In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies 10 – The Big Finish

©Nigel Summerley

 

There was just one thing I intended not to miss on the road trip across Sicily: a night out at the Teatro Greco in Syracuse.

Happily, journey's end coincided with the last days of this year's festival of ancient drama and the chance to see an epic performance of Fedra – based on a Greek play by Euripides, but here delivered in full-blown Italian.

The amphitheatre has been on this spot for around 2,500 years, and the likes of Euripides and Aeschylus originally had their plays performed here way back. 

The place can seat about 15,000 and was getting pretty full by the time the show started.

It was not a comfortable evening – either for bottoms, squashed onto the hard terraces, or for the emotions, since, as is the way with classic tragedies, there weren't too many of the main characters left standing by the end.

What would Euripides have made of the rock stadium lighting, spooky special effects and over-the-top staging? He probably would have loved it all... The 21st-century crowd, including me, certainly did. 

©Nigel Summerley

©Nigel Summerley

©Nigel Summerley

In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies 9 –Strings Attached

 

Museo dei Pupi  ©Nigel Summerley

Ortigia, the old heart of Syracuse, is joined to the mainland city by bridges and maintains its own ecccentric identity. 

Among its many attractions are the Museo dei Pupi (Puppet Museum), a tribute to the fact that puppetry has ancient historical roots here.

The museum and its motionless inhabitants seem to be tinged with a certain melancholy, not least in the case of a boy with an unusually long and pointy nose – in fact, a puppet of a puppet.

Yes, this is Pinocchio, the wooden toy who, in Carlo Collodi's classic story, wanted to be a real boy.

The puppeteering Vaccaro brothers, Saro and Alfredo, also had a dream, back in the middle of the 20th century, to stage their own version of Pinocchio. Saro made the puppets and Alfredo was the script man.

With the growing popularity of the Disney movie of the same name, they thought their luck was in – but of course, it wasn't. They devised their performance around using the music soundtrack from the movie to enhance their show, but they were soon made aware that they would have to pay royalties. They couldn't afford either the royalties or possible legal action, and in the end that brought the curtain down on their Pinocchio.

As an explanatory note in the museum next to the Vaccaros' original aged puppets preserved here explains: "Pinocchio together with his friends were unused. Little by little, their colours and smiles vanished, covered under a veil of dust."

Pinocchio and friends  ©Nigel Summerley

In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies 8 – Falcone and Borsellino

As true fans of Inspector Montalbano [see previous post] will know, there is a strong link between his career and the assassination of magistrate Giovanni Falcone. If you don't know it, you need to check out the equally excellent prequel series, Young Montalbano.

Falcone – like Montalbano to a degree – rubbed up against the Mafia but in a much more intense and dangerous way in the all too real world. His campaign to bring the godfathers and mobsters to justice led inevitably to his being blown away in an horrendous bombing near Palermo.

A similar fate soon overtook his fellow magistrate and friend Paolo Borsellino in the city itself.

The gruesome deaths of Falcone and Borsellino seemed to help Sicily turn a corner and to start standing up to the Mafia. 

And today the two men are commemorated as martyrs to their cause.

It seemed important to visit the tomb of Falcone in Palermo's San Domenico church – even though the awful truth is that there was nothing left of him to bury.

Falcone's tomb  ©Nigel Summerley

A lovely image of him and Borsellino decorates a tall building near the Palermo waterfront: two smiling men united in fighting a war that they well knew would most likely lead to their deaths.

Heroes are so often in short supply... but that is what these men were.

Immortalised: Falcone and Borsellino  ©Nigel Summerley

In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies 7 – Montalbano's Manor

©Nigel Summerley

The finest TV cop series? For me it has to be Inspector Montalbano. And if you have ever watched and enjoyed it, you will know there are myriad reasons why it's the very best.

The star of the show, however, could reasonably be said to be... Sicily.

Apart from the storylines, the characters, the acting, the humour, the darkness and the frailty of human beings, there is this amazing land, filmed with love and high drama.

It's no wonder that fans are drawn to visit the series' locations... and I readily confess that I was too.

I first saw the town hall in the bustling town of Scicli (aka Vigata police HQ) in the early evening, when it was surrounded by so many people that I couldn't even begin to get close or take a picture.

So next morning I was up extremely early to have the place to myself... except for one other man loitering in the shadows. As I began taking pictures of "Montalbano's police station", the Italian man emerged (shaven-headed, shades, smart clothes) and asked if I would take a picture of him on his phone.

'Of course," I said. "Where?"

He might have looked like Montalbano but he seemed shy.

"Here is fine," he said, remaining seated under a tree.

