I think you can tell the people at UNESCO were a bit overwhelmed with how much wonderful stuff there is in Sicily. When they were naming World Heritage Sites, they just lumped together nine towns all in one go, or an entire group of islands. Each part of these sites merits a listing in its…
Category: Art & fashion
Sicilian artists and fashion designers
Sicily in Jewels: The precious legacy of Duke Fulco Di Verdura
I wrote a few days ago about Villa Niscemi, once home to Fulco Di Verdura, the Sicilian duke whose memoir so enchanted me. As an adult he moved to New York and became a jeweller. His dazzling artistic legacy has Sicily in every jewel. First let’s look at this elephant: He was inspired by the iconic…
Sicilian Ceramics in Palermo
Last summer I dashed down to Sicily and wanted to purchase some gorgeous Sicilian majolica ceramic art for my new house. So I toddled off to “Tre Erre” in Palermo. What to buy? An owl? Something fruity? Something fishy? How about some heads? Or even Medusa’s head? In the…
Shopping in Palermo
Palermo is a fun place to go shopping, and you can find some real bargains if you know where to go. If you don’t, you can find a truly amazing amount of tiny weeny Chinese clothing, that you would not have fitted into by the time you were 12. Never fear! Follow my advice, and…
Dolce & Gabbana Summer 2016: The Carretto Siciliano!
I was happy to see that Sicilian fashion duo Dolce and Gabbana (well, one of them is Sicilian anyway) have turned back to Sicily to inspire their Summer 2016 collection. They must have heard I’ve moved back to England, because they included a matching umbrella in the collection this year. Thanks, guys! This time they…
The Villa of the Fashionista: Villa Sant’Isidoro in Aspra
I have spent eleven years being irritated by an 18th century villa near my house, because it blocks the middle of what could be a perfect road running right behind Casa Nostra into the nearest town. Despite its fancy gates, Villa Sant’Isidoro looked like a derelict building from the outside. I assumed it would fall down…
Who Cleans up after the Flower Festivals in Sicily?
Ever been to one of those Mediterranean Fiorata festivals and wondered who cleans up afterwards? The locals spend the night putting millions of flower petals, seeds, beans and nuts out all along the road to make lovely pictures and the have processions alongside them for people to admire the ephemeral art. Then the next day,…
A Time to Die – the Spanish Inquisition in Sicily
The history books about Sicily have little to say about the time of the Spanish rule. I find this strange, because the Spanish changed Sicily more than any other conqueror. The way they wanted this island is the way it still is: the Sicilians just cannot seem to shake them off. Some history books…
A Priceless Hoard of Sicilian Treasure
I first visited Siracusa two summers ago. The highlight of my trip was visiting the Medagliere (Numismatics Treasury) in the Archaeological Museum and getting to know its charming curator, Rosalba Riccioli. Blonde and vivacious, Rosalba’s passion for the 2,500-year-old gold coins and jewellery in her care – and the intriguing stories behind them – is…
Loafing around in Sicily’s Gingerbread Village
The people of San Biagio Platani, a village in the Agrigento province of south-western Sicily, have celebrated Easter every year since the 1700’s by decorating their streets with arches and towers made of bread. The entire community spends three months turning the place into a gingerbread village… yet Hansel and Gretel never come! For…
The Rich Man in his Villa Ramacca and the Poor Man at his Gate
This is an 18th century villa near my home. It can be hired for weddings and other special events. I walked around it recently, as it hosted the exhibition about Sicilian Sulphur mines I blogged about. Whilst the sulphur miners in Sicily were living in slavery and abject poverty, the barons who owned the…
The Moorish Heads of Sicily
…Otherwise known as Pot Heads! I like the ambiguity in the phrase Moorish Heads. When the Moors invaded Sicily from North Africa in the 11th century, they built ceramics workshops all over the island and taught the Sicilians to make brightly coloured majolica, an art form which gradually spread throughout Sicily. One of the excavated…
How can Art bring the Dead back to Life?
We went to the southern Sicilian town of Favara a while back. The historic town centre looked like a slum in Chad, or perhaps the most bombed-out district of Damascus. There were wooden boards and scaffolding around the derelict houses, to make sure pieces of masonry didn’t land on the cars. There were hoardings to keep…
The Vucciria by Renato Guttuso
This painting is called “The Vucciria” and is by Renato Guttuso. The original – which is absolutely huge – hangs in Palazzo Steri in Palermo – at various times the former seat of the Spanish Inquisition, palace, Moorish pottery factory, community food storage warehouse, government office and prison. It was painted in 1974 and Palermo University had…
Naughty pictures on the ceiling! The Cappella Palatina in Palermo’s Norman Palace
To find out about the Palatine Chapel in Palermo’s Norman Palace – and to learn why it has pictures of nude belly dancers on the ceiling – see my previous post, reblogged from a great blog about Sicilian history called Siquillya. These are some more colour pictures of the ceiling. My favourite image is the…
The Cappella Palatina muqarnas
Originally posted on siquillya:
EDIT: I’ve made some scans and have adjusted the images as best as possible. Wish I could have copied these in glorious color, but sometimes you have to work with what you can get. On Thursday, I braved the holiday tourist crowds and took the train from Trenton to New York…
Merry Christmas Everyone! Buon Natale a Tutti!
