Frommer's Review
This is the greatest gallery of regional art in Sicily and one the finest art galleries in all of Italy. It's housed in the Palazzo Abatellis, itself an architectural treasure, a Catalan-Gothic structure with a Renaissance overlay designed by Matteo Carnelivari in 1490. Carnelivari constructed the building for Francesco Abatellis, the praetor of Palermo. After World War II bombings, the architect Carlo Scarpa restored the palazzo in 1954.
The superb collection shows the evolution of the arts in Sicily from the 13th to the 18th centuries. Sculpture predominates on the main floor. Beyond room 2, the former chapel contains the gallery's most celebrated work, the Triumph of Death, dating from 1449 and of uncertain attribution (though it's sometimes credited to Pisanello). In all its gory magnificence, it portrays a horseback-riding skeleton (representing Death, of course) trampling his victims. The painter depicted himself in the fresco, seen with a pupil praying in vain for release from the horrors of Death. The modernity of this extraordinary work, including the details of the nose of the horse and the men and women in the full flush of their youth, is truly amazing, especially for its time.
The second masterpiece of the gallery lies at the end of the corridor exhibiting Arabic ceramics in room 4: the white-marble, slanted-eyed bust of Eleanara di Aragona, by Francesco Laurana, who created it in the 15th century. This is Laurana's masterpiece.
The second-floor galleries are filled mainly with paintings from the Sicilian school, including a spectacular Annunciation, the creation of Antonello da Messina, in room 11.
In the salon of Flemish paintings rests the celebrated Triptych of Malvagna, the creation of Mabuse, whose real name was Jean Gossaert. His 1510 work depicts a Madonna and bambino surrounded by singing angels with musical instruments.
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