Baroque Balcony - Modica, Sicily - Faces Carved beneath the Stone

Expressive carved faces, scrolling stonework and wrought-iron railings transform a historic balcony in Modica into an elaborate example of Sicilian Baroque decoration.

Expressive human faces peer from beneath an ornate stone balcony in historic Modica, surrounded by elaborate scrolls and sculpted decoration supporting the wrought-iron railing above. This remarkable architectural detail illustrates the imaginative and theatrical character that makes the Baroque buildings of southeastern Sicily so distinctive. Following the devastating earthquake of 1693, many of Modica's churches and noble palaces were rebuilt in the elaborate late-Baroque style that transformed towns throughout the Val di Noto. Façades became richly modeled architectural compositions in which balconies were often treated as decorative features in their own right, combining curved wrought-iron railings with massive carved stone corbels. Sculptors and stonemasons used scrolls, foliage, human faces, masks, animals and fantastic figures to give otherwise functional supports an extraordinary sense of movement and personality. Modica's historic architecture forms part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site encompassing the Late Baroque Towns of the Val di Noto, recognized for the exceptional urban and architectural reconstruction of southeastern Sicily after the 1693 earthquake.