Taormina
Focusing on Taormina, Jewel of Sicily, presented by Alessandro Sorbello the Sensational Sicily Series of Films showcase one of the most beautiful regions on earth, rich in history, Sicily formed part of the cradle of civilization.
A project born from a collaboration between the Region of Sicily The Italian Chamber of Commerce, New Realm Media and Alessandro Sorbello Productions.
Taormina (Greek: Ταυρομένιον - Tauromenion; Latin Tauromenium) is a comune and small town on the east coast of the island of Sicily, Italy, in the Province of Messina, about midway between Messina (ancient Messana) and Catania (ancient Catana). Taormina has been a very popular tourist destination since the 19th century. It has popular beaches (accessible via an aerial tramway) on the Ionian sea, which is remarkably warm and the has a high salt content. Taormina can be reached via highways (autostrada) from Messina from the north and Catania from the south.
Comuni of the Province of Messina in Sicily.
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History - Taormina 's coastal location, facing Greece, between the powerful cities of Syracuse and Catana to the south, and Messana (and behind it, mainland Italy) to the north, determined much of its history. It is only about 5 km from the site of the ancient Naxos, and there is no doubt that Tauromenium did not exist as a city till after the destruction of Naxos by Dionysius I of Syracuse, 403 BCE; but the circumstances connected with its foundation are somewhat confused and uncertain.
It appears, however, from Diodorus that after the destruction of Naxos, the remaining inhabitants of that city were driven into exile, and its territory was assigned by Dionysius to the neighbouring Siculi. These, however, did not re-occupy the site of the ancient city, but established themselves on a hill to the north of it, which was called the hill of Taurus (ὁ λόφος ὁ καλούμενος Ταῦρος). Here they at first constructed only a temporary camp (in 396 BCE), but afterwards erected walls and converted it into a regular fortress or town, to which they gave the name of Tauromenium. (Diod. xiv. 58, 59.)
The place was still in the hands of the Siculi in 394 BCE, and they held it against the efforts of Dionysius, who besieged the city in vain for a great part of the winter, and though he on one occasion forced his way within the walls by a nocturnal surprise, was again driven out and repulsed with heavy loss. (Id. 87, 88.) But by the peace concluded in 392 BCE, it was expressly stipulated that Tauromenium should be subject to Dionysius, who expelled the greater part of the Siculi that had settled there, and supplied their place with his own mercenaries. (Id. 96.)
From this time we hear no more of Tauromenium till 358 BCE, when we are told that Andromachus, the father of the historian Timaeus, brought together all the remains of the exiled Naxians, who were still scattered about in different parts of Sicily, and established them all at Tauromenium. (Id. xvi. 7.) This is related by Diodorus as if it were a new foundation, and even as if the name had then first been applied to the city, which is in direct contradiction with his former statements. What had become of the former inhabitants we know not, but there is little doubt that the account of this resettlement of the city is substantially correct, and that Tauromenium now for the first time became a Greek city, which was considered as taking the place of Naxos, though it did not occupy the same site. (Wesseling, ad Diod. xiv. 59.) Hence Pliny's expression, that Tauromenium had formerly been called Naxos (Plin. iii. 8. s. 14) is nearly, though not strictly, correct.
The new settlement seems to have risen rapidly to prosperity, and was apparently already a considerable town at the time of the expedition of Timoleon in 345 BCE. It was the first place in Sicily where that leader landed, having eluded the vigilance of the Carthaginians, who were guarding the Straits of Messina, and crossed direct from Rhegium (modern Reggio di Calabria) to Tauromenium. (Diod. xvi. 68; Plut. Timol. 10.) The city was at that time still under the government of Andromachus, whose mild and equitable administration is said to have presented a strong contrast with that of the despots and tyrants of the other Sicilian cities.
He welcomed Timoleon with open arms, and afforded him a secure resting place until he was enabled to carry out his plans in other parts of Sicily. (Diod. l. c.; Plut. l. c.) It is certain that Andromachus was not deprived of the chief power, when all the other tyrants were expelled by Timoleon, but was permitted to retain it undisturbed till his death. (Marcellin. Vit. Thucyd. § 27.)
We hear, however, very little of Tauromenium for some time after this. It is probable that it passed under the authority of Agathocles, who drove the historian Timaeus into exile; and some time after this it was subject to a domestic despot of the name of Tyndarion, who was contemporary with Hicetas of Syracuse and Phintias of Agrigentum. (Diod. xxii. Exc. H. p. 495.) Tyndarion was one of those who concurred in inviting Pyrrhus into Sicily (278 BCE), and when that monarch landed with his army at Tauromenium, joined him with all his forces, and supported him in his march upon Syracuse. (Diod. l. c. pp. 495, 496.)
