Sicily: A Cultural History
“Reading these guides is the next best thing to actually going there with them in hand.”

—Foreword Magazine


AN ENGAGING INTRODUCTION TO A CULTURAL GIANT Long before it became an Italian offshore island, Sicily was the land in the center of the Mediterranean where the great civilizations of Europe and Northern Africa met. Sicily today is familiar and unfamiliar, modernized and unchanging. Visitors will find in an out-of-the-way town an Aragonese castle, will stumble across a Norman church by the side of a lesser travelled road, will see red Muslim-styles domes over a Christian shrine, will find a Baroque church of breathtaking beauty in a village, will catch a glimpse from the motorway of a solitary Greek temple on the horizon and will happen on a the celebrations of the patron saint of a run-down district of a city, and will stop and wonder. There is more to Sicily than the Godfather and the mafia.
"1114031105"
Sicily: A Cultural History
“Reading these guides is the next best thing to actually going there with them in hand.”

—Foreword Magazine


AN ENGAGING INTRODUCTION TO A CULTURAL GIANT Long before it became an Italian offshore island, Sicily was the land in the center of the Mediterranean where the great civilizations of Europe and Northern Africa met. Sicily today is familiar and unfamiliar, modernized and unchanging. Visitors will find in an out-of-the-way town an Aragonese castle, will stumble across a Norman church by the side of a lesser travelled road, will see red Muslim-styles domes over a Christian shrine, will find a Baroque church of breathtaking beauty in a village, will catch a glimpse from the motorway of a solitary Greek temple on the horizon and will happen on a the celebrations of the patron saint of a run-down district of a city, and will stop and wonder. There is more to Sicily than the Godfather and the mafia.
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Sicily: A Cultural History

Sicily: A Cultural History

by Joseph Farrell
Sicily: A Cultural History

Sicily: A Cultural History

by Joseph Farrell

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Overview

“Reading these guides is the next best thing to actually going there with them in hand.”

—Foreword Magazine


AN ENGAGING INTRODUCTION TO A CULTURAL GIANT Long before it became an Italian offshore island, Sicily was the land in the center of the Mediterranean where the great civilizations of Europe and Northern Africa met. Sicily today is familiar and unfamiliar, modernized and unchanging. Visitors will find in an out-of-the-way town an Aragonese castle, will stumble across a Norman church by the side of a lesser travelled road, will see red Muslim-styles domes over a Christian shrine, will find a Baroque church of breathtaking beauty in a village, will catch a glimpse from the motorway of a solitary Greek temple on the horizon and will happen on a the celebrations of the patron saint of a run-down district of a city, and will stop and wonder. There is more to Sicily than the Godfather and the mafia.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781623710507
Publisher: Interlink Publishing Group, Incorporated
Publication date: 06/19/2014
Series: Interlink Cultural Histories
Sold by: SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format: eBook
Pages: 256
File size: 4 MB

About the Author

Joseph Farrell is Professor of Italian at the University of Strathclyde. He is author of a biography of Dario Fo and has translated several Italian playwrights in addition to various novels.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements xi

Chapter 1 The Cultures of Sicily: The Rosebud Quest 1

Identity and Traditions 4

The Stones of Sicily 7

A Word on the Baroque 10

Chapter 2 Wounded by History: Sicily's Troubled Past 17

The Caliphate: Arab Rule 21

1061 and All That: the Norman Kingdom 24

Spanish Viceroys 28

Painful Modernity 30

Chapter 3 Morals and Manners: Sicilian Society and Tastes 33

Matador Drivers 37

Religious Feasts 39

Cuisine and Coffee 44

Chapter 4 The Imagined Island: Sicilian Writers 53

Sicily Arab and Greek 56

The Twentieth Century 61

Chapter 5 Men of Honor: A Note on the Mafia 69

Definitions 71

History 75

Development and Organization 77

Chapter 6 Arrivals and Departures: The British and Americans in Sicily 83

Marsala Barons 84

British Rule 89

War and Invasion 93

America's Sicily: Diaspora and Myth 94

Sicily in American Imagination 99

Chapter 7 The Landing Stage: Messina 103

A Long History 107

The Cathedral and Surrounds 110

Artworks 113

Chapter 8 Southwards to Etna: The Peloritani Mountains 117

Taormina 123

Mount Ema 130

Chapter 9 Unlikely Connections: Bronte, the Brontës, and Lord Nelson 137

Maniace, Nelson's Estate 140

Chapter 10 The Second City: Catania 143

Antiquity and Reconstruction 149

Catanese Baroque 152

Chapter 11 Goddesses and Madonnas: Enna 155

Calasctbetta 161

Chapter 12 The Sicily the Greeks Left Classical Remains 165

Siracusa, the Prodigious City 170

Christian Siracusa 176

The Districts of Siracusa 180

Chapter 13 The Glory of the Baroque: The Val Di Noto 185

Adventures in the Baroque 193

Chapter 14 The Great Temples; Agrigento, Segesta, and Selinunte 199

Agrigento 200

Selinunte 207

Segesta 211

Chapter 15 Phoenicians, Saracens, and Yorkshiremen: The South-West Corner 215

Mazara del Vallo 215

Marsala 218

Mozia 221

Erice 225

Trapani 229

Chapter 16 The Capital City: Palermo 231

Palermo Felix 231

Urban History 234

Arabs and Normans 237

Monreale, the Royal Mount 244

Spanish and Baroque Palermo 247

Palaces, Theaters, and Sorry Sights 252

Quirky Corners 256

Chapter 17 Out of Palermo: Corleone, Bagheria, and Cefalù 261

Mafia Heartlands 261

Poets and Eccentrics 264

Cefalù 269

Chapter 18 The Aeolian Islands: A Volcanic Archipelago 273

Stromboli 276

Envoi

Journey's End: Messina Again 279

Further Reading 281

Index of Literary, Historical & Mythological Names 285

Index of Places & Landmarks 291

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