{"id":642,"date":"2013-06-20T15:42:57","date_gmt":"2013-06-20T15:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.barbarasudano.net\/web\/?p=642"},"modified":"2013-06-20T15:45:46","modified_gmt":"2013-06-20T15:45:46","slug":"on-a-road-trip-in-sicily-churches-everywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.barbarasudano.net\/web\/en\/on-a-road-trip-in-sicily-churches-everywhere\/","title":{"rendered":"On a Road Trip in Sicily, Churches Everywhere"},"content":{"rendered":"

( The New York Times – 2013 –\u00a0Celestine Bohlen<\/a> )<\/em><\/p>\n

It happened each time we drove into one of southeastern Sicily\u2019s hill towns. It could be a village or a big town, run-down or fixed-up, but as we drove uphill toward the historic center, the vision ahead was always roughly the same: a stunning Baroque church, honey-colored or pale white, decorated with columns or curves, angels or Cupids, shells or leaves, urns or shields, sometimes all of the above. A bell tower might be missing or there might be grass growing between the paving stones, but each of those churches exemplified what unfolds all across this corner of Sicily: an exuberant style that played itself out on facades of churches and palazzi in the wake of a devastating earthquake in 1693.<\/p>\n

Late Sicilian Baroque was a defiant answer to nature\u2019s wrath, an ambitious affirmation of wealth and faith, delivered by an all-powerful local aristocracy. \u201cIn Rome, the Baroque was all about the power of the church,\u201d said Nuccio Iacono, a local historian, whom I met for a drink on a February evening in Ragusa Ibla, the old center of Ragusa, near one of the region\u2019s masterpieces, the sumptuous three-tiered Cathedral of St. George, whose construction began in 1738 according to a design by the noted architect Rosario Gagliardi. \u201cHere it is about rebirth.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was my fourth visit to the region. I first discovered the town of Noto, 31 miles from Ragusa Ibla, in the 1980s, when its gorgeous tawny churches and palazzi were crumbling, mostly from neglect. I came back a decade later as a reporter to write an article about the partial collapse in 1996 of Noto\u2019s Cathedral of St. Nicholas, a man-made disaster blamed on the knuckle-headed idea of constructing a concrete roof over the nave.<\/p>\n

By the time I returned for a third visit, in 2011, another rebirth was under way: the Noto cathedral, and much of the town\u2019s central district, had been restored. The same was true of many of the churches and palazzi in Ragusa Ibla, and on the narrow streets and seafront facades on Syracuse\u2019s Ortygia Peninsula, two other jewels of Sicilian Baroque.<\/p>\n

Once the domain of old men and cats, squalor and low-level crime, these towns are now bursting with hotels and restaurants. Between visiting architectural gems you can sample the delicious gelato and granita, the Sicilian water-based ice specialty, of which arguably the best can be found at Gelati DiVini in Ragusa Ibla and at Caff\u00e8 Sicilia in Noto.<\/p>\n

During my 2011 visit to Palazzolo Acreide, a small town with a population of about 9,000, I wandered away from the main piazza, past the ethnographic Museum of Antonino Ucelli, which concentrates on Sicilian peasant traditions, and happened upon an intriguing sign for another museum: the brand-new Museum of Noble Traditions.<\/p>\n

The sign said the museum was open but it was not, a familiar Italian paradox. So I went around the corner, where I found Titti Zabert Colombo, busying herself in the gift shop. It turned out she was the person single-handedly responsible for restoring the ruins of the former Palazzo Rizzarelli Spadaro, which once belonged to the illustrious Ruffo di Calabria family, and turning it into the completely restored, bright-blue museum.<\/p>\n

Signora Zabert, at 71 years old, is a diminutive dynamo, a transplant from northern Italy who has dedicated her life to turning Palazzolo Acreide into a living laboratory of cultural tourism. Her goal is not just the restoration of old buildings \u2014 which, besides the Palazzo Rizzarelli Spadaro, include several private houses on a main piazza \u2014 but the encouragement of cultural activities and the attraction of foreign investment. \u201cSicily doesn\u2019t have natural resources, it has culture,\u201d she said to me more than once.<\/p>\n

On that first meeting, we walked through the town, where she pointed out the 18th-century Palazzo di Politi, which she wants to turn into a retreat for Nobel Prize winners, and a cluster of medieval houses, nestled on the site of a long-gone castle, with stunning views of the valley, which she hopes to sell to cultured Italians and foreigners. \u201cThere are so many possibilities,\u201d she kept telling me. \u201c\u00c8 giusto? Is it true?\u201d<\/p>\n

Intrigued by Signora Zabert \u2014 or Titti, as she insisted I call her \u2014 I returned the next winter, after persuading her to give me a tour of what she calls \u201cSicilia minore,\u201d or the region\u2019s lesser-known towns. So on a windy night, there I was, back in Palazzolo, where Titti introduced me to a group of friends over a delicious dinner at Lo Scrigno dei Sapori, one of her favorite restaurants. Among the guests were Carlo Scibetta, the mayor of Palazzolo; a father-son team of architects; an English couple who had bought a house in town; and a rare-book expert from the nearby city of Syracuse and his professor wife.<\/p>\n

We started with a feast of local specialties \u2014 from baked ricotta with wild fennel and thistle to marmalades made from onions, wild pears and Sicilian blood oranges; arancini (rice balls coated with bread crumbs); a selection of fish antipasti; various pasta dishes and \u2014 the pi\u00e8ce de r\u00e9sistance \u2014 a local sausage that was the culinary star of the town\u2019s carnival festivities, just then winding down in the main piazza.<\/p>\n

