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# 70 • OCTOBER 19 , 2015
the chapel of the "Compagnia del Rosario": here
he combines the representation of the fifteen
mysteries of the rosary, to
the theme of virtue and
the historic celebration
of the battle of Lepanto,
symbol of the victory of
Christianity over the Ottoman Empire. Everything
is conveyed by dozens
of cherubs that move the
surface of the counter-frames and by the cornices
that frame the bas-reliefs
of the battle or of the mysteries, cluttering the space of the Virtues which
paradoxically almost become statues, losing completely the perception of
the grout of which they
are made. All in a shining
light that in the late morning explodes like a white
fire.
With his decorations in
ten oratories and ten churches in Palermo, Serpotta
almost unconsciously becomes the forerunner of
the rococo, but especially
becomes the precursor
of the kind of decoration
called "patisserie" that will
be very successful in Central Europe in the further
centuries.
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