La perduta Chiesa dell’Annunziata presso Porta san Giorgio a Palermo: ipotesi e ricostruzioni virtuali

The Annunziata church was destroyed by the bombings of the Allies on May 9 1943 on the city of Palermo. However, important evidence remains of the church, built at the end of the 16th century and located near the San Giorgio gate: a 1832 drawing by Pierre-Joseph Garrez, preserved in Paris, at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, the survey of the architect Nino Pollaci of the early twentieth century, a series of historical photos, the surviving architectural fragments such as the capitals and the painted wooden coffered ceiling, preserved in various Palermitan museums, and above all the bell tower, still the only trace on the site of the now disappeared church of the Annunziata. To these testimonies is added an archival document of 1526 in which a contract for the construction of 14 octagonal pylons, including the base and capitals that were to be used for the renovation of the church according to the indications of the architect Antonio Belguardo was stipulated. From this document arose the suggestive hypothesis of a project that was to distort the original layout of the church and which, for reasons unknown to us, was never implemented. The proposed study has a twofold objective: to rebuild the church to virtually reconstitute the lost urban space through the elaboration of some perspective views and 3D animations, and to re-propose, a conjectural model of the hypothetical project proposed by Belguardo for the renovation never implemented of the church.