Baroque mascaron (grotesque sculpted face), Quattro Fontane, Regional Museum of Messina, Sicily, Italy [Photography]

My Word with Douglas E. Welch · Oct 4, 2026

This is part of a series of photos from our trip to Sicily and Oxford, UK in September 2026

“After the 1908 earthquake, only two of them were reassembled in situ, while the others, more fragmentary, were taken to the Museum and subsequently reassembled. These latter ones can be identified as the oldest, and in particular the first on the right (as you approach from the old museum entrance), surmounted by the Habsburg imperial coat of arms, is thought to be the one executed by Mangani and displays a more refined quality of execution. The opposite one, colder and more schematic, is…