Sicily (Italian and Sicilian: Sicilia) is the largest
island in the Mediterranean
Sea
and an autonomous region of Italy
.
Minor islands around it are also considered to be part of
Sicily.
Throughout much of its history, Sicily has been considered a
crucial strategic location due in large part to its importance for
Mediterranean trade routes.
The area was highly regarded as part of
Magna Graecia, with Cicero describing Siracusa
as the
greatest and most beautiful city of all Ancient Greece.
The island
was once a city-state in its own right,
and as the Kingdom of Sicily ruled
from Palermo
over
southern Italy, Sicily, and Malta
.
It later
became a part of the Two Sicilies under
the Bourbons, a kingdom governed
from Naples
that
comprised both the island itself and most of Southern Italy.
The
Italian unification of 1860
led to the dissolution of this kingdom, and Sicily became an
autonomous part of the
Kingdom of Italy.
Sicily is today an
autonomous
region of Italy. Of
all the regions of Italy, Sicily covers the largest land area at
and currently has just over five million inhabitants.
Sicily has its own unique culture, especially with regard to
the arts,
cuisine,
architecture and
language. The Sicilian economy is largely
based on
agriculture (mainly
orange and
lemon
orchards); this same rural
countryside
has attracted significant
tourism in the
modern age as its natural beauty is highly regarded.
Sicily also holds
importance for archeological and
ancient sites such as the Necropolis of Pantalica
and the Valley of the Temples
.
The Sicilian economy is plagued by organized crime, the
Cosa Nostra being the oldest of Italian mobs.
The overall income of criminal associations in Italy (including
'Ndrangheta and
Camorra) was estimated to be 63 billion Euros
annually, or 7 percent of the Italian economy.
Geography
Sicily has been known since ancient times for its roughly
triangular shape, which earned her the name
Trinacria.
It is separated to the east from the
Italian region of Calabria through the
Strait of
Messina
.The island is characterized by a densely
mountainous landscape.
The main mountain
ranges are Madonie
and Nebrodi
in the north
and Peloritani
in the north-east, whereas the south-eastern
Hyblaean
are considered geologically as a continuation of
the Italian Appennines
. The mines of the
Enna
and Caltanissetta
district were a leading sulfur-producing area throughout the 19th century,
but have declined since the 1950s.
Sicily and its small surrounding islands are extremely interesting
to the
volcanologist.
Mount Etna
, located in the east of mainland Sicily with a
height of it is the tallest active volcano
in Europe and one of the most active in the world.
The
Aeolian
Islands
in the Tyrrhenian Sea
, to the north-east of mainland Sicily, exhibit a
volcanic complex including Stromboli
currently active, also are the three dormant
volcanoes of Vulcano
, Vulcanello
and Lipari
.
Off the
Southern coast of Sicily, the underwater volcano of Ferdinandea
, which is part of the larger Empedocles
last erupted in 1831. It is located between
the coast of Agrigento
and the island of Pantelleria
(which itself is a dormant volcano), on the
Phlegraean Fields of the Strait of
Sicily.
Flora & Fauna
Sicily has a number of forest and riverine
habitats. The largest forest in Sicily is the
Bosco di Caronia. A number of bird
species are found in Sicily. In some cases Sicily is a delimited
point of a species range. For example, the subspecies of
Hooded Crow,
Corvus
cornix ssp
cornix occurs in Sicily, Sardinia and
Corsica, but no further south.
Rivers
The island is
drained by several rivers,
most of which flow through the central area and enter the sea at
the south of the island.
The Salso River
flows through parts of Enna and Caltanissetta before entering the
Mediterranean
Sea at the port of Licata
.
To the
east the Alcantara
in the province of Messina, it exits at Giardini
Naxos
and the Simeto
.
Other
important rivers on the island are to the south-west with Belice
and Platani
.
Climate
Sicily's location means that it has a
Mediterranean climate with mild to
warm, wet winters and warm to hot, dry summers.
History
Ancient tribes
The original inhabitants of Sicily were three defined groups of the
Ancient peoples of Italy.
The most
prominent and by far the earliest of which was the Sicani, who according to Thucydides arrived from the Iberian
Peninsula
(perhaps Catalonia
). Important historical evidence has been
discovered in the form of cave drawings by the Sicani, dated from
the end of the
Pleistocene Epoch,
around 8000 BC. The arrival of the first humans is correlated with
extinction of
dwarf hippos and
dwarf elephants.
The Elymians, thought to be from the Aegean Sea
, were the next tribe to migrate to join the
Sicanians on Sicily. Although there is no evidence of any
wars between the tribes, when the Elymians settled in the
north-west corner of the island, the Sicanians moved across
eastwards.
From mainland Italy, thought to
originally have been Ligures from Liguria came the Sicels in
1200 BC; forcing the Sicanians to move back across Sicily settling
in the middle of the island. The Phoenicians
also were early settlers before the Greeks.
