Jacopo Salemi: un modello ligneo per il monastero di San Nicolò l'Arena a Catania

The 8th of November 1563 in Catania, Jacopo Salemi subscribed an agreement with the Benedictine congregation to build a wooden model of the church of San Nicolòl’Arena. The building was already under construction since1558 in the west limit of the city of Catania. Jacopo Salemi, architect and sculptor from the city of Castrogiovanni, was working in that period within the cities of Messina, Catania and Enna. In the latter one, around the 1566 and 1567, he had an important role on the new arrangement of the cathedral. After he moved to Palermo his presence was registered both in Trapani than in Alcamo as attested in some documents dated back to 1577. Statements on the afore mentioned agreement with the Benedictines, were found in a document dated back to the 24th of February 1564 and now conserved in the State Archive of Catania. The document reveals that Jacopo’s work at issue, would have been evaluated by two experts in charged, coming from the city of Messina. The reasons of such a commission could be both the need to verify the state of art of the works than a way to obtain monetary donations: a tridimensional model would have convinced better than technical drawings, potential donors that might have contributed to the completion of the building. Indeed, in spite of their survival and durability till nowadays, wood- en tridimensional models were widely used to better explain drawings and ideas.