Palermo/Monreale (gro) Wrapping artist Vladirov Yavashev Christo will wrap parts of Monrale. The necessary agreements for this are, as one hears in nearby Palermo, already signed. Essentially, it is a matter of contracts and assurances to UNESCO, which has placed Monreale under protection as part of the architectural-architectural world heritage of Sicily, and to the Region of Sicily, which as the state supreme authority controls the protection of monuments on the island. Christo, whose works have included wrapping the Pont Neuf, Paris’s oldest, magnificently decorated city bridge over the Seine, and Berlin’s Reichstag, wants to wrap up the monastery and two squares of medieval Monreale.
Nearly ten kilometers in the mountains above Palermo.
Monreale is still fondly referred to by Sicilians as the “Vatican of Sicily” . Well, Monreale is the seat of an archbishop, and the ordinariate of the ecclesiastical residence is considered strictly conservative, particularly close to the traditions of Sicily. Typically, a senior cleric of the archbishopric had to deal with the accusation that he was strongly suspected of belonging to a mafia organization nearly 20 years ago. He had organized church weddings of members of the Cosa Nostra who had gone into hiding.
Like a guard station in the south of the city.
Monreale towers like a guard station on a hill ten kilometers away in the south of Palermo above the island’s capital. From its (freely accessible) episcopal garden one enjoys an exhilarating view of the Conca D’Oro, of Palermo and its surroundings, of the “Golden Shell” formed by the Tyrrhenian Sea, Monte Pellegrino and tangerine plantations.
Joyful welcome for Christo.
While the Bulgarian-born with his wife Jeanne-Claude, who died in 2009, often had to fight for years, even decades for permission for the individual wrapping actions, it worked out with the approval process for the Sicilian Monreale within months. To the wrapping of the church and two squares comes the wrapping of the cloister of the former Benedictine monastery, which is attached to its remains and to the cathedral. Cultural operators, hoteliers, innkeepers and other tourist operators of the medieval town welcome the recent attention Monreales with great pleasure. This is probably mainly due to the fascination that the mosaics of the Cathedral of Monreale, made by Byzantine and Arab artists in the 12th century on more than 6000 square meters, still exert today.