Church of Santa Maria Alemanna in Messina: Raimondo D’Aronco’s Surveys

The present contribution will attempt a sort of “integrated reading” of a set of surveys, kept at the Regional Museum of Messina, produced by Raimondo D’Aronco during his stay in this city. The drawings refer to the church of Santa Maria Alemanna, considered one of the few architectural and tectonic evidence dating back to the period of the Swabian domination that still exists in Messina. The analysis of these documents could allow us to retrace the entire historical and architectural history of the building, or at least some of its substantial phases, confirming or adding further elements of knowledge compared to the current ones. The observation of D’Aronco’s drawings and the comparison with the coeval graphic production also allows to formulate interesting reflections regarding the purpose for which they are drawn up, that is, the popular one. But regardless of any type of technical or formal consideration,they remain in any case as a precious testimony of a way of representing in this particular period of transition in which, in the track of the tradition that still drew reference from academic teachings, begins to grafting the germ of modernity that preludes a gradual loss of the subjective component, and therefore of the more markedly figurative aspects, in favor of the rigorous objectivity of the linear drawing.