september 2005
The island of Sicily is separated from Calabria on mainland Italy by the Strait of Messina which is only some 3km wide at its narrowest point. Sicily was initially colonised by Phoenicians, Carthaginians and Greeks, but was later conquered variously by the Romans, Vandals, Goths, Byzantines, Berbers, Normans, Hapsburgs and Bourbons. The strategic importance of the Sicilian city states meant that their fortunes became intertwined with the oftentimes turbulent politics of the Mediterranean. The island has an exceptionally rich artistic and architectural heritage that derives from a cocktail of different cultures. It has been the birthplace of writers like Pirandello and composers like Scarlatti and the opera theatre in its capital Palermo is the largest in all of Italy. More notoriously the island is also the birthplace of the mafia or Cosa Nostra. During the Roman period Sicily was an important breadbasket for the empire and its modern day cuisine is highly praised, being distinct from conventional Italian because of foreign influences like that of the Arabs who left a tradition for making delicate sweets like cannoli and cassata. The Sicilian flag consists of a trinacria, a three-legged symbol derived from solar mythology, surmounted by the head of Medusa. The majority of natives are bilingual in both Italian and Sicilian, the latter being a separate romance language in its own right that is descended from Greek, Arabic and Catalan precursors.
The town of Taormina was established around 395BC by residents of nearby Naxos, which had itself been settled as the island’s first Greek colony some three and half centuries earlier. Like Monte Carlo and Positano, Taormina has long been a haunt of the English aristocracy, popular for its spectacularly hilly coastline and its beautiful beaches, reached nowadays by funicular from the town. It became something of a retreat for expatriate artists, writers and intellectuals, including DH Lawrence who was inspired to write Lady Chatterley’s Lover while staying there during the nineteen twenties. The town is a maze of winding medieval streets and narrow stepped passageways, leading variously onto terraced gardens and public squares. Its high position affords breathtaking views, particularly from the large Greco-Roman amphitheatre which looks out over the Ionian Sea and towards majestic Mount Etna, Europe’s most active volcano, invariably smoking ominously in the background. The theatre is still used regularly for opera and concerts and it is famed as one the most dramatic outdoor settings in the world. Taormina flourished in the time of Julius Caesar, with Ovid praising its delicious sea fare and Pliny recommending its fine wines. The ruins of a Saracen fortress can be seen on the slopes above the town and a perfectly preserved Byzantine mosaic icon can be seen in the archway passage under the clock tower along the central spine that is the Corso Umberto. The Corso is lined with excellent craft shops and with cafes serving local cuisine. It is enchantingly illuminated after sunset when tourists and residents alike congregate in the piazzas to socialise in the cooler night-time air.
Known as Mongibello in Italian, Mount Etna is around eleven thousand feet high (depending upon eruptions), making it nearly three times the size of Mount Vesuvius. The volcano is regularly active, albeit only rarely destructive, because it stands at the boundary where the African Plate is being subducted beneath the Eurasian. Fertile volcanic soils mean that the lower slopes are densely populated and planted with vineyards, citrus fruits, and groves of olives, figs and almonds. Ascending through dense pine forests brings you to the upper slopes which are a barren wasteland of old lava flows and screes. The actual summit is a complex of ragged cones, with four large craters and several hundred smaller fissures. The strangely lunar landscape has been created by a long history of eruptions and subsequent collapses into resulting calderas. Etna can be reached by coaches that run up to a tourist centre from where ski-lifts can carry you higher over blackened rope-like lava formations. At the geologists base camp the more intrepid tourists can take a ride in rugged transporters that plough their way through the ash fields up to the steaming craters themselves, which reek of sulphur and are coloured in shades of yellow and red. Volcanic activity in modern times has generally been more effusive than explosive but in 1669 two months of earthquakes were followed by the opening of an enormous nine kilometre long vent which generated voluminous pyroclastic flows. Over a number of weeks the slow moving but unstoppable lava gradually consumed many small towns and eventually reached the city walls of Catania before pouring into its harbour. Between Etna and Taormina, the scenic Alcantara Gorge has a crystal clear river that cuts between high basalt walls with alien looking black sandbanks along its edge.
