For the last post, I share a photo of the epitome of Sicilian picturesque: Mount Etna. I’ve always found irritating people who talk about skiing in the morning and then going to the beach in the afternoon, but we more or less did that on our last day on the island (although we saw snow and a beach but didn’t do either activity).

Etna is important because discussing its untamed, indomitable character often serves as a stand-in for the crazy, passionate Sicilians.

Growing up, I was always fascinated by Greek mythology and the Rick Riordan books, which locate these myths in the U.S. One thing I’d never considered, though, was that these stories had to be located in sites of the ancient world as well.

While visiting Siracusa, Professor Boyd pointed out this fountain of Arethusa. Arethusa was a nymph who was pursued by the river god Alpheus and ended up in Sicily from Greece, taking refuge in this fountain.

While Demeter was searching for her daughter Persephone, who’d been taken by Hades to the Underworld, she finds Arethusa in this fountain who gives her critical information to help her find her lost daughter.

I talked with Professor Boyd afterwards, and she said that sites of mythology have been tourist attractions for ages. Many places claim to be entrances to the Underworld or battle sites. This fountain didn’t draw too many visitors, but it’s cool to think that a river nymph might be hiding somewhere inside.

 

Another face of Sicily that doesn’t get discussed in the vision of the picturesque is the island’s baroque side. Among the many rulers of the island are the Spanish who brought with them baroque design and aesthetics.

Modica was one of my favorite places we visited on the island. Visitors are greeted by a wall of stairs and are encouraged to taste the famous chocolate, made without any additives. As a traveler, Modica is enjoyable, and it made me wonder why 1800s travel magazines, like Cosmorama pittorico, that I looked at in my independent study never talked about it. Then again, I remembered that of the ten depictions of southern Italy in one year, they all show only scenes of nature and the landscape. Talking about a place like Modica would acknowledge civilization.

The next day, we continued following writers through Italy. After visiting downtown Porto Empedocle to see traces of Montalbano and Camellieri, we drove to Agrigento to see Pirandello’s house. I loved looking at handwritten drafts of his writing and noting where he had edited the works we know today.

One particularly good story, though, was that of his burial. Yet again, Italy makes a spectacle of itself and visitors get to enjoy its comical inefficacy. Pirandello had expressly written that he wished to have his body burned and his ashes scattered with no public funeral. The Sicilian writer died in Rome during Mussolini’s rule, and the fascist dictator capitalized on the opportunity to make a spectacle of this adored writer, giving him an elaborate funeral and burying his body in Rome.

Shortly after, his family pushed to have his ashes moved back to Sicily. Some American pilots agreed to fly them down in a helicopter and brought some Sicilians who needed to get back home along with them. Once the Sicilians found out about the contents of the mysterious box, containing Pirandello’s ashes in a Greek vase, they all asked to be let off because superstition told them it would be bad luck. Consequently, the pilots refused to fly the ashes back.

Next, someone took the ashes back by train, but he fell asleep, and a group of people took the box and used it to play cards. In any case, the ashes finally made it back to Agrigento and there was a small, local funeral and his ashes were buried (though there were complications with using the Greek vase as the priest wouldn’t bless it and it didn’t fit in the memorial). The story continues with a third funeral once his monument is finished fifteen years later, and ultimately the ashes of seven others are found inside of the vase and they’re finally scattered as he wished.

Literary parks are a peculiar Italian institution. While some places capitalize on writer sites for tourism (like Sherlock Holme’s fictitious home in London or Mark Twain’s in Hartford), Italy has created a series of parks that honor its literary tradition, and many of these abound in Sicily.

Racalmuto, a small town further inland, is home to the important writer Leonardo Sciascia. Signs indicate places important to Sciascia, and his statue can be found in the town center (a man who works at a nearby museum assured us that the statue’s small stature is that of Sciascia: he used to see the writer walking around town but informed us that he was much, much fatter than the statue). We passed by the Circoli, a sort of social club meets workers union, and his home. We walked the streets of the town that inspired Regalpetra.

What was striking to me was the complete absence of tourists. An Italian man walked by with his son and said, “Look. Tourists.” They half-walked away and half-stared at us, a spectacle in their small town. Though this is anecdotal and might just be special to the day that we visited, what I gathered is that people aren’t interested in visiting Sicily for its rich literary tradition. Instead, there’s a distinct tourist route of ruins, temples, a couple big cities, beaches, and baroque cities.