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The Song of Roland and the tales of heroic deeds

The exhibition of the Norman artist Charles Fréger, hosted at Palazzo Branciforte, will offer an immersive journey that will bring together photographs, audiovisual projections, objects from museum collections, textile works, traditional puppets, documents, and historical artifacts.

Through the multiplicity of languages and exhibition supports, the project will explore the imagery of the great medieval epics and how they have contributed to building and passing down the cultural memory linked to the Norman period. The exhibition will highlight the processes of formation, reinterpretation, and transmission of the epic narrative over the centuries, emphasizing how myths, heroes, and historical figures continue today to fuel the collective identity of territories marked by Norman heritage.
Charles Fréger's work, which has always been attentive to themes of representation, costume, ritual, and cultural identities, will offer an original perspective on the relationship between history, memory, and popular imagination, creating a dialogue between historical heritage, contemporary creation, and living traditions.

The exhibition will also benefit from the collaboration of Mimmo Cuticchio, master of the Opera dei Pupi and an emblematic figure of the Sicilian intangible heritage recognized by UNESCO, as well as his company. The presence of the puppets and the narrative traditions associated with them will allow a connection to be made between the great chivalric narratives of the medieval period and one of the most important expressions of Sicilian popular culture, still capable of conveying memory, values, and collective imaginations.

Inserted within the framework of Millennium 2027, the exhibition aims to highlight how Norman heritage is not just a collection of monuments and historical testimonies, but also a narrative and symbolic heritage that continues to live through the arts, stories, and popular traditions. The exhibition will thus offer the public an original reflection on the role of cultural memory in the construction of contemporary European and Mediterranean identities.

Practical information:
For everyone

Entrance fee of less than €5

The exhibition signage will be bilingual

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