We have such a severe rubbish problem in our town that the council is thinking of ways to put it to good use. This is the Christmas tree outside the town hall, made from plastic bottles. Isn’t it pretty?
Celebrate being Italian with a Night at the Opera
To celebrate Sicily becoming part of Italy, Palermo Council announced a competition in 1864 to design a new opera house for Palermo. An opera house! Can you think of a better way to celebrate being Italian? The winning design was by Italian architect Giovan Battista Filippo Basile. At the time, it was the largest…
Fancy some nuts?
I photographed these traditional Sicilian market stalls during the village festival this summer. They sell all kinds of nuts, and a few typical sweets as well. The vendors travel around Sicily from village festival to village festival – there’s always one going on somewhere – livening the streets up and selling their healthy snacks. The…
Q: Who promoted Italian food before Jamie Oliver? A: Renato Guttuso!
We are all used to buying imported and exotic foods in our local supermarket these days, and seeing Jamie Oliver on TV wagging spaghetti about and telling us to grow “some lavly fresh basil” on our windowsills. Jamie has become the global marketing manager for Italian food these days. But how would you market…
Saint Benedict: Black Celebrity Healer, Chef and possibly Lion Tamer
Saint Benedict, known as Benedetto il Moro or Benedict the Moor, was born to two black African slaves in Messina, Sicily in 1524. He was also variously called niger, which means black, and ethiops, which means Sub-Saharan African. If I know the Sicilians, they probably called him “Chinese” half the time, too – they’re pretty vague…
2014: Dolce and Gabbana’s year of Siracusa!
Sicilian fashion duo Dolce & Gababana have been taking their inspiration from Sicily for several years. I usually try to report on it as soon as the collection comes out, despite the fact that I am about as likely to end up owning a real D&G outfit of clothes as I am to hire Brad…
Siracusa, The Ancient Greek jewel in Sicily’s Crown
We had a holiday in Siracusa this summer, over on the south eastern corner of the island. That side of Sicily has a lot of Baroque architecture. Sicilian baroque is a distinctive style developed under Spanish and Bourbon rule (17th century). Here’s Siracusa cathedral: The Museum of Archaeology in Siracusa is wonderful. Since my degree…
Dear EU tax payer, how does the Renato Guttuso Museum spend YOUR money?
British Prime Minister David Cameron was on TV recently, telling the EU they cannot have the extra 1.7 billion pounds they are asking Britain to donate by 1st December this year. Whilst he didn’t exactly give them the hand-bagging Margaret Thatcher would have, he did seem very cheesed off indeed. Nigel Farage of the UK…
Sicilian “Pupi” – The Soldier Puppets of Charlemagne
Most cultures have a puppet tradition, and the International Museum of Puppets in Palermo probably has a few examples of them all. It houses a truly marvellous collection. I loved their South East Asian section and the beautiful collection from Japan. Their African collection was evocative and haunting. I was highly excited by their Punch…
Blessed by a Pregnant Nun at Sciacca Carnival
The Carnival of Sciacca in Sicily may not be as famous as the Venice or Rio carnivals, but it is just as much fun. The day started with such heavy rain there was even talk of calling it all off, but in the end the rain stopped and the festivities started. All the children were…
Sicilian Amber – the Tears of the Sun God’s Daughters
On some of Sicily’s beaches after a big storm, if you’re sharp-eyed and lucky as well, you can find pieces of a rare type of amber called simetite. Some pieces of simetite have recently been found to contain hitherto unknown types of prehistoric insect. It dates from the Miocene, a later period than the more…
Dolce and Gabbana pay tribute to Pope Francis?
The Sicilians adore Pope Francis. This is not just because he once worked as a nightclub bouncer and is way more down-to-earth than any other pontiff in living memory. He is the first pope ever to condemn the Mafia, repeatedly and unequivocally. He rejects the pomp and wealth of the traditional church and genuinely helps…
What’s the Use of Modern Art?
In Castel di Tusa, you can sleep in it, sit on it, eat off it and even take a pee in it. Seriously. In the old days, art was mainly a way of preserving moments in time and, especially, commemorating or glorifying certain people for posterity. Nowadays we have photography and the Internet for that, so…
Sicilian Maiolica Ceramics from Caltagirone and Taormina
Maiolica is Italian tin-glazed pottery made in dazzling colours. New methods for making varied colours of glazes were initially brought to Sicily by the Arabs of North Africa in medieval times, and the art of making Maiolica then spread from Sicily throughout Italy during the Renaissance. Nowadays the art has shrunk back down again and…
My other car’s a Fiat Punto
What do Sicilians drive when they’re not driving their Fiat Puntos? This. It’s called a Carro Siciliano (Sicilian carriage) and dates back to… oh, goodness knows how long ago. Each successive invading culture added some extra detail and decoration to it: at a glance you can easily estimate how many times Sicily has been invaded!…
The Dangerously Truthful Diary of a Sicilian Housewife 