SICILY SCENE REVISITED - AROUND THE ISLAND

Continuing my nostalgic journey through Sicily Scene's archives, I began to think about the many lovely places I have visited on this ever-fascinating island.  I have no doubt about my favourite - it is the Valley of Temples in Agrigento and I especially enjoyed this visit.  One of the most unusual events I have attended was the annual Easter display of "bread arches" at San Biagio Platani and I hope to get there again one day.  Then there is the Infiorata in Noto [coming up soon], which I try to attend every year and of course I love Catania! These are but a few of the island's treasures and there is always something new, somewhere, to discover.  But I think one of the most interesting trips I have taken was this early one, so I'll repeat the first of a series of posts on it here:

On the Nelson trail - 24th January 2007

About 37 miles northwest of Catania, tucked away in the shadow of Etna, lies the town of Bronte, the dukedom of which was bestowed upon a certain Admiral Horatio Nelson by a grateful King Ferdinando [III of Sicily and IV of Naples] in 1799. A little further on still is Maniace, where the former Benedictine Abbey became known as Il Castello dei Nelson. And that is where I have been today. It is a lovely and impressive place, as I hope the photos will show - much lovelier than I had anticipated. I should like to be able to tell you that England's saviour lingered there in the sun with his Emma - and many Sicilians believe that he did - but, alas, he died without ever having seen it. The first of his descendants to arrive there was his niece Charlotte, who, reaching it after a truly nightmarish journey, decided that it was not to her taste and stayed only three days! [More the fool her!] It was later used by other members of the family but under agrarian reform in Italy in 1961 much of the land was redistributed. The Nelson family sold the castle and park to the Comune of Bronte in 1981.

There may, however, be another British connection: the Rev. Patrick Prunty or Brunty, father of another Charlotte plus Emily, Anne and Branwell, changed his name to Brontë in 1802. I like to think that he did it as a homage to Nelson then added the diaeresis for effect and the dates do tally. By the way, I am not of the Mrs. Gaskell school of thought with regard to Patrick Brontë for I do not believe that he was a monster: he saw that his children were educated, encouraged them to write and cared for Branwell tenderly during the latter's last illness. I am also of the opinion that the main reason for his opposition to the Bell Nicholls marriage was concern for Charlotte's health, and in this he was, tragically, proved right. But I digress. Let us at least hope that poor, bereaved Mr. Brontë found some comfort in his name in the winter of his life. I wonder what, if anything, he knew of the little town in faraway, sunny Sicily? He was a well-read man, so it is possible that he knew something....

I now have to confess that I made this trip the lazy way. It would not be possible to get to Bronte and back in a day using public transport, so I hired a car and a driver. This is not a particularly cheap thing to do in Sicily but it was cheaper than staying in a Catania hotel overnight and, more importantly, saved me kennelling Simi for a night. ["And I should think so, too!" she is saying as she sits beside me, waiting for her walk.] This, again, is something the Sicilians need to sort out: no one will use Modica or anywhere else as a base if they can't get around. Not everyone wants to hire a car, as even if you are used to driving in Italy, to do so here is, at the very least, challenging! The best thing that towns of Modica's size could do to encourage tourism would be to organise escorted trips to places of interest such as Bronte.

But let us return to our hero. Nelson, me old hearty, I've always thought you looked terribly lonely all the way up there on that column. So next time I'm in London, I'll sit in the National Gallery's restaurant, gaze across at you and tell you all about your Duchy of Bronte today. How's that?

More photos - and more, and more - in a minute!

Here are links to the other posts about this visit:

On the Nelson trail - 2
On the Nelson trail - 3
On the Nelson trail - 4
On the Nelson trail - 5
On the Nelson trail - 6
On the Nelson trail - 7


I hope you enjoy them.

"A FORGOTTEN VILLAGE"

Do you ever wonder how talk show presenters prepare their programmes? You might think that they would read everything they can about people they are going to interview, bone up on geographical locations that are going to feature or, at the very least, make sure they are well-briefed by people who can do this for them. 

Miss Barbara d'Urso, the presenter of the Sunday afternoon programme Domenica Live on Canale 5, appears to have done none of these things this week and has caused a Sicilian storm by referring to Siracusa as "a forgotten village in southern Italy" whilst interviewing the teacher who arranged a school concert to welcome new Premier Matteo Renzi to the city.

