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

Devotional majolica panel (1700)Palazzo Asmundo

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

Devotional majolica panel (1800)Palazzo Asmundo

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

Devotional majolica panel (1700)Palazzo Asmundo

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.

Devotional majolica panel (1800)Palazzo Asmundo

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.

Devotional majolica panel (1800)Palazzo Asmundo

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.

Devotional majolica panel (1800)Palazzo Asmundo

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).

Devotional majolica panel (1800)Palazzo Asmundo

Devotional majolica panel (1700)Palazzo Asmundo

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

Devotional majolica panel (1700)Palazzo Asmundo

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

Devotional majolica panel (1800)Palazzo Asmundo

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

Devotional majolica panel (1700)Palazzo Asmundo

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

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