BASILE, Ernesto

Ernesto Basile was the artistic director of the Ducrot Company in Palermo, which produced the furnishings designed by him.

Basile also relied on traditional craftsmanship, especially in wrought iron and inlaid stone, as at the tiny Cappella Lanza di Scalea in the cemetery of Santa Maria di Gesù, Palermo. This ancient monumental cemetery the oldest in Palermo. Located on the Belvedere slope, it is dedicated to Santa Maria di Gesù, like the adjacent church and convent, and the homonymous village, located at the foot of Mount Grifone. There are numerous noble chapels belonging to some of the main families of Palermo; for this reason it is also called “cemetery of the Nobles”.

Although most of Basile’s work was for private patrons, his public buildings in Palermo include the Cassa di Risparmio (1907-12) and the uninspiring church of Santa Rosalia (1928), his last work.

The historical banking institution was founded as “Cassa di Risparmio Vittorio Emanuele II for the Sicilian provinces” on 31 October 1861 to celebrate the first anniversary of the Plebiscite for the unification of Italy. In 1887 the administrators of the bank purchased part of a former convent for their headquarter. It was enlarged and completed from 1907 to 1912 by the architect Ernesto Basile.

This side chair with caned seat was designed by Ernesto Basile and made by Ducrot Company in Palermo. At first glance, the arms of this chair appear to be made of bentwood - solid or laminated wood bent into curves using pressure and steam. Careful examination, however, shows that the arms are, in fact, carved from solid wood. This use of traditional construction methods to imitate the effects created by new materials and techniques shows how fashionable the spare design and light construction of bentwood furniture had become.

The blurring of distinctions between interior and exterior, natural and artificial, are important themes in Ernesto Basile’s work, epitomized by the designs for street furniture. These included kiosks in an Arab style seething with vegetal forms and garden sculpture. Horizontal and vertical forms received similar treatment.

The kiosk, created by Ernesto Basile in 1894, was conceived in close relationship with the Teatro Massimo, in front of which it was positioned. In addition to selling refrigerated drinks, it served as a ticket office and newsstand, now selling tobacco and stamps. It has a cruciform plan, its construction is based on complex metal elements in wrought iron. The octagonal dome is typical of Brazilian towers, in remembrance of Basile’s visit to Brazil.

Ernesto Basile was considered one of the most influential representatives of the Stile Liberty. He devoted as much attention to the interiors as to the buildings themselves. There are unmistakable French influences in his work - soft, elegant forms and a symbiosis of painting and decoration brilliantly handled.

The Hotel Villa Igiea is particularly important as it contains almost the only surviving Basile interior. All the details here, including doors, mirrors and screens, are part of the overall architectural design in a manner typical of Art Nouveau, where ornament seems to be about to devour the room and its contents. Much derives from Belgian, French and English Art Nouveau. The apparently fluid but oddly frozen forms, like cloth soaked in plaster, derive from Henry Van de Velde and the medieval references come from William Morris and Viollet-le-Duc. Nevertheless, the mural depicting women and swans is more realistic than it would have been elsewhere, and the poppy, ubiquitous in northern versions of Art Nouveau, appears only in the capitals of columns and the doorframes.

The photo shows the Stile Liberty (Art Nouveau) ballroom in the Hotel Villa Igiea in Palermo.

After the unification of Italy and the annexation of the Papal States in 1870, the transfer of the capital to Rome meant that suitable locations had to be found for the governing bodies of the Kingdom. The choice fell upon Palazzo Montecitorio, and the work to adapt the old palace to the new requirements was rapidly undertaken.

The task of building the assembly hall was entrusted to a comparatively unknown public works engineer, Paolo Comotto (1824-1897), who did the job very quickly (the hall was inaugurated in July 1871). The new hall soon proved to be inadequate, and the government had assigned to the architect Ernesto Basile the task of making extensions to the Chamber at the back of the earlier one.

Basile, a leading representative of Italian Art Nouveau, retained only the front part of the ancient Bernini palace, squared the central courtyard, demolished the wings and the triangular-shaped rear section. The surrounding streets were demolished to make way for Parliament Square. In the square thus created, a large rectangular building was erected with four mediaeval-like towers, made of travertine and red brick.

Basile achieved significant results in the interior of the building. He displayed a designer’s rather than an architect’s tastes, obtaining an overall effect in which the solemnity of the rooms was in perfect harmony with the airiness of the decorations and the detailed work. This is confirmed by the Assembly Hall (Chamber of Deputies), the corridors and monumental rooms (particularly, the most famous, the “Transatlantic”), the committee rooms, the coloured marble paving, the ceilings, the decorations in the taste of the time that Basile concerned himself with down to the last details. The “Transatlantic”, the large lobby situated at one end of the Assembly Hall where MPs gather in the breaks between sessions, gets its name from the ceiling lighting typical of ocean liners.