Siracusa: 2,700 years old, the birthplace of Archimedes and the most important city in Magna Graecia. Siracusa: UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city has a Greek amphitheatre to rival those in Greece itself and classical plays are performed there to this day. It also has a Roman amphitheatre and Cicero described Siracusa as "the greatest and most beautiful" of Greek cities.  

Teatro greco, Siracusa being prepared for the performance of a Greek play

Mayor of Siracusa Giancarlo Garozzo is understandably appalled and points out that the city is ranked fourth in Italy [after Rome, Venice and Florence] for its artistic and architectural heritage. He also thinks that Miss d'Urso should have glanced at Wikipedia before the programme went on air. This morning his administration sent a written protest to Mediaset [Silvio Berlusconi's group of television channels, which includes Canale 5]. Both the city council and the tourist board are now likely to invite Miss d'Urso to visit the city. 

Ironically Miss d'Urso is from Naples and changed her name from Maria Carmela - judged "too southern" by her bosses at Tele Milano, a precursor of Canale 5 - to Barbara in 1977. What a pity she didn't change her reading habits too.

CHOCOLATE GODDESS

And I'm not talking about Britain's goddess of cuisine, Nigella! No, tonight's post is about another of my favourite ladies, the Greek goddess Demeter, and that most divine of foods, chocolate.  

Those clever people at Modica's Antica Dolceria Bonajuto have put the two together and produced a chocolate medallion featuring the head of Demeter. They got the idea two years ago when they worked on a project for the Museo Biscari with Sicilian goldsmith Massimo Izzo and Catania-born designer Marella Ferrera. Back then, they produced a gold chocolate impression of the goddess but now they have decided to produce a whole line of chocolate deities, each made with the same type of mould that Massimo Izzo uses to make his "real" jewels and presented in its own jewelbox. The line, appropriately, is called cioccolato-gioiello.

For those of you who do not know of Demeter and Persephone's connection with Sicily, here is an edited version of a post I wrote about this in 2007:

Persephone [Core / Kora], daughter of Zeus and Demeter [Ceres], was abducted by Hades [Aidoneus / Pluto] whilst gathering flowers at Enna*. Demeter's grief for her daughter knew no bounds and she wandered the earth trying to find her, neglecting her duties as goddess of corn and so causing a worldwide famine. Zeus, forced to intervene, persuaded Hades to allow Persephone to return from the underworld, but she was tricked into eating some pomegranate seeds, the "food of the dead". [According to Robert Graves in The Greek Myths, there was an ancient taboo on red-coloured food.] This precluded Persephone's return to earth. Sources vary in their accounts of how many seeds she ate - Homer says one, Graves seven, Tennyson assumes three, other sources six - but it was agreed that Persephone would spend a month with Hades for each one. Let us believe, for the sake of the story, that it was three or four. Thus Persephone spends the winter months with her husband, returning to earth and Demeter for the spring. She brings much-needed rain for the crops with her as the lucky girl had received Sicily as a wedding present. Therefore it is only fitting that she should take special care of it.

* The Sicilians, and I, believe it was at Enna. It could have been almost anywhere in the Greek world.

20 [NON-MAFIA RELATED] REASONS TO VISIT SICILY

I was sad and disappointed to learn, over the Christmas holidays, of tour operators who are again setting up "Mafia tours" of  Sicily.  I am not going to pretend that the Mafia is dead and I have expressed my thoughts about its continued existence in this post.  However, there is so much that is lovely to see here, such a varied and fascinating culture to explore and there are so many fantastic taste sensations to be enjoyed that I cannot understand why anyone would want to persist in promoting the stereotypes.  Sicily and the Sicilian people deserve better so here is a very personal and eclectic list of good reasons to visit my island in the sun:

