I am selling fifteen copies of the original Mattanza book. The second copy is on sale now at ebay. Click on the link at right to go to it.
Sicily
Rai 1 channel special on Palermo
January 7, 2017
A beautiful video on the core beauties of Palermo. First broadcast 31 December 2016, You can enjoy the images even if you do not understand Italian. Click on the caption to see the show.
Prison wall art at Palermo's Inquisition jail
August 8, 2016
I have toured this place a couple of times. It is incredible.
From the Guardian:
By age 20 Francesco Mannarino had seen more of life than was good for him. The son of a Sicilian fisherman, he had been seized as a boy by Muslim pirates and converted, perhaps forcibly, to Islam.
In the early 17th century apostasy was not an offence so long as the convert reported promptly to the officials of the dreaded Inquisition after being ransomed or recaptured. Mannarino did so, but something must have failed to convince them he was still truly a Christian and he was thrown into the dungeons alongside Palazzo Steri in Palermo. Read More
From the Guardian:
By age 20 Francesco Mannarino had seen more of life than was good for him. The son of a Sicilian fisherman, he had been seized as a boy by Muslim pirates and converted, perhaps forcibly, to Islam.
In the early 17th century apostasy was not an offence so long as the convert reported promptly to the officials of the dreaded Inquisition after being ransomed or recaptured. Mannarino did so, but something must have failed to convince them he was still truly a Christian and he was thrown into the dungeons alongside Palazzo Steri in Palermo. Read More
Sicily show at the British Museum
April 25, 2016
A great review in the The Guardian of the British Museum's show, Sicily: Culture and Conquest.
Palermo of a thousand cultures
February 17, 2016
From Linea Verde Orizzonti (Green Line Horizons) , a presentation of RAI -tv, a fifty-minute show in Italian highlighting the mixture of cultures that made and makes Palermo what it is. Here is the link in case the embed code did not work:
http://www.rai.tv/dl/RaiTV/programmi/media/ContentItem-2131e4ab-219a-465a-b12d-45c3404dc6a5.html#p=0 Read More
Sicily: Culture and Conquest to be at British Museum
January 29, 2016
From The Guardian:
"In 1066 the Normans were not just conquering grey, cold England. They were also in sunny, fertile Sicily creating what became one of the most enlightened cultures in Europe.
The little known story of the other Norman conquest is to be told in an exhibition exploring 4,000 years of history on the island Read More
"In 1066 the Normans were not just conquering grey, cold England. They were also in sunny, fertile Sicily creating what became one of the most enlightened cultures in Europe.
The little known story of the other Norman conquest is to be told in an exhibition exploring 4,000 years of history on the island Read More
Palermo has the largest Ficus macrophylla on the continent
October 22, 2015
Here it is: Ficus macrophylla at Garibaldi Park at Piazza Marina, near the sea
Its siblings in the Orto Botanico (Botanic Garden) are rivals for the title of largest Ficus macrophylla in Europe. I love their aerial roots, majestic girth and shade.
Last Day in Palermo
April 30, 2014
Piergiorgio Leone at the Grotta Perciata, Mondello
And I spent the morning in Mondello and Sferracavallo, by the sea. In Sferracavallo to see a complete, intact, protohistoric Bronze Age megalithic village, and in Mondello on the slopes of Monte Gallo to visit a panoramic, historic garden planted in the early 1900's, with archeological treasures from 10,000 years ago. Read More