Devotional Brick: inside the Palace, at the Earth of Palermo

The use of numbering or indicating next to the doors, or above them, through the use of Majolica tiles is very ancient.

The collection of census and devotional bricks, which is exhibited permanently at Palazzo Asmundo, is one of the most rich in Sicily.

The collection exhibited at Palazzo Asmundo consists of over 150 pieces. Among these of great value are the panels with the figures of saints or sacred emblems.

This collection is an important documentary source for expert of languages and anthropology. Bricks were also made with dialect written and with noble coats of arms and orders of religious convents.

The colors used in the pictures are soft. The charactersistic of the colors of the tiles and the style are important to establish the workers who made them.

Some coloors usede in the pictures are typical of the artists of the city of Trapani, others of those of Agrigento, probably made by Burgio (an artist from Alessandria della Rocca - Agrigento).

Some bricks have a frame, others do not. Many are numbered and have writing under the votive pictures.

Yellow and light blue are two colors particularly used. The pictures are always two-dimensional. The perspective is not used for these representations.

Sometimes the lines are simple and the figures represented are just outlined.

However this type of simple art is never banal, rather it is strongly evocative and conveys the meanings proper to Christianity.