ANNIVERSARIES: from the magazine Milazzo Nostra, number 21, December 2008.
Domenico Ryolo and the discovery of the prehistory of Milazzo
by BARTOLO
CANNISTRÀ
see also the Museum of Lipari (video)
On December 2, 1988 Eng. Domenico Ryolo, one of the greatest figures of the
cultural milazzese of the twentieth century, renewer of the studies on geology,
history and art of the city, author of his first "Guide", father of his
archeology and discoverer of its prehistory. Twenty years after his death, the
contribution he gave to the knowledge of the "Milazzo civilization" (not the
battles fought in the territory, but the work of those who lived there and the
historical and artistic heritage that left us) still appears more relevant. In
particular, his contribution to the knowledge of the most ancient human
settlements in Milazzo is fundamental: before him the reconnaissance and
excavations of the archaeologists of the level of Paolo Orsi, Pietro Griffo and
Bernabò Brea had not produced any results; Ryolo will be the one to discover the
necropolid of the ancient, middle and late Bronze Age, of the protogreca and
Hellenistic age, and finally of the Neolithic. Of this Bernabò Brea, who with
Madeleine Cavalier directed the excavations and studied the finds, he always
acknowledged with flattering expressions: "Why all this is known? why did he
save himself? Because there was Ryolo. He has continued to represent us, for
decades and decades, as a local Superintendent, because I had absolute and total
trust, not only as a friend, but as a technician, as a person who knew the
problems. I knew that when he wrote me something, it was that, determined as if
I had seen it myself. "
But if the archaeological sector is the one where its contribution is most
shining, we can not overlook the exceptional importance of its long research and
documentation on our cultural heritage, which culminated in the synthesis of the
Guide and the Cards. Our magazine that, in these years, has reproposed his
writings and kept alive the attention on his work (as did also "La Città", "La
Voce di Milazzo" and the Milazzese Society of Homeland History) dedicated a lot
to him. part of this issue with the aim of contributing to a renewed awareness
of the relevance of its contribution. and, therefore, to recall the city and its
institutions to the duty of honoring its memory, illustrating its work,
continuing its commitment and achieving the objectives that he pursued for
Milazzo. We believe that the city owes to Ryolo at least one study of studies
for a balance of his work in the various sectors in which he made his commitment;
the publication in volume of his writings, scattered in magazines often
unobtainable, or unpublished; the reconstruction of his library in a "Ryolo Fund"
inside the Municipal Library of Milazzo -which was so dear to him and the
custody of his manuscripts, notes, projects, to make them accessible to scholars;
the naming of the Museo archeologico di Milazzo, which will be opened in the
Spanish Quarter. In this sense we have repeatedly asked the municipal
administration, even formally, by letters dated 22 November 2006, 11 May 2007, 7
May 2008, and finally 2 December 2008, the day of the twentieth anniversary of
the death of Ryolo. We found informal manifestations of interest and
availability, but without taking on concrete commitments, and even less, formal
written answers. We hope that the reading of these pages, which document the
active, disinterested and generous work of Domenico Ryolo, will induce the City
Administrators, his political and cultural world, to plan the initiatives that
our community has the duty to assume to render testimony of gratitude to the
memory of those who have worked so hard for Milazzo.
News
about his life
Domenico Ryolo was born in Milazzo on 11 May 1895 from Cesare and from Carolina
Di Maria Brunaccini. He completed his classical studies in the renowned
Benedictine School of Montecassino and in 1913 enrolled at the Polytechnic of
Milan. Called to arms at the outbreak of the First World War, he commands, as an
artillery officer, the 609th battery, taking part in numerous military actions
and signaling himself, in particular, during the dramatic withdrawal from the
Karst. The war cross is awarded to him and he is dismissed with the rank of
captain. Returning to his studies, in 1922 he graduated in Mechanical Industrial
Engineering, and, having returned to Milazzo, practiced his profession and
worked in agriculture, directing his mother's farm. Meanwhile, he is interested
in geology and archeology, and is dedicated to historical research on Sicily (in
particular on Milazzo and other centers of Messina), to studies of art and
numismatics (in particular, of Messina and Mamertina coinage). He frequented the
Municipal Library and handwritten "Melazzo Sacro" by Perdichizzi and pages of
volumes from the Historical Archive, which were then destroyed by the bombings
of 1943, and of which, therefore, only his transcription remains. His first
publication that we could trace back to the beginning of 1940 and is dedicated
to Milazzo, Tindari and the Aeolian Islands, whose nature, history, art and
economy traces a rapid profile, anticipating what will be the themes of the
whole his subsequent production. In the same year he has ready for the press a
documented study on the location of the ancient Longano torrent and the place
where in 269 a. C. the battle took place between Mamertini and Siracusani, but
the outbreak of the war will postpone its publication.
