The Grande Cretto of Gibellina is one of the largest contemporary works of art in the world as well as one of the most emotional ones, with its 80,000 square meters of concrete that covered the streets of the small Gibellina village which was completely destroyed during the 1968 earthquake.

It was the night between 14 and 15 January 1968 when a terrible cataclysm completely razed the small town of Gibellina in the province of Trapani, leaving behind a terrible devastation that forced the surviving inhabitants to evacuate about twenty kilometers further downstream, where the reconstruction of Gibellina Nuova later began.

With the aim of bringing hope, the then mayor Ludovico Corrao saw art as the perfect “mean” for the rebirth of Gibellina and invited the international artistic community to collaborate in the reconstruction of the town, including the famous Alberto Burri.

Once I reached the site, I felt like crying, then immediately I had the idea: let’s compact the rubble and make an immense white Cretto with the cement, so that it will remain a permanent reminder of this terrible event.

(Alberto Burri)

Having arrived in Gibellina Vecchia, moved by such devastation, the artist had the bold and visionary idea of designing a gigantic concrete monument that would overlap and incorporate the old streets of the city.

Thus, between 1984 and 1989, and subsequently completed in 2015, Gibellina Vecchia was completely covered by concrete blocks which today offer, especially if observed from the sky, the spectacular vision of a town crystallized in time and space at the moment of the earthquake, in one of the most powerful works of land art in the world.

The site, which can be visited offering the exciting opportunity to walk through the streets of the Cretto (meaning “crack” in Italian), is located about 20 kilometers from the reconstructed city. After the earthquake, the town became a large laboratory of urban experimentation, in which architects and artists were called upon to create avant-garde stylistic works that make it among the most original in Italy.

Overlooking the rubble of the old town, today only the tiny cemetery remains, remaining strangely unharmed after the earthquake. Its visit will inspire many feelings, including the thought that we are truly nothing without our history, just as art is if it does not incorporate it to bring it to a higher level of knowledge.

The Secret

The concrete blocks are approximately one meter and sixty meters high and the cracks between them are approximately two to three meters wide. A work of immense proportion which was completed only in 2015, on the occasion of the anniversary of Burri’s death in 1995, thanks to the funds made available by the Sicily Region.

Useful Info

The Cretto can be visited for free from Gibellina state road 119, or by arriving from the A29 motorway in the direction of Mazara del Vallo.