CATTEDRALE SEGRETA
CATANIA / SICILIA
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Cattedrale Segreta was created for a group project during my stay in Catania, Sicilia. We were to create a concept of a secret society so we chose to go for a religious criticism in which we explored the depths of an ancient barbaric, vile and opulent catholic society buried underneath the Cattedrale di Sant’Agata and the Piazza Duomo that after the 1169 earthquake went on a major financial crisis due to their overwhelming luxury being destroyed
In order to rise from the ashes and become once again the point of the virtue of the city with the help of a few Cardinals dispatched from Rome, the Bishop of Sant’Agata started the construction of an underground elite club that was later rebuilt due to a new earthquake in 1693 that left the Cattedrale almost in ruins. Since the church had already good connections with the high ranks of Sicilia and both shared the same dubious and depraved interests the instalment was a raised to be a one of a kind club where all their wishes would be full-field with some spaces being more reasonable than others, such as the Stanza Puntata (Betting room) where you could find any betting game, from Chinese games to South American card games. Another ‘common’ room was Stanza Bianca (White Room) where the entire room was fluffy and white stocked with paints with all the colours known to mankind, to produce whatever desired. From there we go to a darker place, Stanza Dei Piaceri Nascosti (Hidden Pleasures Room) where you would go inside completely naked and you would never see the previous or next person coming in so that immeasurable orgies took place without any feelings attached
The pride and joy of the church is Arena Della Rovina (Downfall Arena), built as a hybrid of an amphitheatre and a hippodrome this arena would sustain up to 15,000 people, from one lush balcony and threes magnificent stands you would get to watch battles to the death between foreign man and woman and occasionally very poor people of Italy, sometimes the fights included animals often brought from abroad as they were glazed with chock as they were unprecedented in their eyes as if it wasn’t sufficient the winners of each event were then molested and killed through gruesome acts of a ritual that cleansed their souls and majorly maintaining no evidence of such events
My illustration tries to demonstrate all of this starting with the top we have the above-ground Cattedrale with the entrance at the centre leading to four elevators, each one for a different level of Rovina. Beneath the stands, the arena with cages on both sides where the people and animals that fought would live their daily lives after being seized by the chaotic church and the black space represents all the people and animals that were butchered throughout time. From the stands to the black space I formed a white-collar priest as being the representation of this hidden society
Now you ask yourselves, is this real or is it a dream? You tell me
