2023-06-27 16:47:00
Time.news – The noble art of Sicilian embroidery, the weavers and their stories of women who guard one of the oldest knowledge of humanity. The Tiraz, an Arab-Norman textile factorya metaphor for the encounter between cultures that intertwine weaves and threads of fabrics, but above all a historic laboratory created in the spaces of Palazzo Forcella de Seta in Palermo in 1923 by two women who, driven by the desire to create and by a remarkable entrepreneurial spirit, gave life to the traditional activity.
Up until around 1938, the laboratory created bespoke kits for the families of the aristocracy and the high bourgeoisie of Palermo and Rome of the time. And they were the Marquise Maria Elia De Seta, together with the director of the laboratory and creator of the drawings, Maria Fortunata Di Liberti, the two ante-litteram entrepreneurs who gave work to about fifteen workers: embroiderers of humble origins, daughters of fishermen from the Kalsa district, adjacent to the building, who, guided by expert hands, learned the trade.
A story of women, entrepreneurship and traditions
The Tiraz ceased to exist at Palazzo De Seta, but the laboratory continued its activity until the mid-1960s in another location. The Marquise De Seta, following the loss of her eldest son and the premature death of her new partner, had decided to close the business, handing it over to Di Liberti who continued to supply kits ensuring work for the embroiderers. The workshop was moved to her home in Piazza Marina, now owned by the heir Leontine Regine, owner of the embroidery fund on display, on the top floor of Palazzo Oliveri where, in addition to the Kalsa girls, some embroiderers from Monreale, the town of origin, also worked of the director.
© Leontine Regine
The embroiderers of Palazzo De Seta Palermo
A story of women, of entrepreneurship and of traditions, which reveals the ancient power of a committed and productive feminine. Celebrating it is the exhibition entitled ‘Tiraz-nobiles officinae in Sicily – The embroidery workshop at Palazzo De Seta in Palermo in the 1920s’, which will be inaugurated in the museum exhibition center of noble traditions in Palazzolo Acreide.
An exhibition sponsored by the Municipality of Palazzolo with the collaboration of Titti Zabert Colombo, founder of the museum centre, together with the architect Sandro Fiorentino, for years the protagonist of the rebirth and restoration of the historic center of Palazzolo. Zabert’s daughter, Serena, and Emanuela Gargallo, publisher and anthropologist, are collaborating on the reopening of the museum.
An opportunity to learn more about the figure and history of Maria De Seta, a “beautiful and fascinating” woman as someone has defined her, and certainly determined. The history of the Marquise De Seta is intertwined with the customs but also with the politics of the time.
Cultural and political commitment
After her marriage to the Marquis De Seta, from which her three sons, Emanuele, Francesco and Vittorio were born. She had an important sentimental relationship with Michele Bianchi, Calabrian, “quadrumvir” of the March on Rome and Minister of Public Works from 1929 until her death in 1930. The premature death of her lover brought Maria even closer to politics .
In the 1920s Maria De Seta was salon animator, both in Calabria, in his house in Sellia Marina and in the villa of Buturo in Sila, than in his residences in Rome and Palermo where he came into contact with several leading figures in the Italian artistic and literary world, from Renato Guttuso to Corrado Alvaro, from Massimo Bontempelli to Mario Missiroli, from Filippo Tommaso Marinetti to Gabriele D’Annunzio.
In 1942 she married Prince Valerio Pignatelli of Cerchiara. She died following a car accident on March 10, 1968 in Calabria, where she had now lived for some time. Her grave is in the Sersale cemetery, next to her two sons Emanuele and Francesco, while her son Vittorio De Seta is buried in nearby Sellia Marina. Also in Palazzolo Acreide on 29 June, the feast day of Saint Paul, the Centro Studi Fabio Fiorentino, Il Viaggio di San Paolo, will be inaugurated, aimed at realizing the project “The journey of Saint Paul” as an interreligious meeting point to promote opportunities of Dialogue and the study of Christianity. Cardinal Mario Grech and the Florentine architect will be present at the inauguration.
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