The experience you will live wearing the Oculus headset, that you will find in the ground floor room of Palazzo Nicolaci, will transport you in a virtual flight through the historic destruction of the city of Noto and its subsequent reconstruction caused by the dramatic earthquake of January 1693.
You will fly between ancient Noto and Baroque Noto like a Bonelli’s eagle, a native reddish-brown raptor bird that was once endangered but has been saved in recent years, thanks to significant efforts by animal protection associations. The eagle’s flight will begin from ancient Noto, reconstructed as it presumably appeared according to 18th-century sources that depicted it before the earthquake left only a few ruins of it.
During the experience, you will feel the terror and confusion provoked by the destructive tremors, flying with the eagle down the valley along the course of the Asinaro river, tracing the same path that the people of Noto took when they inevitably had to relocate and rebuild the city elsewhere. You will gradually see the urban grid of the new Noto taking shape beneath you, with some of the city’s most significant Baroque buildings appearing, and you will be able to observe their intricate details recreated in 3D. A narrative voice will accompany the flight, recounting the most important moments of this crucial historical period.
The choice to recreate the flight of an eagle stems from the significance of this noble animal, which is featured on the emblem of the Municipality of Noto. The emblem depicts the eagle crowned with a ducal crown, holding a scroll inscribed with ‘S.P.Q.N.’ in its talons, with the ancient crest at its heart: a shield with a white cross on a red background.
Some of the buildings reconstructed in 3D that you will see during the Eagle’s flight are shown below. The 3D rendering is a sophisticated process carried out using the latest technologies, that allows to observe every detail with precision.
The virtual experience, narration, and 3D reconstruction of the environment of ancient Noto and Noto’s Baroque buildings were realized following studies and research based on iconographic and bibliographic sources.
Paolo Labisi, View of Noto, ca. 1750-1760
Antonio Maria Tedeschi, Panoramic View of Ancient Noto, 1777, held at the Municipal Library of Noto
Enrico Sgroi, Panorama and Elevation Plan of the Ancient City of Noto, ink and watercolor on paper, 1887, Noto, Civic Museum
Anonymous, View of Ancient Noto, 1730, Municipal Library of Noto
R. Gagliardi, Scenography G, Church of San Domenico in Noto (DARCH, former Di Blasi collection) in ROSARIO GAGLIARDI (ca. 1690–1762), exhibition catalog edited by Marco Rosario Nobile and Maria Mercedes Bares
R. Gagliardi, Iconography G, Church of San Domenico in Noto (DARCH, former Di Blasi collection) in ROSARIO GAGLIARDI (ca. 1690–1762) exhibition catalog edited by Marco Rosario Nobile and Maria Mercedes Bares
Unidentified Photographer, Noto – Municipio – Palazzo Ducezio, 1947, postcard, FFC011508, ICCD Photographic Archives, Ferro Candilera Collection
Sketch of Noto’s Municipio. Léon Dufourny, Notes rapportés d’un voyage en Sicilie fait par lui en 1789, in La genesi di Noto. Una città siciliana del Settecento, S. Tobriner, ed Dedalo, 1993
Noto, Site Plan of the Monastery of S. Maria dell’Arco (Engineer Innocenzo Alì), State Archives, Palermo
M.M. BARES, Il mondo della costruzione a Noto nell’età moderna, Palermo, Edizioni Caracol, 2016
C.G. CANALE, Noto: la struttura continua della città tardo-barocca, S.F. Flaccovio editore, 1976
L. DI BLASI, Noto: palazzo e città: saggio sull’avanguardia barocca in Sicilia, Palazzo Nicolaci, Siracusa, 1982
L. DI BLASI, Architettura e urbanistica a Noto nell’opera di Vincenzo Sinatra, architetto del Settecento, Siracusa, 1990
M. FAGIOLO e L. TRIGILIA, Il Barocco in Sicilia tra conoscenza e conservazione, Siracusa, Ediprint, 1987
C. GALLO, Noto agli albori della sua rinascita dopo il terremoto del 1693, 1964
D. GERMANO’, Barocco in Sicilia, chiese e Monasteri di Rosario Gagliardi, Firenze, 1986
L. GUZZARDI, M. LUMINATI, Sotto il barocco di Noto: la ricostruzione tra scavo archeologico e ricerca archivistica, 2022
M.R. NOBILE, A.M. MATTEUCCI, I volti della Sposa. Le facciate delle chiese madri nella Sicilia del Settecento, 1999
M.R. NOBILE, “Il prospetto della chiesa madre di Noto”, O. GAFÀ, “Sui materiali e sulla fabbrica della chiesa madre di Noto”, A. KRÄMER, “Rosario Gagliardi e i “progetti” per la Chiesa Madre di Noto”,
in Lexicon. Storie e architettura in Sicilia, vol. 1, 2002
M.R. NOBILE, Disegni di architettura nella diocesi di Siracusa (XVIII secolo), 2004
M.R. NOBILE, S. RIZZO, D. SUTERA, Ecclesia triumphans: architetture del Barocco siciliano attraverso i disegni di progetto, 2009
M.R. NOBILE, I disegni di Rosario Gagliardi conservati presso il Dipartimento di Architettura di Palermo, 2020
S. TOBRINER, La genesi di Noto. Una città siciliana del Settecento, 1993
Da Annali del Barocco in Sicilia, Roma, Gangemi Editore, 1994:
Volume 1 “Studi sulla ricostruzione del val di Noto dopo il terremoto del 1693”;
Volume 3 “Rosario Gagliardi e l’architettura barocca in Italia e in Europa”;
Volume 7 “Il restauro del Barocco nella città storica”;
Volume 9 “L’Universo Barocco”.