Greek and Roman period
About 750 BC, the
Greeks began to
colonize Sicily, establishing many
important settlements.
The most important colony was Syracuse; other significant ones were Akragas
, Gela
, Himera
, Selinunte
, and Zancle
. The
native Sicani and Sicel peoples were absorbed by the
Hellenic culture with relative ease, and the
area was part of
Magna
Graecia along with the rest of
Southern Italy, which the Greeks had also
colonised.
Sicily was very fertile, and the
introduction of olives and grape vines flourished, creating a great deal of
profitable trading; a significant part of Greek culture on the
island was that of Greek
religion and many temples were built across Sicily, such as the
Valley of the Temples at Agrigento. Politics on the island was intertwined with
that of Greece; Syracuse
became desired by the Athenians
, who during the Peloponnesian War set out on the Sicilian Expedition. Syracuse gained
Sparta
and Corinth
as allies, and as a result the Athenian expedition
was defeated. The Athenian army and ships were destroyed,
with most of the survivors being sold into slavery.
The Roman amphitheatre
While
Greek Syracuse controlled much of Sicily, there were a few Carthaginian
colonies in the far west of the island. When
the two cultures began to clash, the
Greek
Punic Wars erupted, the longest wars of antiquity. Greece began
to make peace with the
Roman Republic
in 262 BC and the Romans sought to
annex
Sicily as its empire's first province. Rome intervened in the
First Punic War, crushing Carthage
so that by 242 BC Sicily had become the first Roman province
outside of the
Italian Peninsula.
The
Second Punic War, in which
Archimedes was killed, saw Carthage
trying to take Sicily from the Roman Empire. They failed and this
time Rome was even more unrelenting in the annihilation of the
invaders; during 210 BC the
Roman
consul M. Valerian, told the
Roman
Senate that "no Carthaginian remains in Sicily".
Sicily
served a level of high importance for the Romans as it acted as the
empire's granary, it was divided into two
quaestorships in the form of Syracuse to
the east and Lilybaeum
to the west. Although under
Augustus some attempt was made to introduce the
Latin language to the island, Sicily
was allowed to remain largely Greek in a cultural sense, rather
than a complete cultural
Romanisation. When
Verres became governor of Sicily, the once prosperous
and contented people were put into sharp decline, in 70 BC noted
figure
Cicero condemned the misgovernment of
Verres in his oration
In Verrem.
The island was used as a base of power numerous times, being
occupied by slave insurgents during the
First and
Second Servile Wars, and by
Sextus Pompey during the
Sicilian revolt.
Christianity first appeared in Sicily during
the years following AD 200; between this time and AD 313 when
Constantine the Great finally lifted
the prohibition on Christianity, a significant number of Sicilians
became
martyrs such as
Agatha,
Christina,
Lucy,
Euplius and many more. Christianity grew
rapidly in Sicily during the next two centuries. The period of
history where Sicily was a Roman province lasted for around 700
years in total.
Early Middle Ages
Depiction of the Gothic War
As the Roman Empire was falling apart, a
Germanic tribe known as the
Vandals took Sicily in AD 440 under the rule of
their king
Geiseric.
The Vandals had
already invaded parts of Roman France
and
Spain
, inserting themselves as an important power in
western Europe. However, they soon lost these newly acquired
possessions to another
East
Germanic tribe in the form of the
Goths.
The
Ostrogothic conquest of Sicily (and
Italy as a whole) under
Theodoric
the Great began in 488; although the Goths were Germanic,
Theodoric sought to revive Roman culture and government and allowed
freedom of religion. The
Gothic War took place between
the Ostrogoths and the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the
Byzantine Empire. Sicily was the
first part of Italy to be taken under general
Belisarius who was commissioned by
Eastern Emperor Justinian I.
Sicily was used as a base for the Byzantines
to conquer the rest of Italy, with Naples, Rome
, Milan
and the
Ostrogoth capital Ravenna
falling within five years. However, a new
Ostrogoth king
Totila, drove down the Italian
peninsula,
plundering and conquering Sicily
in 550. Totila, in turn, was defeated and killed in the
Battle of Taginae by the Byzantine general
Narses in 552.
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
Arab forces of
Caliph Uthman in the year 652.
By the end of the 7th
century they had
captured the nearby port city of Carthage, allowing the Arabs to
build shipyards and a permanent base from which to make more
sustained attacks.
Byzantine
Emperor Constans II decided to move from
the capital Constantinople
to Syracuse in Sicily during 660, the following year he
launched an assault from Sicily against the Lombard Duchy of
Benevento, which then occupied most of Southern Italy.
