Dal simbolo al segno: rappresentazione dei significati e rilettura delle geometrie sottese del mausoleo Schilizzi

The contribution aims to explain the graphic thought behind the construction of the mausoleo Schilizzi, a building on the Posillipo hill in Naples. It is a funerary monument commissioned by Matteo Schilizzi as a family tomb, designed in 1881 by Alfonso Guerra and completed in 1929 by his son Camillo, as a mausoleum for the two world wars soldiers. The imprint of the building that we still see today is that desired by the eccentric owner who commissioned the construction of a monumental building conceived as a ‘tomb for resurrection’. Hence the references to Egyptian architecture and especially to the cult of the dead, a theme masterfully interpreted by Guerra who makes the Mausoleum the best example of Neo-Egyptian architecture in Italy. Starting from the graphic analysis of the project's drawings, which are representative of the poetics of the figurations of the past, the intention is to highlight, in new representations elaborated on the basis of 3D digital surveys, the similarities and differences between the idea and the realised work, the compositional matrices and the generative rules of the project. Through drawing, the iconographic programme adopted by Guerra in reinterpreting the Egyptian lexicon will be made explicit. From the winged sun to the lotus flower, from columns with palmiform and papyrus capitals to the Ankh cross, from palm leaves to Maat's feathers. The results of this study concern a new reading of the mausoleum guided by representation, in order to arrive at a knowledge capable of revealing its meanings.