Museo Arte Contemporanea Sicilia
The Museo Arte Contemporanea Sicilia (MacS), almost adjacent to the Piazza Universita, is located within the Small Abbey of the Monastery of San Benedetto Via Crociferi, and the UNESCO World Heritage site.
This historic building, in a form of grace and overall balance created by architect Giovanni Battista Vaccarini, is connected to the Great Abbey through the famous Arch of San Benedetto.
Kept within the ancient monastic walls, the MacS Museum is a bridge between past and present, projected into the future, a place where the architectural frame is the link between the creativity of the contemporary artist, who expresses himself through all the languages of visual art, and the baroque past of the surrounding environment.
The MacS are the natural conclusion of the cultural path that takes place within the Historic Site of the San Benedetto Monastery, an extraordinary intertwining of archeology, tradition, spirituality, and historical and artistic heritage. Visitors, crossing the threshold of the Benedictine Convent, they will be able to admire the Roman Domus, the eighteenth-century Parlatory, and the sumptuousness of the Church of San Benedetto in Catania.
The Domus Romana, found inside the Monastery of San Benedetto, testifies how the history of the Monastery intertwines with the traces of the Roman past of the city of Catania. It is possible to recognize three environments.
A courtyard with basalt stone slabs. A pantry with the remains of a washbasin and a space that was oriented towards Crociferi. That represents the typical model of the Roman house, traditionally formed by a single open courtyard (atrium) that opened the rooms and a small garden (Hortus).
The Parlatorio, an example of Sicilian eighteenth-century baroque, a place of rare beauty and charm, always impassable, is today, for the first time, accessible to the public. It is a large room, sober, and elegant, with a single resco to embellish the central vault, in which there is a rare case of almost intact late medieval flooring.
On the walls all around the perimeter of the room, there are the characteristic “jealousies”, the grates behind which the nuns could, very rarely, meet relatives. The room is illuminated by a natural light that comes from the external cloister. The vision of this parlor inspired Giovanni Verga, at the end of the nineteenth century, the drafting the novel History of a Blackcap.
The Church of San Benedetto was admirably painted by the Messina artist Giovanni Tuccari between 1726 and 1729. Inside, the wonderful decorations on the vault, the preciousness of the altar which was made with rare craftsmanship in Sicilian jasper, the choir (the choir of the cloistered chant), the imposing sculptural structure built in 1712 in wood and pure gold, and the monumental “staircase of the angels”, a sculptural complex that introduces access to the church.
In harmony with the beautiful setting that it is located and with beautiful frescoes of the Church of St. Benedict, annexed to the Monastery, the MACS combines the architectural beauty of the eighteenth century with contemporary modernity.
The museum is the union line that starts from the distant Baroque painting tradition to arrive at the contemporaneity. The objective is to promote the cultural heritage of Sicilian heritage, often creating cultural associations with equally prestigious historical and artistic containers. In the same time promoting awareness of ‘ Italian and international contemporary art giving space to young talents and established artists.