The rumors that the capital of the empire was to be moved to
Syracuse, probably cost Constans his life as he was assassinated in
668. His son
Constantine IV succeeded
him, a brief usurpation in Sicily by
Mezezius being quickly suppressed by the new
emperor. Contemporary accounts report that the Greek language was
widely spoken on the island during this period.
By 826,
Euphemius the
commander of the Byzantines killed his wife in Sicily and forced a
nun to marry him. Emperor
Michael II
caught wind of the matter and ordered that general Constantine end
the marriage and cut off Euphemius' head. Euphemius rose up, killed
Constantine and then occupied Syracuse; he in turn was defeated and
driven out to
North Africa.
He
offered rule of Sicily over to Ziyadat Allah the Aghlabid Emir of Tunisia
in return for a place as a general and safety; a
Muslim army of Arabs, Berbers, Spaniards (then an Islamic region
), Cretans
and Persians was
sent. The
conquest was a
see-saw affair and met
with much resistance. It took over a century for Byzantine Sicily
to be conquered.
Syracuse held for a long time, Taormina
fell in 902, and all of Sicily was eventually
conquered by Arabs in 965.
Arab Sicily (965-1091)
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 Hawqal, an Arab merchant who visited
Sicily in 950. A walled suburb called the Al-Kasr (the
palace) is the center of Palermo to this day, 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 Hawqal reckoned 7,000 individual butchers trading in
150 shops.
Throughout this reign, revolts by Byzantine Sicilians continuously
occurred, especially in the east, and parts of the island were
re-occupied before being quashed. Agricultural items such as
oranges,
lemons,
pistachio and
sugar
cane were brought to Sicily. As
dhimmis,
the native Christians were allowed
freedom of religion, but had to pay
Jizya in lieu of Zakat, which Muslims paid, to their rulers.
However, the
Emirate of Sicily
began to fragment as intra-dynastic quarreling fractured the
Muslim regime. During this time there was
also a minor
Jewish presence. By the 11th
century, mainland southern Italian powers hired
Norman merecenaries, who
conquered Sicily from the
Arabs under
Roger I.
After taking Apulia
and
Calabria, he occupied Messina
with an army of 700 knights. In 1068, Roger Guiscard and his men were victorious at
Misilmeri
, but the most crucial battle was the siege of
Palermo, which in 1091 led to Sicily coming under Norman
control.
Kingdom of Sicily
Palermo continued on as the capital under the
Normans.
Roger's son, Roger II of Sicily, was ultimately able
to raise the status of the island to a kingdom in 1130, along with
his other holdings which included the Duchy of Apulia and Calabria and the Maltese
Islands
. During this period the Kingdom of Sicily was prosperous and
politically powerful, becoming one of the wealthiest states in all
of Europe; even wealthier than England
. Significantly, immigrants from
Northern Italy and
Campania arrived during this period.
Linguistically, the island became
Latinised. In terms of church, it would become
completely
Roman Catholic;
previously, under the Byzantines, it had been more Eastern
Christian.
After a century the Norman
Hauteville dynasty died out, the last
direct descendent and heir of Roger;
Constance married
Emperor Henry VI. This
eventually led to the crown of Sicily been passed on to the
Hohenstaufen Dynasty who were
Germans from
Swabia. Conflict between the
Hohenstaufen house and the
Papacy, led in
1266 to
Pope Innocent IV crowning
Angevin Dynasty duke
Charles I as the king of both
Sicily and Naples.
Strong opposition of the French
officialdom due to mistreatment and taxation saw the local peoples of Sicily rise up,
leading in 1282 to an insurrection
known as the War of the
Sicilian Vespers, which eventually saw almost the entire French
population on the island killed. During the war the
Sicilians turned to Peter III,
son-in-law of the last Hohenstaufen king, of the Kingdom of
Aragon
for support after being rejected by the
Pope. Peter gained control of Sicily from the French though
the French retained control of the
Kingdom of Naples. The wars continued
until the
peace of
Caltabellotta in 1302, which saw Peter's son
Frederick III recognised as king of
the Isle of Sicily, while
Charles
II was recognised as the king of Naples by
Pope Boniface VIII. 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.
In October of 1347, in Messina, Sicily, the Black Death
first arrived in Europe.
The
Spanish Inquisition in 1492
saw
Ferdinand II decreeing
the expulsion of every single
Jew from Sicily.
The island was hit by two very serious earthquakes in the east in
both 1542 and 1693, just a few years before the latter earthquake
the island was struck by a ferocious plague.
There were revolts
during the 17th century, but these were quelled with significant
force especially the revolts of Palermo and Messina. The Treaty of
Utrecht in 1713 saw Sicily assigned to the House of Savoy, however this period of rule
lasted only seven years as it was exchanged for the island of
Sardinia with Emperor Charles VI of the
Austrian
Habsburg
Dynasty.