A few years later we find that Tauromenium had fallen into the power of Hieron of Syracuse, and was employed by him as a stronghold in the war against the Mamertines. (Id. p. 497.) It was also one of the cities which was left under his dominion by the by the treaty concluded with him by the Romans in 263 BCE. (Diod. xxiii. p. 502.) This is doubtless the reason that its name is not again mentioned during the First Punic War.
There is no doubt that Tauromenium continued to form a part of the kingdom of Syracuse till the death of Hieron, and that it only passed under the government of Rome when the whole island of Sicily was reduced to a Roman province; but we have scarcely any account of the part it took during the Second Punic War, though it would appear, from a hint in Appian (Sic. 5), that it submitted to Marcellus on favorable terms; and it is probable that it was on that occasion it obtained the peculiarly favored position it enjoyed under the Roman dominion. For we learn from Cicero that Tauromenium was one of the three cities in Sicily which enjoyed the privileges of a civitas foederata or allied city, thus retaining a nominal independence, and was not even subject, like Messana, to the obligation of furnishing ships of war when called upon. (Cic. Verr. ii. 6. 6, iii. 6, v. 19.)
But the city suffered severe calamities during the Servile War in Sicily, 134-132 BCE, having fallen into the hands of the insurgent slaves, who, on account of the great strength of its position, made it one of their chief posts, and were able for a long time to defy the arms of the consul Rupilius. They held out until they were reduced to the most fearful extremities by famine, when the citadel was at length betrayed into the hands of the consul by one of their leaders named Sarapion, and the whole of the survivors put to the sword. (Diod. xxxiv. Exc. Phot. p. 528; Oros. v. 9.) Tauromenium again bore a conspicuous part during the wars of Sextus Pompeius in Sicily, and, from its strength as a fortress, was one of the principal points of the position which he took up in 36 BCE, for defence against Octavian.
It became the scene also of a sea-fight between a part of the fleet of Octavian, commanded by the triumvir in person, and that of Pompeius, which terminated in the defeat and almost total destruction of the former. (Appian, B.C. v. 103, 105, 106-11, 116; Dion Cass. xlix. 5.) In the settlement of Sicily after the defeat of Pompey, Tauromenium was one of the places selected by Augustus to receive a Roman colony, probably as a measure of precaution, on account of the strength of its situation, as we are told that he expelled the former inhabitants to make room for his new colonists. (Diod, xvi. 7.)
Strabo speaks of it as one of the cities on the east coast of Sicily that was still subsisting in his time, though inferior in population both to Messana and Catana. (Strab. vi. pp. 267, 268.) Both Pliny and Ptolemy assign it the rank of a colonia (Plin. iii. 8. s. 14; Ptol. iii. 4. § 9), and it seems to have been one of the few cities of Sicily that continued under the Roman Empire to be a place of some consideration. Its territory was noted for the excellence of its wine (Plin. xiv. 6. s. 8), and produced also a kind of marble which seems to have been highly valued. (Athen. v. p. 207.) Juvenal also speaks of the sea off its rocky coast as producing the choicest mullets. (Juv. v. 93.)
The Itineraries place Tauromenium 32 miles from Messana, and the same distance from Catana. (Itin. Ant. p. 90; Tab. Peut.) It continued after the fall of the Roman Empire to be one of the more considerable towns of Sicily, and from the strength of its position was one of the last places that was retained by the Greek emperors; but it was taken by the Saracens in 906 after a siege of two years, and totally destroyed.
In the late 19th century Taormina gained some prominence as the place where Wilhelm von Gloeden worked most of his life as a photographer of predominantly male nudes. Also credited for making Taormina popular was Otto Geleng, best known in his hometown of Berlin for his fine paintings, which he composed and painted in Italy but exhibited in Germany.
What distinguishes Geleng, however, is his choice to depict the more southern regions where he captured the spectacular views and light of Sicily. He often painted the area's Greek colonial ruins, including Taormina .Taormina 's first important tourist was Johann Wolfgang Goethe who dedicated exalting pages to the city in his book entitled Journey to Italy, but perhaps it was Geleng's views that made its beauty talked about throughout Europe and turned the site into a famous tourist center. The artist arrived in Sicily at the age of 20 in search of new subjects for his paintings.