1.  Marvel at the Greek sites of Agrigento, Segesta and Selinunte.

Tempio della Concordia, Agrigento

2.  In the summer, attend a performance of a Greek play at the Greek Amphitheatre in Siracusa.

Performance of Medea at Siracusa in 2009

3.  Visit the Infiorata [carpet of flowers] in Noto in May.

4.  See the breathtaking beauty of the Val di Noto towns, which collectively form a World Heritage Site.

Duomo di San Giorgio, Modica

5.  See the Venere di Aidone, over two thousand years old and home after so many years of enforced wandering.

6.  Relax on clean, unpolluted beaches.

7.  See the settings of the Montalbano films.

8.  And, talking of that gourmet detective, try the local arancini!

9.  Breathe in the heady scent of orange blossom and buy some zagara cologne.

10.  Eat a Sicilian vanilla orange!

11.  Take a bus ride along the edge of the Stretto at Messina.  It is stunningly beautiful.  While you're there, gaze over at the Calabrian coast - you could even take the ferry across if you have time - and remember all who passed along this route as they emigrated to Northern Italy and far, far beyond.  Like migrating peoples today, they wanted only a better life. 

12.  Go to a street market, such as the ones in Modica and Catania.  You'll be amazed by what you find there!

13.  Visit Bellini's house in Catania.

Image of Vincenzo Bellini: Wikipedia

14.  Admire Norman and Arabic architecture in Palermo and visit the seat of one of the world's oldest parliaments.

15.  See Modican chocolate being made to the Aztec method at Bonajuto in the town's Corso Umberto.

16. Don't miss out on the best gelato in the world!

17.  Take a trip up grumpy old Etna.

18.  Eat plentiful prickly pears in autumn and sip prickly pear liqueur.

19.  See traditionally painted Sicilian carts at Donnafugata in Ragusa or at the Mostra Permanente del Carretto Siciliano housed in the Museum at Terrasini [Palermo Province].

20.  Go to a Sagra, such as the Strawberry Festival at Casssibile in spring, the Prickly Pear Festival at Militello in Val di Catania or any number of chestnut festivals in the Etna area in autumn.  Relearn the art of living in tune with the seasons.

Finally, if you are genuinely interested in Mafia history but not in sensationalising tragedy, please pay homage to those brave Sicilians who lost their lives campaigning against the criminal organisation:  Giuseppe Impastato, Paolo Borsellino, Giovanni Falcone and others like them deserve wider world recognition, as do the thousands of Sicilians who work daily to preserve their best traditions and make their region a better place.

For all of them, please come and see the Sicily I love.

GIFTS

I am writing this post in response to the Italy Blogging Roundtable group's invitation to post on Italy-related gifts. 

In Italy this is the Christmas of sobrietà or austerity so I wonder just how many people here will be echoing the words of one Josephine March in those oh-so-famous opening lines of Little Women:

" 'Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents,' grumbled Jo, lying on the rug."

Well, it depends, I suppose, on what you mean by austerity and how you think of gifts.  If austerity means not going mad at Christmas, Italians tend not to anyway:  Sure, the children receive presents but not by the sackful and the festival is not regarded as a contest to be won by the family who can provide the biggest, most expensive and greatest quantity of gifts.

No one worries weeks or months ahead about the task of feeding their relatives, as that is something they do most Sundays and the task of producing the festive meal is not turned into a kitchen marathon which leaves the poor hostess in need of valium, a gallon of gin and a spa cure lasting at least a month.  

When you are invited to someone's house over the holiday, you take along something to eat - usually a dessert -  and a pensiero or small gift if you like.  [Pensiero = thought; telling, isn't it?]  But your Italian host will already regard your company as a gift and all he or she really wants is for you to relax and enjoy yourself.

Next year marks the twentieth anniversary of my association with Sicily, the region which I now call home and over these years I have received many gifts from my Sicilian friends:  Every Christmas, when I was in the UK, my friend Gina used to send a package of the white torrone [nougat] that I like and other friends would send little mementoes of Sicily that I treasured:  an ornament, a book, a candle scented with orange blossom.  And at Christmas 1994 two friends gave me a Sicily map pendant which I wear nearly every day.  "We want you to always have Sicily close to your heart", they said and so it is.

The little girl who gave me this tree decoration in 1993 is now a confident woman of 26 and I don't suppose she remembers that Christmas at all.  But I do and it is enough:

Recently a friend gave me this bauble from Caltagirone, the pottery town and as I look at it on my tree this year I am reminded of my first visit there:

Two years ago my friend Lucia, scandalised that I didn't have a crib, brought me these figures:

Every Sicilian home displays a crib at Christmas and often the figurines are family heirlooms.  Sicilians like to place typical figures from the recent past in their cribs and we have a famous and beautiful example of this tradition in Modica's Church of Santa Maria di Betlem:

In Sicily you learn that the past is also the present and I am so grateful to my friends here for that lesson, at no time more evident than during the Christmas I travelled to Segesta with Irma and her family.  As we walked through a Greek house, Irma and I mused upon the women who had lived there and wondered what their dreams had been - not so very different from ours, we concluded. 