Basile was assisted by other artists, leading representatives of the ceremonious (and somewhat rhetorical) tastes of the time: Leonardo Bistolfi (1859-1933) and Domenico Trentacoste (1859-1933), the authors of the marble groups and rear fa�ade. Aristide Sartorio (1860-1932) is the author of the large pictorial frieze on the history of the “Italian people” running around the upper section of the Assembly Hall, right below the delicate Art Nouveau stained-glass and iron velarium by Giovanni Beltrami (1860-1926).

Although most of Basile’s work was for private patrons, his new parliament building in Rome was a vast addition to Bernini’s Palazzo Montecitorio. Its understatedness is unusual among the grandiose public and commercial buildings of the time. Unpretentious brick and the use only of pilasters determinedly avoided the bombast of stone and chiaroscuro of many contemporary buildings.

The photo shows the fa�ade of Basile’s building.

The photo shows the Assembly Hall (Chamber of Deputies).

The photo shows the entrance to the Sala della Regina.

The photo shows the “Transatlantic”, the large lobby situated at one end of the Assembly Hall where MPs gather in the breaks between sessions. The room gets its name from the ceiling lighting typical of ocean liners.

The photo shows the Sala della Regina.

The photo shows the Sala della Lupa.

The huge Teatro Massimo in Palermo was designed by Giovanni Battista Basile (1825-1891), father of Ernesto Basile. He started the construction in 1874, but it was stopped for eight years, from 1882 until 1890. From 1891 until the completion of the project in 1897, Ernesto Basile was the supervising architect of the building.

The Teatro Massimo symbolized the ambitions of Palermo, then a provincial city lacking adequate facilities, to copy the kind of Modernist architecture built in the great cities of Europe, especially Paris. It has remained a symbol, and its stage, the largest in Europe after the Paris Opera, has been one of the least used.

The interior is decorated and painted by Rocco Lentini (1858-1943), Ettore de Maria-Bergler (1851-1938), Michele Cortegiani (1857-1928) and Luigi di Giovanni (1856-1938).

The huge Teatro Massimo in Palermo was designed by Giovanni Battista Basile (1825-1891), father of Ernesto Basile. He started the construction in 1874, but it was stopped for eight years, from 1882 until 1890. From 1891 until the completion of the project in 1897, Ernesto Basile was the supervising architect of the building.

The Teatro Massimo symbolized the ambitions of Palermo, then a provincial city lacking adequate facilities, to copy the kind of Modernist architecture built in the great cities of Europe, especially Paris. It has remained a symbol, and its stage, the largest in Europe after the Paris Opera, has been one of the least used.

The interior is decorated and painted by Rocco Lentini (1858-1943), Ettore de Maria-Bergler (1851-1938), Michele Cortegiani (1857-1928) and Luigi di Giovanni (1856-1938).

The photo shows the main square of the cemetery of Santa Maria di Gesù with the fountain and the Cappella Lanza di Scalea by Ernesto Basile.

Basile combined current European ideas with the revival of ‘Sicilian styles’. Among other Sicilian elements, he drew on Norman domes, Islamic profiles, Catalan-Gothic tracery and Baroque marbling. For the exteriors of his buildings, he borrowed heavily from 15th-century motifs, as at Villino Florio, Palermo (1907-09). Here influences from Matteo Carnelivari (active c. 1490), a master mason of whose work he had made carefully measured drawings (1895-96), was particularly important.

The photo shows the view of the corner with stairs.

Basile combined current European ideas with the revival of ‘Sicilian styles’. Among other Sicilian elements, he drew on Norman domes, Islamic profiles, Catalan-Gothic tracery and Baroque marbling. For the exteriors of his buildings, he borrowed heavily from 15th-century motifs, as at Villino Florio, Palermo (1907-09). Here influences from Matteo Carnelivari (active c. 1490), a master mason of whose work he had made carefully measured drawings (1895-96), was particularly important.

The photo shows the fa�ade with the entrance of the building.

One interesting detail of the Villino is the writing on the entrance door, which reads “Dispar et Unum 1904”. The Latin inscription refers to the philosophy of the Pythagoreans, while the date indicates the year of completion of the construction.

The Villino Ida Basile was designed by Ernesto Basile. The building, named after his wife Ida Negrini di Novara, was the home of the architect and his family until 1932. The style adopted by Basile is the Liberty style which he used to create the homes of the upper-middle class and local aristocracy in the new residential district north-west of Palermo. Previously, this area was the site of the National Exhibition of 1881-82.

The entire Villino was built with local materials. The furnishings were the products of the Ducrot company in Palermo, of which Basile was the artistic director. One interesting detail of the Villino is the writing on the entrance door, which reads “Dispar et Unum 1904”. The Latin inscription refers to the philosophy of the Pythagoreans, while the date indicates the year of completion of the construction.

Today the Villino is the seat of the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage of Palermo and a library.