On his way through Taormina he was so enamoured by the landscape that he decided to stop for part of the winter. Geleng began to paint everything that Taormina offered: ruins, sea, mountains, none of which were familiar to the rest of Europe. When his paintings were later exhibited in Berlin and Paris, many critics accused Geleng of having an 'unbridled imagination'. At that, Geleng challenged them all to go to Taormina with him, promising that he would pay everyone's expenses if he were not telling the truth.
During the early 20th century the town became a colony of expatriate artists, writers, and intellectuals. D. H. Lawrence stayed here at the Fontana Vecchia from 1920 to 1922, and wrote a number of his poems, novels, short stories, and essays, and a travel book, Sea and Sardinia. Charles Webster Leadbeater, the theosophical author, found out that Taormina had the right magnetics fields for Jiddu Krishnamurti to develop his talents, so the young Krishnamurti dwelt here from time to time. Halldór Laxness, the Icelandic author, worked here on the first modern Icelandic novel, Vefarinn mikli frá Kasmír.
Ruins and archaeology
The teatro greco, the Greek theatre, the present town of Taormina occupies the ancient site, on a lofty hill which forms the last projecting point of the mountain ridge that extends along the coast from Cape Pelorus to this point. The site of the old town is about 300 m above the sea, while a very steep and almost isolated rock, crowned by a Saracen castle, rises about 150 m higher: this is undoubtedly the site of the ancient Arx or citadel, the inaccessible position of which is repeatedly alluded to by ancient writers. Portions of the ancient walls may be traced at intervals all round the brow of the hill, the whole of the summit of which was evidently occupied by the ancient city. Numerous fragments of ancient buildings are scattered over its whole surface, including extensive reservoirs of water, sepulchres, tesselated pavements, etc., and the remains of a spacious edifice, commonly called a Naumachia, but the real destination of which it is difficult to determine.
But by far the most remarkable monument remaining at Taormina is the ancient theatre (the teatro greco, the Greek theatre), which is one of the most celebrated ruins in Sicily, on account both of its remarkable preservation and of the surpassing beauty of its situation. It is built for the most part of brick, and is therefore probably of Roman date, though the plan and arrangement are in accordance with those of Greek, rather than Roman, theatres; whence it is supposed that the present structure was rebuilt upon the foundations of an older theatre of the Greek period.
With a diameter of 109 metres (after an expansion in the 2nd century), this theatre is the second largest of its kind in Sicily (after that of Syracuse); it is frequently used for operatic and theatrical performances and for concerts. The greater part of the original seats have disappeared, but the wall which surrounded the whole cavea is preserved, and the proscenium with the back wall of the scena and its appendages, of which only traces remain in most ancient theatres, are here preserved in singular integrity, and contribute much to the picturesque effect, as well as to the interest, of the ruin. From the fragments of architectural decorations still extant we learn that it was of the Corinthian order, and richly ornamented. Some portions of a temple are also visible, converted into the church of San Pancrazio, but the edifice is of small size.
Culture and tourism
The David di Donatello Taormina Film Festival has been held for over fifty years, with international film stars viewing films on a screen erected in the Greek theatre.
Just south of Taormina is the Isola Bella, a nature reserve. Tours of the Capo Sant' Andrea grottos are also available. Taormina is built on an extremely hilly coast, and is approximately a forty-five minute drive away from Europe's largest active volcano, Mount Etna.
In 1927 the young Icelandic writer Halldór Laxness (born 1902) published his first major novel, Vefarinn mikli frá Kasmír (The Great Weaver of Kashmir), a panorama of social, literary, religious and sexual issues of his times. Laxness, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1955, wrote most of his novel in Taormina which he then praised highly in his book of autobiographical essays, Skáldatími (The Time of the Poet) from 1963.
Economy
Much of Trapani's economy still depends on the sea. Fishing and canning are an important local industries, with fishermen using the mattanza technique to catch tuna. Coral is also an important export, along with salt, marble and marsala wine. The nearby coast is lined with numerous salt-pans.
The city is also an important ferry port, with links to the Egadi Islands, Pantelleria, Sardinia and Tunisia.
Getting in Taormina
By train
Regular trains to and from Messina and Catania However the station (called Taormina -Giardini) is on the seafront 2km below the centre. There are some buses down, but it's often more convenient to take a long-distance bus from the centre straight to or from your destination.
By bus
Regular buses to and from Messina and Catania .
By plane
Look for flights to Catania . There you can rent a car to get to Taormina .
Get around Taormina
By foot
The main street of Taormina is pedestrianised, making it easy to wander around by foot.
