Gibellina ( Sicilian: ''Jibbiddina'', Arabic: "little mount" - جبل صغير) is a small city and ''

comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...

'' in the Province of Trapani, the mountains of central

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. It was destroyed by the

1968 Belice earthquake The 1968 Belice earthquake sequence took place in Sicily between 14 and 15 January. The largest shock measured 5.5 on the moment magnitude scale, with five others of magnitude 5+. The maximum perceived intensity was X (''Extreme'') on the Mer ...

. The new city, Gibellina Nuova, was rebuilt some from the old one and it was designed by some of the most prominent artists and architects in Italy, called by

Ludovico Corrao Ludovico Corrao (26 June 1927 – 7 August 2011) was an Italian Independent Left politician and lawyer. He was the promotor of the reconstruction of Gibellina, after its destruction caused by the earthquake which took place in the Valle del Belic ...

to donate works of art to the city in order to help building it as an eccentric museum '' en plein air''. One of them, the Italian sculptor

Pietro Consagra Pietro Consagra (6 October 1920 – 16 July 2005) was an Italian sculptor. In 1947 he was among the founding members of the Forma 1 group of artists, who advocated both Marxism and structured abstraction. Life Consagra was born on 6 Oc ...

created a sculpture called ''Porta del Belice'' or "Door to Belice" at the entrance. Consagra expressed a wish to be buried at Gibellina on his deathbed in July 2005. The old town, the ''Ruderi di Gibellina'' (as the ruins of the city are referred to), remained just as it was after the earthquake, like a

ghost town Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to: * Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned Film and television * Ghost Town (1936 film), ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * Ghost Town (1956 film), ''Ghost Town'' ...

until 1985. In that year the Italian artist

Alberto Burri Alberto Burri (12 March 191513 February 1995; ) was an Italian visual artist, painter, sculptor, and physician based in Città di Castello. He is associated with the matterism of the European informal art movement and described his style as ...

began a project to cover the ruins in concrete, while preserving the streetscape. Known as ''

Cretto di Burri The Cretto di Burri (crack of Burri) or Cretto di Gibellina (crack of Gibellina), also known as "Il Grande Cretto (The Great Crack)", is a landscape artwork undertaken by Alberto Burri in 1984 and left unfinished in 1989 (due to lack of funds), ...

'', work on the project ceased in 1989, but it was completed in 2015. Ruderi di Gibellina

References

Cities destroyed by earthquakes Municipalities of the Province of Trapani Destroyed cities {{Sicily-geo-stub