I took the picture and then he cut to the chase.

"One more here," he said, moving swiftly to the front of the imposing building.

"Ah! Montalbano!" I said.

He nodded.

I took the perfect shot of him looking like the legendary inspector outside the legendary building.

And then, when he had gone, I confess I took a selfie in exactly the same place – and for pretty much the same reason.

I didn't look as cool as the Italian guy I had photographed. But it felt pretty good to be here on this almost hallowed ground.

©Nigel Summerley

In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies 6 – With A Gong In My Heart

 

If Piana degli Albanesi is a world within a world in Sicily [see previous post], then the Adler Spa near Agrigento is yet another – but a very different one.

Pull off the dusty south coast highway and within a few minutes you are in a green and manicured enclave, where healthy, wealthy couples stroll to and fro in beige robes – like members of some exclusive cult, which perhaps in a way they are.

Highlights of a brief stay here included swimming in the cold water pool – least popular of the three on site – and being invited to a gong bath, the latter being a surprisingly stimulating experience.

Once we were all comfortably settled on rows of loungers, our gong hostess, Angela, asked us to close our eyes and then began.

First came the soothing sound of a rain shaker but we fairly swiftly moved on to the big stuff. A crescendo of gong strokes sent wave after wave of good (and powerful) vibrations right through every part of the body. All accurate sense of time was lost but the session seemed to go on and on – in a most welcome way. It was utterly relaxing yet totally invigorating.

The Adler Spa has such an "international" feel that you could really be anywhere – the staff tend to speak Americanese rather than Italian. But if you need the real Sicily, it's still there on the doorstep...

www.adler-sicilia.com

In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies 5 – It's Italy, But Not As We Know It

 

© Nigel Summerley

Imagine being able to walk through a door in Italy and find yourself in Greece... For me, a lover of both, it sounds like a win-win.

And it's possible to do it (sort of) in the northern Sicilian town of Piana degli Albanesi.

Enter the church of San Giorgio and you are confronted with the starkly beautiful frescos (pictured above) and icons (below) of the Orthodox church, a world away from the often over-the-top decor of Italian Catholicism.

The reason for this anomaly is that Albanian refugees from the Ottoman Empire settled in this area from the 15th century onwards, bringing with them and preserving the Byzantine rites.

Because of this, the settlement was long known as Piana dei Greci, the name only being changed to Piana degli Albanesi in 1941 by Mussolini.

The Albanesi kept not only their religious practices but also their customs and language – which all help make the town a rare and fascinating experience. It's half an hour's drive south of Palermo but very much set in another time and place.

© Nigel Summerley

In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies 4 – Market Forces

©Nigel Summerley

Palermo's La Vucciria market has changed a lot since Renato Guttuso painted his genuinely iconic picture of it [see this blog – An Odyssey in the Second Year of the Plague – Midnight in Sicily, 7 March 2021].

That image – probably not Guttuso's best but certainly his best known – crops up all over Vucciria. 

Everywhere you go, you will get a different story about the painting and what it represents. According to some, the artist put himself in it – some say as a young man, some say as an old man. They also say he included images of his wife and his mistress. But no one seems to know for sure whom those enigmatic figures represent...

The original is there for you to contemplate and draw your own conclusions at the Palazzo Chiaramonte, aka the Steri.

What is not in doubt is that Guttuso depicted a stunning cornucopia of foodstuffs for sale. But today the market has become a tourist magnet, with T-shirts, souvenirs and handbags taking the place of fish, fruit and vegetables.

And if you walk through the area at night, you will find yet another Vucciria: a dark, pulsating party alive with dancing, music, drinking and human noise, as if the place has entered another, wilder universe.

If Guttuso were to paint this contemporary nocturnal Vucciria, it would be very, very different from his original – but definitely just as sensual.

In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies 3 – Bella... Bellissima

©Nigel Summerley

There seems to be something particularly grand about grandeur when it's a little faded, a little eccentric.

Hence, the appeal of La Bella Palermo, a palazzo property in Sicily's capital doubling as both a holiday let and a kind of living museum.

The place is lovingly curated by Francesco Cazzaniga, nephew of the owner – who is a collector of objets d'art both weird and wonderful.

With its five bedrooms and vast living areas, La Bella Palermo can be rented only by large families or groups – or couples or individuals who have a lot of money and want some palatial space to themselves.

Every day and night staying here offers up new discoveries. The rooms are so packed with paintings, books and upmarket bric-a brac, that there really never is a dull moment.