In 1937 he collaborated with the archaeologist Pietro Griffo, who is doing
excavations in Milazzo and defines him as a fervent and disinterested lover of
homeland memories. "In 1941 he met
Luigi
Bernabò Brea, newly appointed Superintendent of Antiquities for Eastern Sicily,
and among two is born a friendship and fruitful collaboration, founded on the
great consideration that the illustrious archaeologist has for the competence
and the passion of Ryolo, on whose initiatives and signaling will be based to
intervene in the territory of Milazzo.In 1942, together, they discover the
shelter of Sperlinga in Novara di Sicilia, in 1943, following the excavations
carried out by the military in the Grotta di Polifemo, in 1950 - based on Ryolo
's research on the location of Longano - they discovered the remains of the town
of Longane, in the municipality of Rodì Milici Then, in October 1950, both began
the great season of the discovery of the Milazzo necropolis: two in Piazza Roma
(the Proto-Greek one, which confirms what was handed down by the the Greek
historiography, and the protovillanovian one, which moves back the first
settlement on the castle back four centuries), and the third, to the Tono,
belonging to the middle age of the bronze, which still brings back the beginning
of that settlement. The systematic excavations, under the direction of Madeleine
Cavalier, begin on 21 October 1951; the second excavation campaign, with a
regional funding, lasts from 21 May to 9 June 1951 and the third from 25
February to 20 March 1952. In the same years, at the Borgo, finds traces of the
Bronze Age finds in Vico del Re and finds of the classical age in the Rosario
square and in the current Via Giovanni XXIII. Then, in 1954, he identified in
the isthmus - the excavation of a new road that crosses Via S. Giovanni -
another large necropolis, of the Hellenistic age, with Capuchin tombs. It would
be time to realize the Museo archeologico di Milazzo, completing the triangle
with Lipari and Tindari, but the deafness of the municipal administration
frustrates the commitment and intentions of Bernabò Brea and Ryolo, who in '58
writes the project for recovery and the reconstruction of Palazzo Carrozza to be
used as the site of the museum. The finds will go to Lipari, and our only museum
will be the "paper" museum consisting of the beautiful volume "Mylai", by L.
Bernabò Brea and M. Cavalier.Meanwhile Ryolo continues his research on the
ground and in 1960 he finds in Vaccarella, at the beginning of the new panoramic
road, the remains of another necropolis, this time of ancient bronze, thus
further moving the village on the crossroad of the castle. But this is not yet
the period of the first settlement of man in the territory of Milazzo: between
50 and 52, he had found "inside the enclosure of the Castle" splinters of
obsidian, and then, during the excavation of wells, had emerged fragments of
pottery and obsidian blades, in the Piana, in the districts Badessa (1957) and
Scaccia (1959), even a dozen meters deep, (a sign that there had been - he
considers between the fourth and third millennium to C.- climatic convulsions
with huge landslides and soliflussions from the hills that had raised the level
of the central part of the plain). Finally, in
September
1970, in the extreme northern part of the Promontory, between the Faro and Punta
Messinese, traces of a "Neolithic village" that shifts the prehistory of Milazzo
back to the "culture" of Stentinello and Castellaro for another two millennia.
