Identifying one of Antonio de Saliba’s “lost” Taormina altarpieces

Abstract

Antonio de Saliba (c.1466/67-c.1535) was one of three nephews of the Sicilian master Antonello da Messina (c. 1430-1479) who went on to become successful and prolific painters. Antonio was active in Renaissance Venice as a young man, going on to set up his own Messinese workshop in the mid- 1490s which was active until his death. Several scholars have attempted to reconstruct the oeuvre of this artist who provides an interesting case of a late Quattrocento and early Cinquecento painter who started his artistic career in Venice by being connected to the workshops of his cousin Jacobello di Antonello (c. 1456-1490) – Antonello’s son and universal heir – and later that of Giovanni Bellini (c. 1435-1516). Having relocated to Messina, he then adjusted his output in order to maintain a popular workshop that pleased patrons’ wishes in Eastern Sicily, Calabria and Malta.

Among the several towns and cities that had art works commissioned from Antonio de Saliba, Taormina’s churches must have housed at least three Renaissance altarpieces by Antonio. (is can be deduced from two transcribed documents published by the Jesuit art historian and librarian Gioacchino Di Marzo (1839-1916), and another document which Di Marzo described but only partly transcribed. (e original of these documents were destroyed together with much of the city’s archives on 28 December 1908 in the earthquake and resulting tsunami that devastated the Sicilian port. (ese three documented commissions prove that Antonio de Saliba enjoyed a good reputation among Taorminese patrons, for whom he may have produced other commissions of which we have no documentation nor trace.