And apart from pretending that you're in The Leopard [see this blog – An Odyssey in the Second Year of the Plague – The Leopard, 15 March 2021], you are right in the beating heart of Palermo, a few paces from seductive little streets and the Vucciria market [see this blog – An Odyssey in the Second Year of the Plague – Midnight in Sicily, 7 March 2021].

La Bella Palermo is part of the Palazzo Pantelleria; originally a 14th-century fort, it was transformed into a palace in the 16th century.

More information: https://www.labellapalermo.com/

©Nigel Summerley

©Nigel Summerley

In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies 2 – The Height Of Good Taste

©Nigel Summerley

One of Palermo's gastronomic high spots – and it has many – is the DoBa restaurant, named after its founder and food maestro Domenico Basile.

OK, it's pricey. OK, it has a tendency to serve what long ago used to be nouvelle – ie, plates with not a lot to eat on them. But what you do get is of the highest quality and surprisingly (to me, someone who enjoys a full meal) satisfying.

However, apart from the incredibly attentive Domenico himself, DoBa serves up one unbeatable thing... the view from its rooftop terrace down over the Piazza Giuseppe Verdi to the Teatro Massimo opera house.

With that dramatic sight to take in, you would probably be happy to have a glass of house red and a packet of crisps.

So, yes, go to DoBa by all means, but insist on a table at the top of the building. Otherwise you're going to be starved of the ultimate dining pleasure.

https://www.dobarestaurant.it/

The Teatro Massimo seen from the DoBa rooftop                                                 ©Nigel Summerley

In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies 1 – Dead Heat

 

This blog has covered Naples extensively – in the two series See Naples and Live and See Naples and Live More – but it hasn't touched on the fact that for the first six decades of the 19th century the city was the capital of what was known as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

The two Sicilies – the whole of southern Italy and the island of Sicily – constituted a kingdom under the rule of the Spanish Bourbon royal family until the unification of Italy.

That unification was a forced marriage of northern Italy and the south which remains a strained relationship even today.

The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies – the south and Sicily – still feels like a different country to that of Rome and Milan.

After spending time in Naples, one can't help finding Palermo to be something of a tribute act to that greater city. Palermo has the churches, the art, the markets, the food, the narrow back alleys, the history of mafia wars and bodies in the streets, and the juxtapositions of light and dark, of life and death... but somehow it doesn't come close to the edginess and perversity of Naples.

However, there's one Napolitan-style aspect in which Palermo can chalk up at least a draw: Naples has catacombs and cadavers aplenty (see this blog See Naples and Live) but the catacombs of the Capuchins in Palermo are a genuinely stunning near-death experience for the visitor.

It all started with the Capuchin monks preserving their fellows' bodies, but in the 19th century it became a fashionable thing to do to have you and your family put on show rather than buried.

Hundreds and hundreds of skeletons hang here in row upon row, many still dressed in their best clothes. In some cases, the clothes have worn much better than their occupants – the material of a dress still has its colour, the fabric still holds together...

The inescapable message is that death comes for all of us... it's the ultimate levelling up. Or maybe that should be levelling down.

They are all here: men, women, old, young... little toddlers in their toddler clothes. Nameless but every one the remainder of a life just like yours or mine or Biden's or Trump's...

Many were plague victims, so sometimes you will be confronted by whole families of skeletons with father, mother and children – all dressed for life but now long dead.

It's unmissable and only €5 to enter. Although I'm not sure what to think about the fact it's free for under-sixes. We all need to face up to death – but maybe that's just a tad too early to be forced to do it?

The Circle Of Non-Life

 

Image courtesy of Zoha Noor

I've just been editing an article to go up on a website that I work for. It didn't seem to be quite in the writer's usual style and was sprinkled with American spellings.

"Did you write this?" I asked her.

The answer was that because she had been unable to do the interview direct, she had sent the interviewee a list of questions and he had then sent back the answers "but he had put them through some sort of AI".

That explained why something felt not right to me. This man's words were somehow spirited but simultaneously seemed to lack any real spirit. I got rid of the verbiage and unnecessary adjectives and, hopefully, made the whole thing read better.

Coincidentally, I've recently noticed that this blog has had some huge spikes in readership: hundreds upon hundreds of views have been recorded in Hong Kong, Singapore and China. As it seemed unlikely that I suddenly had a huge following in the Far East, I checked with a tech-savvy human who informed me that they were all probably bots – looking for material that they could plagiarise.

Is this the way the world ends? Not Terminator-style, but with AI robots reading endless material written by AI robots?

See Naples and Live... More – 10: Life and Death – On Stage and Off

 

   Photo©Nigel Summerley

A major claim to fame of Naples' splendid opera house, the Teatro San Carlo, is that it burnt down in 1816 and was rebuilt even more splendidly within ten months. It is also reckoned to be the finest opera house in Italy... so let's say the world.

