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  • Sicily: Art and Invention between Greece and Rome ed. by Claire L. Lyons, Michael Bennett, Clemente Marconi
  • Carla Antonaccio
Claire L. Lyons , Michael Bennett , Clemente Marconi (eds.). Sicily: Art and Invention between Greece and Rome. Los Angeles : Getty Publications , 2013 . Pp. 288 , 144 color and 23 b/w illustrations, 1 map. $60.00 . ISBN 978–1-60606–133–6 .

This volume accompanies an exhibition of the same name on the material culture of Sicily from the close of the Archaic period (marked by the Battle of Himera) to the Hellenistic period (the fall of Syracuse to Rome). As noted in one of several forewords, the show and the book itself are a product of an agreement between the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Region of Sicily, concluded in 2010, that included the restitution of a number of antiquities to Italy, as well as other loans, exhibits, conferences, research, and (on the part of the Getty) conservation of objects sent or lent by Italy. Including many works from the Getty, from several museums in Sicily, from the British Museum, and others, the exhibition was on view at (and co-organized by) the Getty and the Cleveland Museum of Art during 2013, curated by Lyons and Bennett. It was also scheduled for Palermo in early 2014 (but with different curators). The volume is not, however, a catalog of the exhibition, strictly speaking (see below).

An introduction by the curators highlights the central importance of Sicily during this period, even to the point of insistence on its influence and innovativeness. A helpful timeline follows, which correlates historical events across the Mediterranean with cultural and social developments. Five main themes structure the book: history, cultural politics, and identity; religion and mythology; Sikeliote culture; Hellenism; and Sicilian art and archaeology in this period. Each includes essays on particular topics and features called a “Focus” on specific objects or subtopics. Many of the latter deal with objects in the exhibit—including perhaps the most prominent, the stunning marble figure of a victorious charioteer found at Punic Motya, now restored and with a new anti-seismic base courtesy of the Getty conservators—but also other important works that were not in the exhibition. An example is the important female cult statue, sometimes identified as Aphrodite, but likely to be another goddess, returned by the Getty to Sicily and now in the Museo Archeologico Regionale in Aidone near Morgantina.

The essays are written by a great diversity of scholars, some of whom will be well known to scholars specializing in Sicilian history, culture, and archaeology. Here it is only possible to highlight some of the contributions. In addition to the Focus on the cult statue noted above, Marconi offers an essay on sculpture that includes a number of late-Archaic works that help to place the Charioteer in context. This can be read with the essay by Ferruzza on terracotta sculpture, a major feature of Sicilian art, which also includes an unusual head of Hades in the Getty that has now been assigned to Morgantina and the sanctuary that produced Archaic acrolithic sculptures of Demeter and Persephone (not discussed in this volume and not on loan for the exhibition, as they date to the sixth century B.C.E.) as well as the cult statue in Aidone; this sanctuary does, however, receive Focus treatment. Another Focus devoted to the extraordinary bronze ram from Syracuse, now in Palermo (and not in the exhibition in the United States), supports a suggested redating to the second century B.C.E., which if accepted places the work well outside the period dealt with in the exhibition and the rest of the volume. Coins feature prominently in the exhibition, and are the subject of both Focus treatment and an essay. Another treats mural painting in [End Page 561] Hellenistic Sicily, an important tradition here that is usually eclipsed by Macedonia. It may be read with the Focus on the Hellenistic silver set from Morgantina by Bell, which deals not only with its original domestic context, but details its repatriation, also in 2010, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. An essay and two Focus pieces bear on the figure of Archimedes...

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