By car
If coming in by car, you may enter the town center only to go to a hotel or a rented house: local police may require to see proof of booking. In alternative, it's better to park the car at one of the 2 large public parkings ('Parcheggio Lumbi' or Parcheggio Porta Catania ) that you encounter on the outskirts of the city coming in. From there, either walk to the city center (just 2 min from 'Parcheggio Porta Catania '/around 10 min but uphill from 'Parcheggio Lumbi') or catch the shuttle buses running continously to the center.
However, there are regular shuttle buses down to Giardini-Naxos, the train station, Letojanni and up to Castelmola.
There is also a frequent Cable Car down to the beach at Mazarro.
Main Sights
Cathedral of San Lorenzo built in 1421 then restored and changed in 1748 by architect G.B. Amico with the addition of the side chapels, the choir, the dome, the bell tower and the façade. Inside neoclassical plasters by Girolamo Rizzo and Onofrio Noto and vaulted fresco paintings by Vincenzo Manno, a painting of the Crucifixion attributed to Flemish Van Dyke.
Torre di Ligny in stone and tufa built in 1671 by Viceroy Claudio La Moraldo, prince of Ligny, which hosts the Prehistory Museum.
Castello di Terra, according to the tradition over 2,300 years old, was an important defence post of the city, from its position opposite the other Castello di Mare (called Colombaia) located on an island and built according to the legend by greek hero Amilcares. In 1360 Queen Costanza, the wife of Federico d'Aragona, stayed here. The Castello di Mare has an octagonal plan and dates back to the XVI century.
Sensational Sicily
Sicily is directly adjacent to the region of Calabria via the Strait of Messina to the east. The early Roman name for Sicily was Trinacria, alluding to its triangular shape. The Sensational Sicily Project is a collaboration with the Region of Sicily, The Italian Chamber of Commerce, Alessandro Sorbello Productions and New Realm Media
The volcano Etna, situated close to Catania, is 3,320 m (10,900 ft) high, making it the tallest active volcano in Europe. It is also one of the world's most active volcanoes.
The Aeolian islands to the north are administratively a part of Sicily, as are the Aegadian Islands and Pantelleria Island to the west, Ustica Island to the north-west, and the Pelagian Islands to the south-west.
Sicily has been noted for two millennia as a grain-producing territory. Oranges, lemons, olives, olive oil, almonds, and wine are among its other agricultural products. The mines of the Enna and Caltanissetta district became a leading sulfur-producing area in the 19th century but have declined since the 1950s.
Sicily is divided into nine provinces: Agrigento, Caltanissetta, Catania, Enna, Messina, Palermo, Ragusa, Syracuse (Siracusa), Trapani
History
The original inhabitants of Sicily, long absorbed into the population, were tribes known to Greek writers as the Elymians, the Sicani and the Siculi or Sicels. Of these, the last were clearly the latest to arrive on this land and were related to other Italic peoples of southern Italy, such as the Italoi of Calabria, the Oenotrians, Chones, and Leuterni (or Leutarni), the Opicans, and the Ausones. It's possible, however, that the Sicani were originally an Iberian tribe. The Elymi, too, may have distant origins outside of Italy, in the Aegean Sea area.
Phoenicians/Carthaginians, Greeks & Romans
Sicily was colonized by Phoenicians, Punic settlers from Carthage, and by Greeks, starting in the 8th Century BC. The most important colony was established at Syracuse in 734 BC. Other important Greek colonies were Gela, Acragas, Selinunte, Himera, and Zancle or Messene (modern-day Messina, not to be confused with the ancient city of Messene in Messenia, Greece). These city states were an important part of classical Greek civilization, which included Sicily as part of Magna Graecia - both Empedocles and Archimedes were from Sicily. Sicilian politics was intertwined with politics in Greece itself, leading Athens, for example, to mount the disastrous Sicilian Expedition during the Peloponnesian War.
The Greeks came into conflict with the Punic trading communities with ties to Carthage, which was on the African mainland, not far from the southwest corner of the region, and had its own colonies on Sicily. Palermo was a Carthaginian city, founded in the 8th century BC, named Zis or Sis (Panormos to the Greeks). Hundreds of Phoenician and Carthaginian grave sites have been found in necropoli over a large area of Palermo, now built over, south of the Norman palace, where the Norman kings had a vast park. In the far west, Lilybaeum (now Marsala) never was thoroughly Hellenized. In the First and Second Sicilian Wars, Carthage was in control of all but the eastern part of Sicily, which was dominated by Syracuse. In 415 BC, Syracuse became an object of Athenian imperialism as exemplified in the disastrous events of the Sicilian Expedition, which reignited the cooling Peloponnesian War.
