The large archaeological and multimedia exhibition entitled “From Tauromenion to Tauromenium. The invisible city between history and archaeology”, scheduled at Palazzo Ciampoli from 7 August to 30 November 2024. The inauguration in the presence of the institutions
uzioni and the press. With the director of the Naxos Taormina Park, the archaeologist Gabriella Tigano, were present the mayor of Taormina, Cateno De Luca, and Mirella Vinci, Superintendent BBCCAA of Messina.
“With this exhibition – explained director Tigano – we enter the DNA of the ancient city, that Tauromenion of the Greeks that became Tauromenium with the Romans. We tell the story of the houses of men, the public buildings such as the agora, the baths and the naumachiae, the houses of the gods with temples and sanctuaries that later became Christian churches. And the ancient burial roads with the still existing chamber tombs. Although its monumentality is mainly linked to the ancient Theater, Taormina has revealed numerous and important archaeological finds over three centuries that tell us a lot about the history of the city and its people. A mosaic of information, recomposed with the necessary scientific rigor and with a multidisciplinary approach, cross-referencing documentary sources, mobile finds and ancient structures. While with the support of modern digital technologies, we have created a series of 3D animations to give visitors the wonder of a city where the wonderful landscape dialogues with the urban spaces intended for the community that, from the theater onwards, were conceived with a strong scenographic impact”. During the presentation, the director wanted to remember the two figures who, five years ago after her installation at the helm of the Park, inspired her to come up with the idea of the exhibition on Tauromenion: the archaeologist Cettina Rizzo and the teacher Francesca Gullottawho passed away prematurely, to whose memory he wanted to dedicate the project.
On display at Palazzo Ciampoli is the Taormina of the Greeks (Tauromenium) to that of Taormina of the Romans (Tauromenium). Cultured
during the time span of its maximum splendor – from the 3rd century BC to the 2nd century AD – the city nestled on the slopes of Mount Taurus and with its imposing scenographic layout, where every monument had been conceived by the Greeks to look out to sea – and be admired from the sea – will be the protagonist of the great archaeological exhibition. An interdisciplinary study, that for the exhibition “From Tauromenion to Tauromenium” started about two years ago by the director Tigano together with the archaeologist of the Park, Maria Grazia Vanaria, and with various working groups – scientific and technical – formed by officials of the Park, of the Superintendency of Messina and of the Universities of Messina, Palermo and Catania and by an interdisciplinary team consisting of architects, geologists, computer scientists, filmmakers and 3D reconstruction experts with the aim of recomposing, rereading and telling a city that has always been inhabited. Archaeologists in fact define it as a “site with continuity of life”, precisely to indicate the uninterrupted human presence over the millennia. With all that comes from this in terms of stratifications and modifications of monuments, private homes and public buildings which, as in the case of the Ancient Theatre, became a real deposit of architectural elements to be “recycled” for new constructions: whole – like the columns of the stage, today visible also along the main street to decorate the facades of period buildings – or reduced to dust to be used as mortar/cement for new constructions. There are two levels of reading: on the one hand the material one with finds from ancient domus, architectural elements, fragments and statues discovered during ancient and recent excavations, carried out with both public and private funding; on the other the virtual reading level with the animated reconstruction of buildings which, like chippings of the contemporary urban fabric, emerge from the exposed excavations of the alleys and squares of Taormina.
In Palazzo Ciampoli there are finds that until now were kept in the Park’s warehouses (capitals, epigraphs, statues) and others that are the result of more recent discoveries, known to scholars but never exhibited (such as some tanagrines found in the cistern of the Timeo hotel and finds from excavations in Villa San Pancrazio, at the former Convent of San Domenico and in other private properties). And again heads, bas-reliefs and inscriptions, finds already known and normally exhibited in the Antiquarium of the Theatre here placed in the thematic and historical context.
For the occasion, eagerly awaited by the local community, the famous “Priestess of Isis” returned to Taormina, a marble statue found in 1867 near the church of San Pancrazio – anciently a place of worship of Isis and Serapis – and transferred there in 1868.
to the Salinas Museum of Palermothe first archaeological museum in Sicily. The statue has been absent from Taormina since 2001, when it was exhibited in the exhibition organized by the Superintendency of Messina with the Municipality of Taormina and set up in the spaces of Badia Vecchia. Other loans come from Superintendence of Palermo and the Archiepiscopal Seminary of Palermo (former Alliata di Villafranca collection).
The exhibition itinerary, which unfolds over the two floors of Palazzo Ciampoli, is divided into six thematic sections. It starts with the traces of the Sicilian populations documented by the necropolis of Cocolonazzo: the origins, living and dwelling in Tauromenion/ium: the houses of men; public buildings, sacred places, necropolises, from the theatre to the amphitheatre, collecting. While an archaeological map, 3D reconstructions and a multimedia and immersive apparatus (video and video mapping) will allow visitors to relive the experience of wandering through the current alleys and inside the ancient city
The scientific project of the exhibition, curated by the Naxos Taormina Archaeological Park, was directed by the archaeologists Gabriella Tigano (Park Director) and Maria Grazia Vanaria (official) and conducted in collaboration with Rocco Burgio (Superintendency BBCCAA of Messina); with Lorenzo Campagna, Marta Venuti, Marco Miano (University of Messina); with Germana Barone, Paul Mazzoleni, Alessia Coccato (University of Catania); with Francis Muscolino (National Archaeological Museum of Cagliari), Dario Barbera; Carmelo Malacrino (University of Reggio Calabria); Carla Aleo Black (Superintendency of Cultural Heritage of Palermo), Lucia Ferruzza (Antonino Salinas Archaeological Museum – Palermo); Concetta Rizzo; Cecilia Alba BuccellatoThe exhibition design and graphics were curated by Diego Cavallaro (Naxos Taormina Archaeological Park).
Carlo Franza