While the
Austrians were concerned with the War of the Polish Succession, a
Bourbon prince, Charles from Spain was able
to conquer Sicily and Naples. At first Sicily was able to
remain as an independent kingdom under
personal union, while the Bourbons ruled over
both from Naples. However the advent of
Napoleon's
First
French Empire saw Naples taken at the
Battle of Campo Tenese and
Bonapartist
Kings of Naples were
instated.
Ferdinand
III the Bourbon was forced to retreat to Sicily which he was
still in complete control of with the help of
British naval protection. Following this Sicily
joined the
Napoleonic Wars, after
the wars were won Sicily and Naples formally merged as the
Two Sicilies under the Bourbons. Major
revolutionary movements occurred in 1820 and
1848 against the Bourbon government with Sicily seeking
independence; the second of which, the
1848 revolution
was successful and resulted in a period of independence for
Sicily.
Italian unification
After the
Expedition of the
Thousand led by
Giuseppe
Garibaldi, Sicily became part of the
Kingdom of Italy in
1860 as part of the .
The conquest started at Marsala
and was finally completed with the Siege of
Gaeta
where the final Bourbons were expelled and
Garibaldi announced his dictatorship in the name of Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia. An anti-Savoy revolt
pushing for Sicilian independence erupted in 1866 at Palermo; it was
quelled brutally by the Italians within a week. Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
wrote in his book
Il Gattopardo that
the Sicilians viewed the unification of Italy as a conquest of the
south by the north. The Sicilian (and the wider
mezzogiorno) economy collapsed, leading to
an unprecedented
wave of
emigration. Organizations of workers and peasants known as the
Fasci Siciliani, who were
leftist and
separatist groups, rose and caused the Italian
government to impose martial law again in 1894. The
Messina earthquake of December 28,
1908 killed over 80,000 people.
The
Mafia, a loose confederation of organized
crime networks, grew in influence in the late 19th century; the
Fascist regime began suppressing
them in the 1920s with considerable success. There was an
allied invasion of Sicily during
World War II starting on July 10, 1943.
In preparation of the invasion of Sicily, the Allies revitalised
the
Mafia to aid them. The invasion of Sicily
was one of the causes of the
July 25 crisis; in
general the Allied victors were warmly embraced by the Sicilian
population. Italy
became a
Republic in 1946 and as part of the
Constitution of Italy, Sicily was one
of the five regions given special status as an
autonomous region. Both the partial
Italian
land reform and special funding
from the Italian government's
Cassa per il Mezzogiorno (Fund
for the South) from 1950 to 1984, helped the Sicilian economy
improve.
Economy
Sicilian oranges
Sicily has long been noted for its fertile soil, pleasant climate,
and natural beauty. It has a long, hot growing season, but summer
droughts are frequent. Agriculture is the chief economic activity
but has long been hampered by absentee ownership, primitive methods
of cultivation, and inadequate irrigation. The establishment (1950)
of the now-defunct
Cassa per il
Mezzogiorno (Southern Italy Development Fund) by the national
government led to land ownership reforms, an increase in the amount
of land available for cultivation and the general development of
the island's economy. However, the
Mafia,
which is still influential, has hindered governmental efforts to
institute reforms in the region, and Sicily continues to have an
extremely low per capita income and high unemployment, although
many workers have “black,” or unreported, jobs.
The main
agricultural products are
Citrons,
oranges,
lemons,
olives,
olive oil,
almonds,
grapes and
wine; cattle, mules, donkeys, and sheep are
raised.
Sicily produces more wine than New Zealand, Austria and Hungary
combined, but was previously known mainly for fortified
Marsala wines. In recent decades the wine
industry has improved, new winemakers are experimenting with
less-known native varietals, and Sicilian wines have become better
known.
The best known local varietal is Nero d'Avola, named for a small town not far
from Syracuse; the best wines made with
these grapes come from Noto
, a famous
old city close to Avola.
There are important tuna and sardine fisheries.
In addition to wine, Sicily manufactures processed food, chemicals,
refined petroleum, fertilizers, textiles, ships, leather goods, and
forest products. There are petroleum fields in the southeast, and
natural gas and sulfur are also produced. Improvements in Sicily's
road system have helped to promote industrial development.
The chief
ports of the island are Palermo, Catania
, Augusta
and Messina.
Transport
Roads
The most prominent Sicilian roads are the
motorways (known as ) running through the northern
section of the island. Much of the motorway network is elevated by
columns due to the mountainous terrain of the island..
Other main roads in
Sicily are the Strade Statali like the SS.113 that
connects Trapani
to Messina (via Palermo), the SS.114
Messina-Syracuse (via Catania) and the SS.115 Syracuse-Trapani (via
Ragusa
and
Agrigento).