Vecchio (about 4000 BC) It is a pair of small fragments of impasto pottery, a
nucleus of obsidian and some blades of tools made from it, testifying to a
settlement that did not import from Lipari the "worked product", but it
constituted a true "production center". The thirty years 1950-1980 is Ryolo the
most fruitful period of results, not only for its archaeological discoveries,
but also for the numerous publications on the history and art of Milazzo and
other centers of the province. In recognition of this activity he was appointed
Honorary Inspector of Monuments, Antiquities and Works of Art of the Province of
Messina, a member of the Societies of History of Messina and of Palermo, a
corresponding member of the Peloritan Academy, a member of the Study Center for
the history of architecture in Rome. Bernabò Brea gives him the task of the
project and the direction of the work of the buildings that will host the Museum
of Lipari and the Antiquarium of Tindari, but also relies on him for what he
calls "an intervention of archaeological engineering, of great commitment , of
great responsibility "for the restoration of the" Basilica "of Tindari."
Therefore, besides the aspect of scholar and researcher of the local antiquities,
we must remember the technical, professional part of an engineer he has made
available to archeology. " While he continues his studies on the artistic and
monumental heritage of Milazzo, he tries, through formal interventions and with
reserved letters, with all the weight of his authority as a scholar and
professional designer and director of many public works (from the aqueduct to
the Cemetery) , to defend it from the attacks of a senseless building boom, on
the Cappuccini hill, in the Marina (Palazzo Cumbo, what remains of Palazzo Ryolo),
in via Umberto I. For example, we focus only on one initiative, the one pursued
with tenacity. to have four of the seven paintings returned to Milazzo, which
had been requested on 12 September 1951 and withdrawn on 15 September 1953 for
the "Mostra Antonelliana e del '400 Sicilian" held in Messina and which had not
been returned, on the pretext of wanting to restore them . After talking to
Prof. Vigni, from 16 January 1955 to 18 March 1961 he reiterated the reports and
reminders to the Regional Superintendency of the Galleries, underlining - among
other things - that these paintings are "owned by the Municipality of Milazzo"
(and not by Archpriest of Milazzo, as he had written in a letter dated December
13, 1955, Monsignor Cernuto). Finally, the Superintendent Delogu, on April 5,
1961, instructs him to perform a "recognition and identification of the
paintings" at the Regional Museum of Messina. On April 8 Ryolo reports in a
"personal confidential" that the paintings "in good condition at the time of the
loan" are almost unrecognizable, it seems "the remains of the paintings (in
particular S Pietro and S. Paolo di Antonello de Saliba) taken at Milazzo by Dr.
Caradente: this is their state of conservation ". He thus obtains that on
October 5th Delogu orders that the paintings be restored "within the current
year". In 1972 he wrote, on behalf of the Ministry of Education - within the
European project of the Inventory of the European Cultural Heritage - the cards
of the artistic and monumental assets of Milazzo.
Below: findings from the "Neolithic village" of the Cape 
Having
retired from his professional activity, he can devote more time to his writings,
and in fact since the end of the 1960s his publications have grown. In the
winter he moved to Rome, in a more comfortable residence for the cold months, in
via Faiti 6, near the Lungotevere della Vittoria ("dedicated to my wife's name",
he used to say with affectionate irony to his wife, who it was all the more
expensive because, living alone, without children, they were inseparable). But,
precisely because of such long periods of absence, these years are
"saddened - Giacomo Scibona writes - from two qualified thefts suffered in his
villa in Barone.The first 'signed' occurs at the beginning of the eighties (in
an essay written in 1984 he speaks of coins" that had been part "of his
collection, editor's note), the latter involved an almost complete emptying of
household household goods, about two years later ".
In November 1984, the Liceo classico di Milazzo organized in his honor a meeting
to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the conclusion of the excavation
campaign of the fifties. Bartolo Cannistrà reconstructs the story of the
excavations, and Bernabò Brea illustrates the extent of Ryolo's contribution, to
which, at the end of the conference, a silver plaque will be presented by the
teachers of the Institute. Ryolo's moving words of gratitude for this that will
remain the only recognition given to him in life in his city constitute his last
"public exit". Due to his advanced age, he left more rarely the villa of Camiali
(which he loved very much and referred to as "the many palm trees" in the
"Guide"), but he is always vigilant and busy: he convokes his friends who are
interested in the problems of milazzese history ; discusses it with the passion
of all time; wants to be in-formed on the building defeats that threaten the
city's artistic heritage, on cultural initiatives, on the prospects of reopening
the municipal library, to which it was linked since the years of youth. He
proposes to one of the most devoted friends the realization of an "Archaeological
and artistic guide of the province" (providing ideas, indications and texts) and
launches the idea of a "Milazzo society of homeland history", of which he
discusses the Statute, the possible headquarters and the establishment of the
library to which he intends to contribute with his books. Then his condition
worsens, and, in the autumn of 1988, he remains immobilized in bed. On the
evening of December 2nd, he died at the age of 93. The funeral is celebrated in
the church of S. Papino. He is buried in the Milazzo cemetery, where his wife
Vittoria will join him a few years later. The last years of the long life of
Domenico Ryolo, a man who had always been at the center of the social and
cultural life of his city, were years of secluded isolation and negligence on
the part of the city institutions. A loneliness alleviated only by meetings with
friends who after his death will form the Milazzese Society of Homeland History,
which he had hoped for and together with them. While he was alive, he had no
recognition from his city (except for the convention organized in his honor by
the Classical Lyceum), nor was his disappearance public.