In the 3rd century BC the Messanan Crisis motivated the intervention of the Roman Republic into Sicilian affairs, and led to the First Punic War between Rome and Carthage. By the end of war (242 BC) all Sicily was in Roman hands, becoming Rome's first province outside of the Italian peninsula.
The initial success of the Carthaginians during the Second Punic War encouraged many of the Sicilian cities to revolt against Roman rule. Rome sent troops to put down the rebellions (it was during the siege of Syracuse that Archimedes was killed). Carthage briefly took control of parts of Sicily, but in the end was driven off. Many Carthaginian sympathizers were killed— in 210 BC the Roman consul M. Valerian told the Roman Senate that no Carthaginian remains in Sicily.
For the next 6 centuries, Sicily was a province of the Roman Empire. It was something of a rural backwater, important chiefly for its grainfields, which were a mainstay of the food supply of the city of Rome. The empire did not make much effort to Romanize the region, which remained largely Greek. The most notable event of this period was the notorious misgovernment of Verres, as recorded by Cicero in 70 BC, in his oration, In Verrem.
Byzantines
In 440 AD Sicily fell to the Vandal king Geiseric. A few decades later, it came into Ostrogothic hands, where it remained until it was conquered by the Byzantine general Belisarius in 535. But a new Ostrogothic king, Totila, drove down the Italian peninsula and then plundered and conquered Sicily in 550. Totila, in turn, was defeated and killed by the Byzantine general, Narses, in 552. For a brief period (662-668), during Byzantine rule, Syracuse was the imperial capital, until Constans II was assassinated. Sicily was then ruled by the Byzantine Empire until the Arab conquest of 827-902. It is reported in contemporary accounts that Sicilians spoke Greek or Italo-Greek dialects until at least the 10th century, and in some regions for several more centuries.
First Arab invasion of Sicily
In 535, Emperor Justinian I made Sicily a Byzantine province, and for the second time in Sicilian history, the Greek language became a familiar sound across the island. As the power of the Byzantine Empire waned, Sicily was invaded by the Arabs in 652 AD. However, this was a short lived invasion and the Arabs left soon after.
Arab control from Tunisia and Egypt
In around 700, the island of Pantelleria was captured by the Arabs, and it was only discord among the Arabs that prevented Sicily being next. Instead, trading arrangements were agreed and Arab merchants established themselves in Sicilian ports. Then, in 827 a failed Sicilian coup against an unpopular Byzantine governor. Euphemius, a wealthy landowner, who overcame the imperial garrison in Siracusa, declared himself Emperor and invited the Aghlabid Emir of Tunisia to help him. The response was a fleet of 100 ships and 10,000 troops under the command of Asad ibn al-Furat, which consisted largely of Arab Berbers from North Africa and Spain. After resistance at Siracusa, the Arabs gained a foothold in Mazara del Vallo. Palermo fell after a long siege in 831, but Siracusa held out until 878. From 842 to 859 the Arabs captured Messina, Modica, Ragusa and Enna. In 902 Taormina, the last Byzantine stronghold also fell to Arabs and by 965 all of Sicily was under Arab control and Palermo became one of the largest cities in the world.
Emirate of Sicily
Sicily was ruled by the Sunni Aghlabid dynasty in Tunisia and the Shiite Fatimids in Egypt. The Byzantines took advantage of temporary discord to occupy the eastern end of the island for several years. After suppressing a revolt the Fatimid caliph appointed Hassan al-Kalbi (948-964) as Emir of Sicily. He successfully managed to control the Byzantines and founded the Kalbid dynasty. Raids into southern Italy continued under the Kalbids into the 11th century, and in 982 a German army under Otto II was defeated near Crotone in Calabria. With Emir Yusuf al-Kalbi (990-998) a period of steady decline began. Under al-Akhal (1017-1037) the dynastic conflict intensified, with factions within the ruling family allying themselves variously with Byzantium and the Zirids. By the time of Emir Hasan as-Samsam (1040-1053) the island had fragmented into several small fiefdoms. As a virtually an independent emirate, Sicily played a privileged role as bridge between Africa and Europe. Trade flourished and taxes were low. The tolerant regime allowed subjects to abide by their own laws. Despite freedom of worship, Christians freely converted to Islam and there were soon hundreds of mosques in Palermo alone.