Railways
The Sicilian rail network in
2007
The first railway in Sicily was opened in 1863 (Palermo-Bagheria)
and today all of the Sicilian provinces are served by a network of
railway services, linking to most major
cities and towns; this service is operated by
Trenitalia. Of the 1.378 km of railway
tracks in use, over 60% has been
electrified whilst the
remaining 583 km are serviced by
diesel engines.
88% of the lines
(1.209 km) are single-track and only 169 km are
double-track serving the two main routes, Messina-Palermo (Tyrrhenian) and Messina-Catania-Syracuse (Ionian
). Of the narrow gauge railways the Ferrovia Circumetnea is the only one
that still operates, going round Mount Etna. From the major cities of Sicily, there are
services to Naples and Rome; this is
achieved by the trains being loaded onto
ferries which cross to the mainland.
In two of the main cities there are
underground railway services; these feature in
the cities of Palermo and
Catania whilst Messina is served by
a
light rail service.
Airports
Mainland Sicily has several
airports which
serve numerous Italian and European destinations and some
extra-European;
Ports
By
sea, Sicily is served by several
ferry routes and cargo ports, and in all major cities,
cruise ships dock on a regular basis.
- Mainland Italy: Ports connecting to the
mainland are Messina (route to Villa San Giovanni
), the busiest passenger port in Italy, Palermo (routes to
Genoa
, Civitavecchia
and Naples) and
Catania (route to Naples)
.
- Sicily's small surrounding islands: The port
of Milazzo
serves the Aeolian Islands, the ports of Trapani and Marsala the Aegadian Islands
and the port of Porto Empedocle
the Pelagie Islands
. From Palermo there is a service to the
island of Ustica
and to
Sardinia.
- International connections: From Palermo and
Trapani there are weekly services to Tunisia and there is also a daily service between Malta and Pozzallo
.
- Commercial/Cargo Ports: The port of Augusta is the 5th largest cargo port in Italy which
handles tonnes of goods. Other major cargo ports are Palermo,
Catania, Trapani, Pozzallo and Termini Imerese
.
- Touristic ports: Several "Touristic ports" along the Sicilian
coast are in the service of private boats that need to moor on the
island. The main ports for this traffic are in
Marina di
Ragusa
, Riposto
, Portorosa, Syracuse, Cefalù
and Sciacca
.
- Fishing ports: As all islands, Sicily also has many fishing
ports. The most important is in Mazara del
Vallo
followed by Castellamare del Golfo
, Licata, Scoglitti
and Portopalo di Capo Passero
.
The Bridge
Plans for a bridge linking Sicily to the mainland have been around
since 1865.
Throughout the last decade, plans were
developed for a road and rail link to the mainland via what would
be the world's longest suspension
bridge, the Strait of Messina Bridge
. Planning for the project has undergone
several false starts over the past few years. On 6 March 2009,
Silvio Berlusconi's government
declared that the construction works for the Messina Bridge will
begin on December 23, 2009, and announced a pledge of 1.3 billion
EUR as a contribution to the bridge's total cost, estimated at 6.1
billion EUR.The plan has been put under severe criticisms by
environmental associations and local Sicilians and Calabrians,
concerned with its environmental impact, economical sustainability,
and even possible infiltrations by organized crime.
Demographics
The
people of Sicily are often portrayed as very proud of their island,
identity and culture and it is not uncommon for people to describe
themselves as Sicilian, before the
more national description of Italian.
Despite
the existence of major cities such as Palermo, Catania, Messina and Syracuse, popular stereotypes of Sicilians commonly allude
to ruralism, for example the coppola is one of the main symbols of
Sicilian identity; it is derived from the flat
cap of rural Northern England
which arrived in 1800 when Bourbon king Ferdinand I had fled to
Sicily and was protected by the British Royal
Navy.
Throughout history Sicily had rulers from a variety of different
cultures, from the
Italic people,
Romans,
Vandals,
Greeks,
Byzantines,
Saracens and
Normans, each of whom has contributed island's
culture, particularly in the areas of
cuisine and
architecture. Sicilian people tend to most
closely associate themselves with other
southern Italians, with whom they share a
common history.
The island of Sicily itself has a population
of approximately five million, and there are an additional ten
million people of Sicilian descent around the world, mostly in
North America, Argentina
, Australia and other
European countries. Like the rest of
Southern Italy, immigration to the island is
very low compared to other regions of Italy because workers tend to
head to
Northern Italy instead, due
to better employment and industrial opportunities.
The most recent
ISTAT figures show around 100 thousand
immigrants out of the total five million population or nearly 2
percent of the population; Romanians with
more than 17 thousand make up the most immigrants, followed by
Tunisians, Moroccans
, Sri
Lankans, Albanians, and others mostly
from Eastern Europe. [4655]
Major settlements
In Sicily there are fifteen cities and towns which have a
population level above 50,000 people, these are:
Population genetics
Y-Dna haplogroups
were found at the following frequencies in Sicily :
R1 (30.09%),
J (29.65%),
E1b1b (18.21%),
I (7.62%),
G (5.93%),
K2 (5.51%),
Q (2.54%).R1 and I haplogroups are
typical in West European populations while J and E1b1b consist of
lineages with differential distribution within
Middle East,
North
Africa and
Europe.
