Walking through the streets of Bronte

Bronte still preserves an urban structure of clear Arab inspiration with ancient courtyards, narrow underpasses, lava stone portals on which Renaissance and Baroque-inspired architecture has been grafted with stucco and carved stones of great beauty.
The ancient area is rich in architecture inspired by great simplicity typical of peasant civilization.
Many portals are embellished with religious or professional symbols or floral decorations, the buildings that still preserve the ancient and elegant members and the elements of particular interest in lava stone (the material used predominantly over the centuries by skilled local stonecutters) intact.
State palaces, homes of small artisans, farmers and poor people: all still bear the aesthetic signs of an ancient beauty and an almost forgotten architectural simplicity.
Among friezes and ornaments of various styles, the keystone of the arch or the architrave of many houses shows the faces of satyrs or graceful girls, work tools, various symbols indicating the type of activity carried out by those who lived there, the image of the owner of the house or, even something unimaginable today in times of rigorous privacy, symbols indicating the religious faith of the owner (Star of David).
We, walking through the streets of Bronte, have collected a small sample that we present to you.

The Architrave of Via Victor Hugo

We have always been intrigued by an inscription carved on a large block of sandstone that serves as an architrave in an old house on Via Victor Hugo, in whose lunette above you can still read faint traces of an ancient drawing.

It immediately seemed worthy of attention but always mysterious and indecipherable.
We took several scholars to that place, sent its photo to others but no one gave us a certain answer on the origin and meaning of this quasi-rebus.

An explanation finally came to us from Prof. Giorgio Flaccavento, from Ragusa, who in a recent visit to Bronte went to the place and looked directly at the writing and gave the following precise and exhaustive deciphering: «The inscription on Via Victor Hugo is not in itself very difficult to explain because it consists of three lines to be read horizontally and vertically, the meaning of which is key in the first horizontal line, which is made up of the monogram (I.H.S.) of Saint Bernardino of Siena, founder of the Reformed Order of the Minor Observants, namely Jesus Hominum Salvator (in Greek Soter).

The second and third lines have the Greek letter X in common and therefore the second line reads Filius Churion Xristos (Son of the Lord Christ) and the third Deus Jesus Xristos (God Jesus Christ). Vertically, the first line on the left reads Jesus Filius Dei (Jesus Son of God); the second Hominum Churios Jesus (of Men Lord Jesus) and the third Soter Xristos (Savior Christ).

The inscription is included in the date 1559 and very likely constitutes the document of the presence of the Friars Minor Observant of Saint Francis before 1593, the year in which the Municipality of Bronte sent the budget to the Court of the Royal Patrimony in which the meat tax in 35 onze was destined for the building of the Convent of the Reformed.

In fact, according to what Benedetto Radice reports in his “Memorie storiche di Bronte" (Historical Memoirs of Bronte, reprinted in 1984, page 296, digital edition page 248) in a 1754 memorial attached to a 1759 volume, which is preserved in the Archives of the Chiesa Maggiore, we read that the Church of San Vito and the Convent already existed since 1555.

Radice considered the date to be erroneous, which he thought should be read 1595, since there is no mention of the Church and the Convent in the "Liber Visitationes".

It can instead be assumed that the Friars Minor Observant were already present in Bronte on that date. Even if the conventual residence was not yet established in a building of its own, for the construction of which we have documentation relating to the 1990s.

It is probable, however, that they lodged in several scattered residences, as is documented elsewhere in the same period, for example in Ragusa around the Church of San Rocco. In in this case the date of 1559 would be perfectly compatible with the Memorial of 1754 and would confirm the presence of the Friars Minor Observant since 1555.

This is very likely; it remains to be established whether the architrave, on which the date is written, is in its original place, as it would seem at first glance, or whether it was transported there later.»

(Professor Giorgio Flaccavento)