Mayor Scibetta is justly proud of Palazzolo\u2019s festivals: the highlight is the feast of San Paolo in late June, when the town is festooned with confetti, known as nzaredde, which are shot into the air like fireworks. Mayor Scibetta said the work that goes into creating and carrying the floats keeps the young people of Palazzolo busy at a time when youth unemployment is around 50 percent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need projects that make the most of what we have,\u201d Mayor Scibetta said. \u201cBut it should be done with the involvement of the community. Otherwise, the people won\u2019t have a stake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like so much of Sicily, Palazzolo has benefited from a cultural pile-on. The Greeks left behind a magnificent theater on the top of one hill, known as Akrai; the Normans bequeathed a medieval castle, now in ruins; the late 19th century put a touch of Art Nouveau (known as Liberty in Italy) to the monuments in the cemetery. Outside of town, along the Anapo River, are tombs left behind by an ancient people known as the Siculi; clusters of more than 5,000 tombs can be visited at the nearby Pantalica Necropolis.<\/p>\n

The next day, Titti and I set off on a daylong exploration of the region. As we drove, the landscape seemed to change with every curve in the road (in one place, a piece of the road had actually disappeared, washed away by heavy rains the week before).<\/p>\n

We dipped down into stark rock-faced valleys that looked like Afghanistan, and then climbed back up toward rolling countryside that looked like England, with fields divided by low stone walls. It wasn\u2019t yet spring, but in places it was already green, spotted with the faint pink of early almond flowers, and gray-green of the olive trees.<\/p>\n

Buscemi, a tiny town of 1,100 people, was our first stop and, sure enough, we quickly came across a Baroque church \u2014 San Antonio di Padua, which, as Baroque churches go, was relatively discreet, with a three-bell belfry on top that looks like a hat. But there were more ahead, including the imposing Mother Church, or Chiesa Madre. We stopped at the church of San Giacomo. There Titti bounded up a side staircase to take in the view of the Anapo Valley below.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe spectacle is best from up here,\u201d she proclaimed, and she was right: the view was gorgeous.<\/p>\n

Mr. Iacono, the historian, later picked up on the same theatrical theme. \u201cSicilian Baroque is really a set design,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s all on the outside \u2014 the light and the shadows, the beautiful and the ugly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another town on our route was Ferla, with not one but four magnificent churches posted along the main street, like sentinels. One was San Antonio Abate, with its unusual concave exterior, a missing belfry and raggedy courtyard.<\/p>\n

In the countryside, we stopped by various agriturismos, essentially rural B & Bs. They are usually inexpensive, and offer dinner, with locally made wine, olive oils and cheeses. My favorite was Anapama, a small, elegant B & B at the bottom of a steep road in the valley below Palazzolo, with three bedrooms decorated in Indian textiles and rugs from the Caucasus, a swimming pool and breakfast tables beneath persimmon trees.<\/p>\n

The next day, I met up with a friend from Rome, Elisabetta Povoledo, the International Herald Tribune\u2019s Italy correspondent, and headed to Caltagirone, a town of 39,000, perhaps best known not for its 28 churches, but for its yellow and blue ceramics, sold in dozens of stores and on display on the 142 steps of the Scalinata di Santa Maria. It is one of eight Baroque towns in the region \u2014 together with Noto, Palazzolo Acreide, Ragusa and Scicli \u2014 added to the Unesco list of World Heritage sites in 2002.<\/p>\n

We then turned south, to Scicli (pronounced as cheeklee), described by the British art historian Anthony Blunt as \u201cBaroque preserved in aspic.\u201d A prime example is the Palazzo Beneventano, festooned with grotesque faces, some scowling, some howling.<\/p>\n

It was Sunday, which meant that the great church of Sant\u2019 Ignazio was open, and we could catch a glimpse of the extraordinary Madonna of the Militia, whose miraculous appearance in 1091 is said to have saved local Normans from an attack by invading Moors.<\/p>\n

A life-size statue of this warrior virgin, decked in armor, with locks of black hair, sits high upon a rearing horse, brandishing a sword. Under the horse\u2019s feet are the figures of two writhing Moors, undoubtedly an uncomfortable sight for visiting North Africans.<\/p>\n

For our last stop, we took a detour away from the Baroque, to Donnafugata, an eclectic, overwhelmingly 19th-century castle, with a view of the Mediterranean from its mock-Venetian terrace. This was once the domain of Baron Corrado Arezzo, heir of an old Ragusa family, who was so powerful that he redirected the local railroad so that the trains stopped at the gates of his estate.<\/p>\n

Here, for 8 euros, about $10, you can get a glimpse of the faded glory of the once mighty Sicilian aristocracy. Now the property of the local government, Donnafugata, with its peeling wallpaper and frayed rugs, is a nostalgic reminder of a society that once valued power and beauty in equal measure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

( The New York Times – 2013 –\u00a0Celestine Bohlen ) It happened each time we drove into one …Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":646,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[28],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.barbarasudano.net\/web\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.barbarasudano.net\/web\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.barbarasudano.net\/web\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.barbarasudano.net\/web\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.barbarasudano.net\/web\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.barbarasudano.net\/web\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":653,"href":"https:\/\/www.barbarasudano.net\/web\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642\/revisions\/653"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.barbarasudano.net\/web\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.barbarasudano.net\/web\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.barbarasudano.net\/web\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.barbarasudano.net\/web\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}