The Villa Romana del Casale, built outside the town of Piazza Armerina around the time of the second century AD, contains the richest and largest collection of Roman mosaics preserved in situ anywhere in the world. The rural economy of the western empire was based upon agriculture and the villa complex would have been the administrative centre of a huge estate. The extent of the buildings and their luxurious decoration suggest that it would likely have been the residence of a member of the senatorial class or possibly even of the imperial family. The buildings were damaged by the Vandals and the Visigoths but remained at least partly in use during the Byzantine and Arab eras. Continuing excavations show it to have been a single storey structure, organised around an elliptical peristyle, entered by way of an atrium and leading variously to private apartments, guest and service rooms, thermal baths and a basilica; ancillary housing for the slaves, workshops and stables have yet to be located. The mosaics throughout are exceptional for their artistic quality and invention, depicting scenes that offer an insight into the social life of the times, including evidence that Roman women were using the bikini long before the French invented it.
Syracuse, a provincial capital on the eastern coast, has its ancient nucleus on the small island of Ortygia but it incorporates the adjacent mainland to which it is connected by a series of bridges. Originally settled by the Corinthians in 734BC, it grew to become one of the most powerful Greek cities in the Mediterranean. Prosperity and a rich cultural life attracted the likes of Aeschylus, Cicero and Plato but enlargement also brought it into frequent conflict with neighbouring powers. During the Peloponnesian War, Syracuse sided with the Spartans against Athens. Syracuse also fought repeated wars with the Carthaginians, who controlled much of western Sicily, sometimes winning, sometimes not and sometimes fighting to a negotiated stalemate. Its citizens lived through periods of tyranny, occasionally benevolent, oftentimes despotic, but also saw periods of democracy. When the Romans besieged it in 214BC, the city managed to hold out for three years, partly due to its defensive machines, whose inventor, the most famous of all Syracusans, Archimedes, was killed when the city eventually fell. Successive cultural influences are reflected in the city’s rich architectural heritage, such as the Temple of Apollo, which became a church in Byzantine times and was converted to a mosque when the territory came under Arab rule. Syracuse is nowadays somewhat marred by careless industrial expansion that occurred after the Second World War but restoration and excavation works are ongoing. At nearby Pantalica, which shows signs of having been inhabited since the bronze age, over five thousand burial chambers have been uncovered that date back to the seventh century BC. On Ortygia there is a fountain that flows into the sea which was formed, according to legend, when the river nymph Arethusa, running from a suitor Alpheus, called on Artemis for aid and he transformed her into a spring but Alpheus, undaunted, turned himself into the sea so that his waters could mingle with hers.
Agrigento, a provincial capital on the southern coast, was built on a hill overlooking the sea. It followed a similar pattern of development to Syracuse, achieving prominence first under the Greeks, experiencing periods of conflict with the Carthaginians and the Romans, and coming under successive waves of influence from Byzantine, Saracen, Berber and Norman conquerors. The city was sometime home to Pindar and Pythagoras and was also the birthplace of the philosopher Empedocles, born in 490BC, who is remembered principally for advancing the idea that everything is composed of four primitive elements: earth, air, fire and water. Empedocles is reputed to have committed suicide by throwing himself into a volcanic crater on Mount Etna. On the south side of Agrigento there is a complex of seven monumental temples, constructed during the fifth and sixth centuries BC, which is considered to be the one of the most outstanding symbols of ancient Greek culture outside of Greece itself. Set amongst groves of almond and olive trees, the temples dedicated to Concordia and Juno are especially well preserved and the former is adjacent to extensive catacombs that were used by the first Christians. From the earliest to the latest in order of construction, the temples show progressive refinement in the Doric style of architecture and the one that is dedicated to Zeus is thought to be the largest temple ever built in that style. The whole complex would have been conspicuously visible to approaching sailors, thereby both showcasing the grandeur of the city and giving the impression that it was defended by the gods themselves.