, was entrusted to the state engineer Pietro di Trivigno, who at the same time was attending to fortification work in Sorrento.
An indispensable condition for the resumption of life in a devastated town was also the reactivation of places of worship. Pontiff Paul III worked to this end, granting the bishop of Lipari the power to bestow generous indulgences on those who cooperated in the work of reconstruction.
In this, Bishop Baldo Ferratini, while continuing to reside in Rome, showed himself to be particularly zealous: as early as 1545 the churches of St. Joseph, St. Peter, and the Anime Purganti in the Marina di San Giovanni (present-day Marina Corta) were recorded, as well as work on the reconstruction of the Cathedral and the adjoining bishop’s palace. The Cathedral was regularly officiated around 1580, and was equipped with vaults that replaced the wooden ceiling.
The construction of new places of worship, in accordance with the dictates of the Council of Trent aimed at promoting the evangelization of the faithful even in areas far from urban centers, was also carried out with particular dedication by Bishop Ferratini’s successors.
From 1585 the Liparrese diocese had at its head bishops of Iberian origin (Martin d’Acugna, John Gonzales de Mendoza, Alfonso Vidal) who influenced not a little in the introduction of new cults, such as that of St. James and St. Vincent Ferreri, and in the correction of customs.
Monsignor Martino d’Acugna (1585-1593) also had the merit of bringing back to the island the precious treasure of a relic of the body of St. Bartholomew, namely the thumb taken away in the Barbarossa massacre, which is still kept today in a valuable reliquary.
ARTISTIC PRODUCTION
From the terrible experience of the Turkish sack of 1544, Lipari emerged more vigorous and rich in ferment, which in many respects determined its insertion into the groove of the modern age. At the artistic level, despite the irreparable losses, some interesting evidence already reappeared thanks to the exchanges and trade that the Liparians entertained with the numerous centers of the Peninsula.
The surviving works, for their quality and artistic connotations, reflect the taste of the patrons, consisting of prelates and laymen of various origins and social backgrounds, in clear preponderance linked to the Neapolitan environment, but also to the Messina and Palermo area.
Lipari in the 1600s and 1700s
The demographic and urbanistic increase that began in Lipari as early as the second half of the 16th century continued in the 1600s and 1700s, and with it the constructive and decorative fervor of religious buildings, to which the more substantial presence of religious orders, especially Jesuits and Franciscans, contributed.
Also taking renewed impetus was the devotion to the Virgin Mary, evidenced, as of 1681, by the presence on the Island of twenty-three out of thirty-eight, including churches and chapels, dedicated to Marian worship.
The Franciscan Minor Observants, who had had custody of the church of San Bartolomeo alla Maddalena, had left after the sack of 1544. But in 1584 the Capuchins arrived, beginning the construction of the convent and church of St. Francis on the Civita (today’s Town Hall and church now called St. Anthony’s). The latter left the Convent in 1599, but in the first half of the 17th century the Friars Minor Observant returned from Calabria and later the Capuchins, so that in 1646 work began on the construction of the new Convent outside the city walls, which in 1650 was already inhabited.
Devotion to Our Lady, to whose protection had already been attributed the triumph of the Catholic army in 1571 at Lepanto, is documented in the Aeolian Islands in the last twenty years of the seventeenth century when as many as twenty-three, including churches and chapels, of the thirty-eight recorded in 1681 are dedicated to Marian worship.
But already in 1656 the Immaculate Virgin had been proclaimed protector of the Diocese of Lipari. To her was dedicated the Church of the Conception, later called St. Catherine’s, and the Church of the Immaculate Concetione ac Montis Pietatis (born from the fusion of three previous and adjoining chapels). The construction of an additional large church, also dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, was initiated soon after the mid-1700s by the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception following a substantial bequest from Canon Russo.
Between 1627 and 1644, works were also financed for the Cathedral (the bishop’s seat inside the choir, the baptistery chapel with an artistic baptismal font that still exists today), while in the lower town, due to the increase in population, a “sacramental branch” of the Cathedral was established in the small church of St. Joseph, whose expansion was begun.
One of the most interesting initiatives in the second half of the century was the opening of a “grammar school,” free of charge and usable both by clerics who wanted to prepare for the priesthood and by poor boys who wished to acquire a basic education. In this school, the first instrument of public education in the Aeolian Islands, “grammar and the rudiments of the faith” were taught. In addition, in the same years, two libraries were opened, subsidized by the bishop.
The bishops and confraternities also carried out major restorations from the late 1600s to the early 1700s.
In fact, in 1695 Bishop Girolamo Ventimiglia, a Palermo nobleman of the Theatine order, dear to Charles II King of Spain and the entire Austrian Household, arrived in Lipari and dedicated himself to the restoration of the Cathedral by creating a large parvis, renovating the façade and redoing the choir with the high altar, in addition to the sumptuous frescoes of the vault with sixteen biblical scenes created in the early 1700s.
Other confraternities engaged in the rebuilding of the church of Our Lady of Grace and the church of St. Peter in the Suburb.
But the trend continued through the rest of the 18th century, despite the fact that by 1711 the bishops no longer resided in Lipari but in Rome, making the Aeolian Islands also a cultural tourism destination for European visitors, such as the Italian presbyter and biologist Lazzaro Spallanzani. Notable visitors included J.B. Labat Spirituosen (1711), S. Schmettau (1720), W. Hamilton (1773), P. Brydone (1773), J. P. Houel (1778), D. Dolomieau (1781).
The bishops of the eighteenth century, all Sicilians, in addition to being zealous pastors, also showed that they cared about the material and social welfare of their faithful.
The relative prosperity of the island thus also benefited sacred art, which was enriched with precious liturgical apparatus.
From the single shattered chalice recorded at the end of the 16th century, in which one could barely celebrate, one moves in the following centuries to an increasingly rich inventory of sacred vestments and vessels that some bishops commissioned from the finest workshops in Messina and Palermo.
In particular, Msgr. Vincenzo M. De Francisco (1753-1769), a Palermo nobleman of the Dominican Order, donated to the cathedral during his rule precious objects of worship for the officiating and sacred vestments, as well as valuable bindings for liturgical books. He granted the Chapter other notable benefits and was reciprocated by the erection of a bust in the Rosary Chapel of Lipari Cathedral, where his remains also rest.