The Arabs initiated land reforms which in turn, increased productivity and encouraged the growth of smallholdings, a dent to the dominance of the landed estates. The Arabs further improved irrigation systems. A description of Palermo was given by Ibn Hawqual, a Baghdad merchant who visited Sicily in 950. A walled suburb called the Kasr (the palace) is the center of Palermo until today, with the great Friday mosque on the site of the later Roman cathedral. The suburb of Al-Khalisa (Kalsa) contained the Sultan's palace, baths, a mosque, government offices and a private prison. Ibn Hawqual reckoned 7,000 individual butchers trading in 150 shops.
The Cathedral of Palermo.In addition to Andalusian Arabs and other Arabs, there were Berbers, Persians, Greeks, Jews, Slavs and Lombards. Western Sicily particularly prospered with Berbers settling in the Agrigento area coupled with Bedouin, Syrians and Egyptian Arabs in Palermo.
Muslim rule in Sicily slowly came to an end following an invitation by the Emirs of Catania and Siracusa for a Norman invasion. The Normans, under Count Roger de Hauteville (Altavilla) attacked Sicily in 1061, beginning a thirty year struggle against the Arabs. In 1068, Roger and his men defeated the Arabs at Misilmeri but the most crucial battle was the siege of Palermo in 1072, and the conquest of Sicily was completed by 1091 with the defeat of the last Emir in Noto.
Arab-Norman period (1091-1224)
Following the Norman conquest, Arab influence continued to persist creating a hybrid culture on the island that has contributed much to the character of modern Sicily. The cultural diversity and religious tolerance of the period of Muslim rule under the Kalbid dynasty made Palermo the capital city of the Emirate of Sicily. This continued under the Normans who conquered Sicily in 1060-1090 (raising its status to that of a kingdom in 1130). During this period, Sicily became one of the wealthiest states in Europe, and according to historian John Julius Norwich, Palermo under the Normans became wealthier than the England of its day. After only a century, however, the Norman Hauteville dynasty died out and the south German (Swabian) Hohenstaufen dynasty ruled starting in 1194, adopting Palermo as its principal seat from 1220. But local Christian-Muslim conflicts fueled by the Crusades were escalating during this later period, and in 1224, Frederick II, grandson of Roger II, expelled the last remaining Muslims from Sicily, temporarily relocating many to a colony in Lucera on the southern mainland, while the rest fled to North Africa.
Conflict between the Hohenstaufen house and the Papacy led in 1266 to Sicily's conquest by Charles I, duke of Anjou: opposition to French officialdom and taxation led in 1282 to insurrection (the Sicilian Vespers) and successful invasion by king Peter III of Aragón. The resulting War of the Sicilian Vespers lasted until the peace of Caltabellotta in 1302. Sicily was ruled as an independent kingdom by relatives of the kings of Aragon until 1409 and then as part of the Crown of Aragon.
Spanish control
Ruled from 1479 by the kings of Spain, Sicily suffered a ferocious outbreak of plague (1656), followed by a damaging earthquake in the east of the region (1693). Sicily was frequently attacked by Barbary pirates from North Africa. Bad periods of rule by the crown of Savoy (1713-1720) and then the Austrian Habsburgs gave way to union (1734) with the Bourbon-ruled kingdom of Naples, first as independent kingdom under personal union, then (1816) as part of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
Sicily was the scene of major revolutionary movements in 1820 and 1848 against Bourbon denial of constitutional government, even though the main request was recognition of an independent status from Naples. The 1848 revolution resulted in a sixteen month period of independence from the Bourbons before its armed forces took back control of the island on 15 May 1849.
In late 1852, Prince Emanuele Realmuto had set up power in North Central Sicily. Highly educated, the prince established a political system set to bring Sicily's economy to the highest levels in all of Italy. The Prince's life however was shortened by an assassination in 1857. To this day some of his work is still present in the Italian parliament.
Italian unification
Sicily was joined with the other Italian regions in 1860 following the invasion of irregular troops led by Giuseppe Garibaldi and the resultant so-called Risorgimento.
The new Italian state was a strongly centralized nation, and it did not take long before, in 1866, Palermo revolted against Italy. The city was soon bombed by the Italian navy, which disembarked on September 22 under the command of Raffaele Cadorna. Italian soldiers summarily executed the civilian insurgents, and took possession once again of the island.
A long extensive guerrilla campaign against the unionists (1861-1871) took place throughout southern Italy, and in Sicily, inducing the Italian governments to a ferocious military repression. Ruled under martial law for many years Sicily (and southern Italy) was ravaged by the Italian army that summarily executed thousands of people, made tens of thousands prisoners, destroyed villages, and deported people. The Sicilian economy collapsed, leading to an unprecedented wave of emigration. In 1894 labour agitation through the radical Fasci Siciliani led again to the imposition of martial law.