Government and politics
The
politics of Sicily, Italy takes place
in a framework of a presidential
representative democracy,
whereby the President of Regional Government is the head of government, and of a pluriform
multi-party system.
Executive power is exercised by the
Regional Government.
Legislative
power is vested in both the government and the
Sicilian Regional Assembly.
Administrative divisions
Administratively Sicily is divided into nine provinces.
Also part
of various Sicilian provinces are small surrounding islands:
Aeolian
Islands of Messina, isle of Ustica
(Palermo), Aegadian
Islands (Trapani), isle of Pantelleria (Trapani) and Pelagian
Islands (Agrigento).
| Province |
Area (km²) |
Population |
Density (inh./km²) |
Province of Agrigento |
3,042 |
455,288 |
149.6 |
| Province of
Caltanissetta |
2,128 |
272,359 |
127.9 |
| Province of Catania |
3,552 |
1,084,674 |
305.3 |
| Province of Enna |
2,562 |
173,558 |
67.7 |
| Province of Messina |
3,247 |
654,520 |
201.5 |
| Province of Palermo |
4,992 |
1,244,012 |
249.2 |
| Province of Ragusa |
1,614 |
313,698 |
194.3 |
| Province of Syracuse |
2,109 |
402,680 |
190.9 |
| Province of Trapani |
2,460 |
435,877 |
177.1 |
Tourism
Sicily's sunny, dry climate, scenery, cuisine, history, and
architecture attract many tourists from mainland Italy and abroad.
The tourist season peaks in the summer months, although people
visit the island all year round.
Mount Etna, the beaches, the
archeological sites, and the two major cities of Catania and
Palermo are the favourite tourist destinations, but the old town of
Taormina and the neighbouring seaside resort of Giardini
Naxos draw visitors from all over the world, as do the
Aeolian
Islands, Erice
, Cefalù, Syracuse, and Agrigento. The latter features some of the
best-preserved temples of the ancient Greek period. Many
Mediterranean cruise ships stop in Sicily, and many wine tourists
also visit the island.
World Heritage Sites
Sicilian Baroque
The
Sicilian Baroque has a unique
architectural identity.
Noto, Caltagirone
, Catania, Ragusa, Modica
, Scicli
and particularly Acireale
contain some of Italy's best examples of Baroque architecture, carved in the local red
sandstone.
Archeological sites
Because many different cultures settled, dominated or invaded the
island, Sicily has a huge variety of archeological sites. Also,
some of the most notable and best preserved temples and other
structures of the Greek world are located in Sicily. . Here is a
short list of the major archeological sites:
- Sicels/Sicans/Elymians: Segesta
, Eryx, Cava Ispica
, Thapsos
, Pantalica
.
- Greeks: Syracuse, Agrigento, Naxos
, Heraclea Minoa
, Selinunte, Kamarina, Himera, Megara Hyblaea
.
- Phoenicians: Motya
, Soluntum
, Marsala.
- Romans: Piazza Armerina
, Centuripe
, Taormina.
- Arabs: Palermo, Mazara del Vallo.
Castles
Culture
Language
Many Sicilians are bilingual in
Italian and
Sicilian, a distinct
Romance language which has a sizeable
vocabulary, with at least 250,000 words. Some of the words are
loan words from
Greek,
Catalan,
French,
Arabic,
Spanish, and other languages in addition to
Italian.
The Sicilian language is also spoken to
some extent in Calabria and Apulia; it had a significant influence on the Maltese language. In the modern age,
as Italian is taught in schools and is the language of the media,
especially in some of the
urban areas,
Sicilian is now a secondary language amongst much of the youth.
One of the places that hosted
Frederick's
Magna Curia
The Sicilian language was an early influence in the development of
the first Italian standard, although its use remained confined to
an intellectual elite. 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
Sicilian School, 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 , 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". It is in this language
that appeared the first
sonnet, whose
invention is attributed to Giacomo da Lentini himself.
There are also several less common, unofficial languages spoken on
the island. In around five small Palermitan villages,
Arbëreshë dialect of the
Albanian language has been spoken since a
wave of refugees settled there in the 15th century; these people
are predominantly
Byzantine
Catholics and chant
Greek at
local Byzantine
liturgy. As one might
expect, the language bears the marks of fifteenth century grammar
and diction. In some cases, the Church itself encouraged the
Albanians to settle on formerly monastic
lands, particularly in western Sicily. In others, feudal lords
welcomed the new residents. Messina and Palermo boasted the largest
urban Albanian communities in Sicily.