Christmas, as the March girls discovered, is about finding joy in the company you have and the most precious gift I have received from my Sicilian friends is the love with which they surround me.

The Italy Blogging Roundtable blogs are:  ArtTrav, At Home in Tuscany, Why Go Italy, Italofile and Brigolante.  I'm sure you'll enjoy their posts on this subject and many others.

TO SEE A FINE LADY

Ever since the Venere di Aidone or "Aidone Aphrodite" was brought back to Sicily in March, I've been longing to go and see her and on Saturday, reader, I made it.

Aidone, a town of 5,176 inhabitants, lies peacefully in the hills of the Province of Enna beyond Piazza Armerina.  Nearby is the Greek site of Morgantina, from which not only our "fine lady" but many other precious statues and objects have been stolen over the years.  The Venere was returned under an agreement signed by the Aidone and Getty Museums in 2007 and it must be emphasised that the Getty Museum's administrators have always denied acquiring the statue illegally. It was also in 2007 that experts proved that the statue was sculpted from "Ragusa stone".

Museo Archeologico di Aidone

My friend and I expected the little town to be crowded but, despite the presence of a goddess in their midst, life seemed to be going on as usual for the citizens and we were the only people in the specially renovated Museum.  

We passed through two rooms of other interesting antiquities before coming upon the Venere and in one of them a pair of smiling Acroliti, representing mother and daughter in Greek mythology, are displayed.  Only their faces, hands and feet remain but a mesh frame represents their bodies, they are seated and have been tastefully dressed.  These two figures were returned to the Museum from the US in 2009 and I have beside me a booklet which shows their faces as the box in which they travelled to Aidone was opened there.  I am sure that, upon their homecoming,  they are smiling more than usual. 

In the centre of a third room stands the Venere and I must say she is breathtaking:  So fluid are her robes, so majestic her pose and so calm her gaze that I have no doubt that this is a very confident goddess.  The body is of the famous Ragusan limestone though the exposed flesh is of marble and the lady's hair was probably of bronze.  Archaeologists have dated the statue to 420 - 410 BCE.

There are some who believe that she is not Venus but Demeter or her daughter Persephone, who both feature prominently in Greco-Sicilian myth, and there are others who believe she is Hera.  But I am sure she is a voluptuous Venus from an era before Botticelli brought misery upon Western women by portraying the goddess as tall, blonde, long-legged and slim.  

A reminder of our own era came as I spotted, among the ancient Greek hair ornaments, links from chains and fragments of pottery in one display case, a 100 lire coin from 1978.  This was found as illegally excavated land at Morgantina was being refilled.  In my opinion the Museum staff have done well to preserve it, for it is likely to be worth far more than all our euros soon!

On to lunch and, on the recommendation of the Museum staff, we repaired to the Vecchia Aidone restaurant:

The zucche must grow well in Aidone!

Would you like some grappa?

I hate ironing but I'm sure I would hate it even more if I had to use this!

There were homemade strozzapreti ["priest-strangling" pasta] with a sausage, wild fennel and tomato sauce

followed by veal stew for my companion

and rabbit braised in white wine with fennel and herbs for me:

Then there was a delicious mousse of fichi d'India [prickly pear] ....

...  all of which set us up nicely for our journey through the Enna rains back to Modica.  We were quiet as we travelled, thinking of "our" goddess and the tales she could tell.  Bentornata, dea.

ANOTHER TREASURE RETURNS

The Prosecutor's Office of Enna has taken into possession a Greek vase - a polychrome lekanis - which dates from the second or third century BC, it was revealed today.  The vase, found in a private collection in Lisbon, had been illegally excavated and removed from Italy, then seems to have travelled to Portugal via Australia.  The date of its disappearance from Sicily is not known.

It has been emphasised that Italian police had the full cooperation of the Australian and Portuguese authorities and it is likely that the vase will be returned to its rightful home, the Museum of Centuripe in the Province of Enna.

Welcome home, beauty.