Map of the Allied landings in Sicily on 10 July 1943.The organised crime networks commonly known as the mafia extended their influence in the late 19th century (and many of its operatives also emigrated to other countries, particularly the United States); partly suppressed under the Fascist regime beginning in the 1920s, they recovered as a side effect of the massive World War II Allied invasion of Sicily on the night of July 10, 1943 when an allied armada of 2,590 vessels freed the then-Fascist Sicily. Mafia was the only organization present in Sicily to be a proved enemy of the Fascist regime and able to offer the Allied occupants a steady grip on the island. The invasion of Sicily was one of the causes of the July 25 crisis.
An autonomous region from 1946, Sicily benefited to some extent from the partial Italian land reform of 1950-1962 and special funding from the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno, the Italian government's indemnification Fund for the South (1950-1984). Sicily returned to the headlines in 1992, however, when the assassination of two anti-mafia magistrates, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino triggered a general upheaval in Italian political life.
Transport
Main article: Transport in Sicily
Automobile Most of Sicily's motorways (autostrade) run through the northern portion of the island. The most important ones are A19 Palermo-Catania, A20 Palermo-Messina, A29 Palermo-Mazara del Vallo and the toll road A18 Messina-Catania. Much of the motorway network is elevated by columns due to the mountainous terrain.
The road network in the south of the country consists largely of well-maintained secondary roads.
Railways Sicily is connected to the Italian peninsula by the national railway company, Trenitalia, though trains are loaded onto ferries for the crossing from the mainland. Officially, the Stretto di Messina, S.p. A. was scheduled to commence construction of the world's longest suspension bridge, the Strait of Messina Bridge, in the second half of 2006. When completed, it would have marked the first time in human history that Sicily was connected by a land link to Italy. In October of 2006 the Italian Parliament scrapped the plan due to lack of popular support, particularly amongst Sicilians.[2].
Air Sicily is served by national and international flights, mostly to European locations, to and from Palermo International Airport and the substantially busier Catania-Fontanarossa Airport. There are also minor national airports in Trapani and on the small islands of Pantelleria and Lampedusa.
Metro The city of Palermo has an urban metropolitan service, handled by Trenitalia, with eleven stations, including an airport stop. Catania also has an underground rail system, which completes the circuit on the circumetnea narrow gauge railway.
Towns and cities
Sicily's principal cities include the regional capital Palermo, together with the other provincial capitals Catania, Messina, Syracuse (Siracusa in Italian), Trapani, Enna, Caltanissetta, Agrigento, Ragusa. Other Sicilian towns include Acireale, Taormina, Giardini Naxos, Piazza Armerina, Bagheria, Partinico, Carini, Alcamo, Vittoria, Caltagirone, Cefalù, Bronte, Adrano, Marsala, Corleone, Castellammare del Golfo, Calatafimi, Gela, Termini Imerese, Francavilla di Sicilia, Ferla, Sciacca, and Abacaenum (now Tripi).
The regional flag of Sicily, recognized since January 2000[3], is also the historical one of the island since 1282. It is divided diagonally yellow over red, with the trinacria symbol in the center. Trinacria literally means 3 points and it most probably is a solar symbol even though lately, it has been considered representative of the three points of the island. The head shown on the Sicilian trinacria is the face of Medusa. The trinacria symbol is used also by other regions like the Isle of Man.
Arts
Palermo is the regional capital of Sicily. Landscape with temple ruins on Sicily, Jacob Philipp Hackert, 1778Sicily is well known as a region of art: many poets and writers were born here, starting from the Sicilian School in the early 13th century, which inspired much subsequent Italian poetry and created the first Italian standard. The most famous, however, are Luigi Pirandello, Giovanni Verga, Salvatore Quasimodo, Gesualdo Bufalino. Other Sicilian artists include the composers Sigismondo d'India, Girolamo Arrigo, Salvatore Sciarrino, Giovanni Sollima (from Palermo), Alessandro Scarlatti (from Trapani or Palermo), Vincenzo Bellini, Giovanni Pacini, Francesco Paolo Frontini, Alfredo Sangiorgi, Aldo Clementi, Roberto Carnevale (from Catania).
Noto, Ragusa and particularly Acireale contain some of Italy's best examples of Baroque architecture, carved in the local red sandstone. Caltagirone is renowned for its decorative ceramics. Palermo is also a major center of Italian opera. Its Teatro Massimo is the largest opera house in Italy and the third largest in the world, seating 1,400.