The Sicilian towns
founded or repopulated by the Albanians are Piana
degli Albanesi
, Santa Cristina Gela
, Mezzojuso, Contessa Entellina
, Palazzo Adriano
, Sant' Angelo Muxaro, Bronte, Biancavilla
and San Michele in Ganzaria.There are
also several
Ennese towns where
dialects of the
Lombard language of
the
Gallo-Italic family are spoken.
Much of these two groups of people are tri-lingual, being able to
also speak Italian and Sicilian.
Cuisine
The island has a long history of producing a variety of noted
cuisines and
wines, to the extent that Sicily
is sometimes nicknamed
God’s Kitchen because of this. The
ingredients are typically rich in taste while remaining affordable
to the general populace. The savory dishes of Sicily are viewed to
be
healthy, using fresh vegetables and
fruits, such as
tomatoes,
artichokes,
olives (including
olive oil),
citrus,
apricots,
aubergines,
onions,
beans,
raisins commonly coupled
with
sea food, freshly caught from the
surrounding coastlines, including
tuna,
sea bream,
sea
bass,
cuttlefish,
swordfish,
sardines, and
others.
Perhaps the most well-known part of Sicilian cuisine is the rich
sweet dishes including
ice creams and
pastries.
Cannoli, a tube-shaped shell of fried pastry
dough filled with a sweet filling usually containing
ricotta cheese, is in particular strongly
associated with Sicily worldwide.
Biancomangiare, biscotti ennesi (cookies
native to Enna),
braccilatte a Sicilian version of doughnuts, buccellato,
ciarduna, pignoli, bruccellati, sesame seed cookies, a sweet confection
with sesame seeds and almonds (torrone in
Italy) is cubbaita, frutta martorana, cassata, pignolata,
granita, and cuccìa are amongst some of the most notable
sweet dishes.
Like the cuisine of the rest of southern Italy,
pasta plays an important part in Sicilian cuisine, as
does
rice; for example with
arancini. As well as using some other
cheeses, Sicily has spawned some of its own, using
both cow's and sheep's milk, such as
pecorino and
caciocavallo. Spices used include
saffron,
nutmeg,
clove,
pepper, and
cinnamon, which were introducted by the
Arabs.
Parsley is used abundantly in many
dishes.
Although Sicilian cuisine is commonly
associated with sea food, meat dishes, including goose, lamb, goat, rabbit, and turkey
, are also found in Sicily. It was the
Normans and
Hohenstaufen who first introduced a fondness
for meat dishes to the island.
Some varieties of wine are produced from
vines that are relatively unique to the island, such as the
Nero d'Avola made near the baroque of
town of Noto.
Arts
Sicily has long been associated with
the
arts; many
poets,
writers,
philosophers,
intellectuals,
architects and
painters
have roots on the island.
The history of prestige in this field can
be traced back to Greek philosopher Archimedes, a Syracuse native who has gone on to become renowned as one of
the greatest mathematicians of all
time. Gorgias and
Empedocles are two other highly noted early
Sicilian-Greek philosophers, while the Syracusan
Epicharmus is held to be the inventor of
comedy. The golden age of Sicilian poetry
began in the early 13th century with the
Sicilian School, which was highly
influential. Some of the most noted figures in the area of Sicilian
poetry and writing are
Luigi
Pirandello,
Salvatore
Quasimodo,
Antonio
Veneziano and
Giovanni Verga. On
the political side notable Sicilian philosophers include:
Giovanni Gentile who wrote
The Doctrine of Fascism and
Julius Evola.
Terracotta ceramics from the island are well known, the
art of ceramics on Sicily goes back to the original ancient peoples
named the
Sicanians, it was then perfected
during the period of Greek colonisation and is still prominent and
distinct to this day. There are two prominent
folk art traditions on Sicily, both draw heavily
from
Norman influence;
Sicilian cart is the painting of wooden carts
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 or
teatro dei pupi, which feature hand-made wooden marionettes,
depicting Normans and Saracens, who engage in mock battles. this is
especially popular in Acireale. Famous Sicilian painters include
Renaissance artist
Antonello da Messina,
Renato Guttuso and Greek born
Giorgio de Chirico who is commonly dubbed
the "father of
Surrealist art" and
founder of the
metaphysical art
movement.
Palermo hosts the Teatro Massimo
, which is the largest opera house in Italy and the third largest in
all of Europe. Sicilian composers vary
from
Vincenzo Bellini,
Sigismondo d'India,
Giovanni Pacini and
Alessandro Scarlatti, to contemporary
composers such as
Salvatore
Sciarrino. Many award winning and acclaimed films of Italian
cinema have been filmed in Sicily, amongst the most noted of which
are;
Visconti's
"La Terra Trema" and
"Il Gattopardo",
Rosi's
"Salvatore Giuliano", Marco
Risi's
"Mery per sempre"
and
"Ragazzi fuori", and
Antonioni's
"L'avventura".