But
his memory, as is the case for those who left a significant cultural legacy, not
only did not fade after his death, but, on the contrary -cultivated and placed
at the center of cultural initiatives, by those who had commonality with him.
interests and considered him a guide and inspiration for their commitment - it
has gone more and more like one of the most important personalities of the
twentieth century milazzese. Already on the first anniversary of his death, on 2
December 1989, the Milazzese Society of Homeland History, commemorates him
during a conference in which they relate the president Bartolo Cannistrà, the
editor of the Guide of Milazzo Peppino Pellegrino and Luigi Bernabò Brea who,
together with Madeleine Cavalier, she pays homage to the memory of Ryolo with a
particularly dense and touching intervention. In 1993 the same company organized
a conference on the theme "Archeology in Milazzo", which was attended by Pietro
Griffo, Luigi Bernabò Brea and Gabriella Tigano, and whose Acts will be
published by the journal Geoarchaeology directed by Claudio Saporetti. Opening
the works, the president of the association dedicates the conference to Ryolo
which goes "the memory, grateful and moved, not only of the Milazzese society of
homeland history, but also of the most alive and conscious part of Milazzo",
and, soon after, the vice-president Ernesto Buzzanca recalls the commitment
uselessly lavished by Ryolo for the establishment of an archaeological museum in
Milazzo. At the end a commemorative plaque is offered to Mrs. Vittoria Ryolo. In
1999 the weekly the City began the publication of the cards on the cultural
heritage of Milazzo written by Ryolo thirty years earlier, and that still
university students and scholars consult at the Milazzese Society of Homeland
History that holds them together with other papers by Ryolo. In 2002 the
Administration Nastasi gives the name of Domenico Ryolo to the Antiquarium of
Milazzo, inaugurated in the presence of Madeleine Cavalier, and the volume "The
necropolis of Milazzo"
-
edited by Gabriella Tigano and published by Rebus di Nino Ragusi- , in addition
to a biographical card by Ryolo edited by Giacomo Scibona, the text of the
report held by Bernabò Brea at the conference organized by the Lyceum in 1984.
In May 2002 Milazzo Nostra published the project drawn up by Ryolo in 1958 for
the restoration of Palazzo Carrozza and its use as the site of the
Archaeological Museum. In August of the same year, the magazine published three
writings by Ryolo - now untraceable - from 1940, 1955 and 1963 on the economic
reality and the tourist prospects of Milazzo. Approaching the twentieth
anniversary of Ryolo's death and the opening of the Municipal Library in the new
headquarters of Palazzo D'Amico, MilazzoNostra sends repeated requests to the
Municipality because
1) organize a conference of studies on the contribution of Ryolo to the
knowledge of the history of Milazzo;
2) give the name of Ryolo to the Archaeological Museum of Milazzo, whose opening
should be near;
3) promote the reconstitution of the library of Ryolo and the collection of
works, unpublished works, notes and projects, in a section of the Municipal
Library called "Fondo Ryolo" to implement his desire to make available to
scholars the books on he had done his research and the results of them.
SEE ALSO THE WORKS OF THE GREAT ING. DOMENICO RYOLO
domenico ryolo 2
The webmaster, Claudio Italiano,
sincerely thanks for the courtesy received from the editors of "Milazzo Nostra".
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