Sicily is also home to two prominent folk art traditions, both of which draw heavily on the island's Norman influence. A Sicilian wood cart, or Carretto Siciliano, is painted with intricate decorations of scenes from the Norman romantic poems, such as The Song of Roland. The same tales are told in traditional puppet theatres which feature hand-made wooden marionettes, especially in Acireale, the capital of Sicilian puppets.
Sicily is the setting for many classic Italian films such as Visconti's La Terra Trema (1948)and Il Gattopardo (1963), Rosi's Salvatore Giuliano(1962) and Antonioni's L'avventura (1960).
The 1988 movie Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, was about life in a Sicilian town following the Second World War. It is also the setting for Michael Radford's Il Postino (1994) starring Massimo Troisi.
People
The position of Sicily as a stepping stone of sorts in the center of the Mediterranean Basin has lent it strategic importance throughout history, resulting in an endless procession of settlers and conquerors. Modern methods of genetic testing enable us to see which have had the greatest demographic impact. Several studies show strong ties between Sicily, mainland southern Italy and Greece, suggesting that the Siculi, Elymi and Greek colonizations were the most important.
It has been proposed that a genetic boundary divides Sicily into two regions, reflecting the distribution of Siculi and Greek settlements in the east, and Sicani/Elymi, Phoenician/Arab and Norman settlements in the west.[10][11][12] However, other research has failed to detect any such division.[13][7] No data exists on the contribution of Normans, but a number of studies hint that North African and Middle Eastern gene flow was limited by the physical barrier of the Mediterranean Sea and resulting cultural differentiation.[6][14][15][16][17][18]
Sicily's population is approximately 5 million, and there are an additional 10 million people of Sicilian descent around the world, mostly in the United States, Argentina, Canada, Australia and the EU countries. The island today, like all of western Europe, is home to growing communities of immigrants, including Tunisians, Moroccans, Nigerians, Indians, Romanians, Russians, Chinese and Gypsies from the Balkans.
Language
Main article: Sicilian language,. Many Sicilians are bilingual in both Italian and Sicilian, a separate Romance language, with Greek, Arabic, Catalan and Spanish influence. It is important to note that Sicilian is not a derivative of Italian. Although thought by some to be a dialect, Sicilianu is a distinct language, with a rich history and a sizeable vocabulary (at least 250,000 words), due to the influence of the different conquerors of, and settlers to, this land.
The Sicilian language was an early influence in the development of the first Italian standard, although its use remained confined to an intellectual élite. This was a literary language in Sicily created under the auspices of Frederick II and his court of notaries, or Magna Curia, which, headed by Giacomo da Lentini also gave birth to the Scuola Siciliana, widely inspired by troubadour literature. Its linguistic and poetic heritage was later assimilated into the Florentine by Dante Alighieri, the father of modern Italian who, in his De Vulgari Eloquentia (DVE claims that In effect this vernacular seems to deserve a higher praise than the others, since all the poetry written by Italians can be called Sicilian (DVE, I, xii). It is in this language that appeared the first sonnet, whose invention is attributed to Giacomo da Lentini himself.
Sicilian dialects are also spoken in the southern and central sections of the Italian regions Calabria (Calabrese) and Puglia (Salentino); and had a significant influence on the Maltese Language. Malta was a part of the Kingdom of Sicily (in its various forms) until the late 18th century. With the predominance of Italian in Italian schools, the media, etc., Sicilian is no longer the first language of many Sicilians. Indeed, in urban centers in particular, one is more likely to hear standard Italian spoken rather than Sicilian, especially among the young.
Sicilian generally uses the word ending [u] for singular masculine nouns and adjectives, and [a] for feminine. The plural is usually [i] for both masculine and feminine. By contrast, in Italian masculine nouns and adjectives that end in [o] in the singular pass to [i] in the plural, while the feminine counterparts pass from [a] to [e].
The -LL- sound (in words of Latin origin, for example) manifests itself in Sicilian as a voiced retroflex plosive with the tip of the tongue curled up and back, a sound which is not part of Standard Italian. In Sicilian, this sound is written simply as -dd- although the sound itself is not [d] but rather [ɖ]. For example, the Italian word bello is beddu in Sicilian.
In numerous villages, the Arbëreshë dialect of the Albanian language has been spoken since a wave of refugees settled there in the 15th century. While it is spoken within the household, Italian is the official language and modern Greek is chanted in the local Byzantine liturgy. There are also several areas where dialects of the Lombard language of the Gallo-Italic family are spoken. Much of this population is also tri-lingual, being able to also speak one of the Sicilian dialects as well.