Sports
The best known and most popular sport on the island of Sicily is
football, which was introduced in
the late 1800s under the influence of the
English. Some of the oldest football clubs in
all of Italy are Sicilian: the three most successful are
Palermo,
Messina, and
Catania, who have all, at some point, played
in the prestigious
Serie A. To date, no
Sicilian side has ever won Serie A; however, football is deeply
embeded in local culture, all over Sicily each town has its own
representative team.
Palermo and Catania have a heated rivalry and compete in the
Sicilian derby together: to date,
Palermo is the only Sicilian team to have played on the European
stage, in the
UEFA Cup. The most noted
Sicilian footballer is
Salvatore
Schillaci, who won the
Golden
Boot at the
1990 FIFA World
Cup with
Italy.
Other noted Sicilian players include
Giuseppe Furino,
Pietro Anastasi,
Francesco Coco,
Christian Riganò, and Roberto Galia.
There have also been some noted managers from the island, such as
Carmelo Di Bella and
Franco Scoglio.
Although football is by far the most popular sport in Sicily, the
island also has participants in other fields.
Amatori Catania compete in the top Italian
national
rugby union league called
Super 10. They have
even participated at European level in the
European Challenge Cup.
Competing in the
basketball variation of Serie A is Orlandina Basket from Capo
d'Orlando
in the province
of Messina, where the sport has a reasonable following.
Various other sports that are played to some extent include
volleyball,
handball, and
water
polo.
Previously, in motorsport, Sicily held the prominent Targa
Florio
sports car race that took place in the Madonie
Mountains, with the start-finish line in Cerda
. The event was started in 1906 by
Sicilian industrialist and automobile enthusiast
Vincenzo Florio, and ran until it was
cancelled due to safety concerns in 1977.
Sicilian lifestyle and folklore
The family is at the heart of Sicilian culture as it has always
been for generations. Family members often live close together,
sometimes in the same housing complex, and sons and daughters
usually remain at home with their parents until they marry, which
tends to occur later than in previous decades. Couples today have
fewer children than before, yet babies and children are much
revered in Sicilian culture and almost always accompany their
parents to social events.
Sicilian weddings are lavish, expensive, and traditional. They are
normally held in church. The
Catholic
church is an important feature in Sicilian life. Almost all public
places are adorned with crucifixes upon their walls, and most
Sicilian homes contain pictures of saints, statues, and other
relics. Each town and city has its own patron saint, and the
feast days are marked by gaudy processions
through the streets with marching bands and displays of
fireworks.
Sicilian religious festivals also include the
presepe
vivente (living
nativity scene),
which takes place at Christmas time. Deftly combining religion and
folklore, it is a constructed mock 19th century Sicilian village,
complete with a nativity scene, and has people of all ages dressed
in the costumes of the period, some impersonating the Holy Family,
and others working as artisans of their particular assigned trade.
It is normally concluded on
Ephiphany, often highlighted by the
arrival of the
magi on horseback.
Oral tradition plays a large role in Sicilian folklore. Many
stories passed down from generation to generation involve a
character named "
Giufà". Anecdotes from
this character's life preserve Sicilian culture as well as convey
moral messages.
Sicilians also enjoy outdoor festivals, held in the local square or
piazza where live music and dancing are performed on
stage, and food fairs or
sagre are set up in booths lining
the square. These offer various local specialties, as well as
typical Sicilian food. Normally these events are concluded with
fireworks. The most important laic event in Sicily is the
carnival.
Famous carnivals are in Acireale, Misterbianco
, Regalbuto
, Paternò
, Sciacca, Termini Imerese.
See also
Further reading
References
External links
.JPG/220px-Sicily_Selinunte_Temple_E_(Hera).JPG)
, located on the east-coast is the busiest on the
island (and one of the busiest in all of Italy).
, which is also substantially large airport with
many national and international flights.
, a military-civil joint use airport (third for
traffic on the island). Recently the airport has seen an
increase of traffic thanks to low-cost
carriers.
, has recently been refurbished and re-converted
from military use to civil airport but to the date (March 9) it is
still closed to the general traffic.
is the old airport of Palermo and has internal
flights to the Waterdrome of Enna and the Aeolian
Islands
, it is an Italian Air Force and U.S.
Navy installation. Between the NATO Bases, Sigonella, is called the
"The Hub of the Med".
and Pantelleria Airport
are also two small airports on smaller islands
which are considered part of Sicily.
of Piazza Armerina
since 2002.
Castles
Top topics
Wikis
Quiz
Facts
Map
Misc
Search
Yes
