Sicilians, like many other Mediterranean people, give little gifts of sugared almonds to all their friends when celebrating the key events in their lives. If they are fancily wrapped sugared almonds, they are called confetti. If the almonds also have a gift attached, the whole thing is called a bomboniera. Sicilians take this art form…
Category: Art & fashion
Sicilian artists and fashion designers
What have the Africans done for Sicily?
Africans are so often portrayed as the underdogs, nowadays, that we sometimes forget they conquered southern Europe twice and ruled it for centuries. The Sicilians don’t forget, though, for the Africans invented pasta as we know it, shaped their language and gave them the word Mafia, and brought them their citrus fruit trees, taught them…
Sicilian Electrical Wiring and other Health and Safety Issues
I’ve been meaning to write about Sicilian electricians for a while. I needed to accumulate a good set of photos, though, as pictures speak louder than words. Sometimes, in fact, they scream while shuddering all over, with their hair standing up on end, fizzing with 240 volts. While I was taking this photo, the resident of…
The Black Madonna of Tindari
Yesterday we went to Tindari in Eastern Sicily, famous for its statue of a black Madonna with a black baby Jesus. Like most of the “black Madonna” statues from places where the majority of the population is white, she is carved out of wood, and so was originally light-skinned. Wood darkens over time so, eventually,…
Is this Racist?
I discovered recently that Dolce & Gabbana have created their Summer 2013 women’s fashion collection with an exuberantly Sicilian theme. It has also come to my attention that American and English journalists are calling it “racist”. Is it racist? Let’s have a look at it first, so we know what we’re talking about. Here’s a dress: The…
The Arabic Cathedral of Monreale
Just outside Palermo, in the charming little town of Monreale, lies possibly the most beautiful – and certainly the most exotic – cathedral in Europe. Monreale Cathedral was built by King William II of Sicily in 1174. The architecture is Moorish Arabic, the interior is late Byzantine, and the layout is a fusion of Catholic…
The Villa of the Monsters in Bagheria
We have a very bizarre tourist attraction in our town. Villa Palagonia has been nicknamed the Villa of the Monsters locally for centuries. It is absolutely crammed with caricature stone sculptures of bizarre creatures, deformed little men, goblins, and ugly hybrid “manimals”. It was visited in the 18th century by multi-talented German writer, politician, lawyer and…
The Dangerously Truthful Diary of a Sicilian Housewife 