The Sibyl was created in 1978 by the late sculptor from Ascoli Giuseppe MarinucciIt belongs to the last phase of his artistic production. The sculpture was later donated to the Municipality by his son Giacomo. Located at the beginning of the redeveloped tree-lined avenue Alcide De Gasperi, near the center of San Benedetto del Tronto, the mythological figure of the Sibyl has always fascinated generations of artists. Locals and tourists alike, for the numerous legends surrounding it. The legendary Sibyl also gave her name to the mountains of Piceno: the Sibillini..
The work and the myth
The Sibilla, just over two meters tall, angular and pointed, does not go unnoticed for the suggestiveness of its appearance and for the aura created at night by the colored lights and the "atomized water" at 80 bar, emitted by a special mechanism, which can be flavored with various essences. Its construction is characterized by a expert assembly of recycled ferrous materials, which give life to the mythological representation. The name is inspired by the famous Sibilla Cumae, a legendary woman endowed with divinatory powers, who tradition says lived in a cave. These figures exist both historically and in Greek and Roman mythology.
The Sibyls were virgins endowed with prophetic virtues, inspired by the god Apollo, capable of providing answers and making predictions in obscure forms. They were legendary prophetesses, located in various places around the Mediterranean basin. In art, they have inspired Christian art from the 11th century in numerous pictorial, sculptural, and engraving cycles. They are usually depicted as the female counterpart of the prophets.
Giuseppe Marinucci, the manipulator of matter
Sculptor and painter, Joseph Marinucci is among the most appreciated exponents of the FuturismMarinucci's works are made of iron, made with scrap car body parts he collected from the city's junkyards. Incredible and living creations, where cold iron is assembled in such a way as to become a sinuous female body, as in the Sibyl sculpture. He was also among the pioneers of mouldmaking. Marinucci turns his attention to the disintegration of matterThe masses are reduced to lines of force, the planes multiply and intersect, they compose and decompose so that the space becomes sculpture.
The critic and journalist writes about him Armando Ginesi"Giuseppe Marinucci was a extraordinary manipulator of matter, capable of tuning into it to trace its every dialogic potential through which to give voice to feelings. From ceramics to bronze, from iron to wax, to wood, to stone, there were many materials that Marinucci treated and manipulated with a skilled and masterly hand.".
But Giuseppe Marinucci also created a twin work of The Sibyl: “Butterfly”. The work, currently admirable in the garden of the Blue Building, where the suggestive one is also located sculpture of lovers Vale & Tino. 2 meters high, 135 meters long, and 223 meters wide, it features a rotating system and is made from metal pieces of various origins. The Sibyl and the Butterfly are evocative works that enhance the open-air art gallery that characterizes the culture of San Benedetto del Tronto.