Initially I'd thought of just visiting the building to see its marvellous interior – which one can do. But when I found that Madama Butterfly was being staged, I booked tickets and had the view from a box seen here.

Like Puccini's opera, it was a bitter-sweet experience. Just as the lights were going down and the curtain was about to go up, I saw, as I was silencing my phone, a text from a musician friend telling me that my musical mentor and drumming legend, John Marshall, had just died.

Although the news was not totally unexpected, it was a tearful moment and I felt a kind of guilt for being here in this dream setting. But in an instant I could hear John's voice telling me: "Just enjoy the music – it's the best thing there is."

And it was. 

An incredibly moving night that brought the curtain down on yet another life-packed visit to Napoli...

   Photo©Nigel Summerley

See Naples and Live... More – 9: The Vast Picture Show

Now you see it...   Photo©Nigel Summerley

The church of San Giorgio Maggiore in the heart of old Naples has a bizarre two-for-one offer. If you venture into the area behind the altar, there is, not surprisingly, a huge but fairly gloomy painting depicting St George.

However, if you wait until a small crowd gathers, one of the church's staff will appear and perform a minor miracle, pulling back this picture by means of a giant handle to reveal... another depiction of St George. But this one is a bright and vibrant fresco by the 17th-century Neapolitan master Aniello Falcone.

As with many things in Naples, there is a strange and almost impenetrable explanation for this curiosity. Falcone is said to have executed the fresco in the 1640s when the church was being rebuilt after a fire. The building work didn't actually get finished until the 18th century (a long delay even by builders' standards), by which time the fresco seems to have been covered over and the enormous painting of St George by Alessio D'Elia was put in place. It wasn't until the 1990s that the Falcone was discovered – during yet more building work.

Why the Falcone was forgotten about for 300 years remains a mystery – as does who came up with the idea of having two paintings occupying the same wall space, thus requiring someone to operate a very long pole to make them both visible.

The one certainty is that this oddity brings a constant flow of visitors to the church of San Giorgio Maggiore.

Photo©Nigel Summerley

See Naples and Live... More – 8: Dark Castle

Grim is probably the best word to describe La Vicaria. It certainly has a grim past... and, as I found, a grim present too.

Just a few minutes's walk from my apartment in Forcella, the Vicaria – officially known as the Castel Capuano – has played a major role in the history of Naples.

Originally a Norman castle, it was used as the Court of Justice from the 16th century until the end of the 20th. Long after medieval times, "justice" at the Vicaria included the accused being locked up and tortured prior to their trial... and then afterwards imprisoned in the basement cells there (if they were allowed to live),

Its more than solid walls reinforce the feeling that this is still not a place one would want to be inside.

After pausing to puzzle over its ornamented facade (where the arms of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V are still visible), I turned a corner to walk along the building's perimeter and saw in the distance at the next corner a furtive-looking man talking to a woman sitting by a line of rubbish bins.

As I continued, the man melted into the shadows of the Vicaria and disappeared.

I suppose that I shouldn't have been shocked when I drew level with the woman, but I was... She was slumped by the bins, emptying a needle into one of her slender, bare arms. She was young, still beautiful, well-dressed... but also looked ravaged and unaware of her surroundings.

The scene had a midnight feel to it... but this was midday. And this was a tableau of the darker side of Naples...

See Naples and Live... More – 7: The Great Lake

Lakeside walk at Avernus   Photo©Nigel Summerley

I am drawn to revisiting Lake Avernus almost as much as I am to returning to Naples.

I'm already beginning to lose count of the number of times I've done the great circular lakeside walk – around this body of water to the west of the city calmly filling an ancient volcanic caldera.

When I was here three years ago I wrote about meeting my mother's ghost as I sat down on a bench overlooking the water (see this blog 28 November 2020, An Odyssey in the Year of the Plague – 10: 8-14 September 2020). On reflection, it seemed a quite normal encounter, bearing in mind that this was the place where Odysseus entered the Underworld and did the same thing.

Whether my experience was real or imagined, it had lasting impact on me. So when I walked by that same bench in 2023, I was saddened to see that it had literally fallen to pieces. No one – human or ghostly – would be sitting on it for a while.

The broken bench   Photo©Nigel Summerley

But even this sorry sight brought to mind my late mother once more. For I remembered a while after my walk that when a bench near her home had fallen into disrepair and been removed, she campaigned to have a new one put in its place.

Some of her neighbours were not in favour of the replacement – one didn't know who might come along and sit on it, they argued.  My mum, though, had seen elderly people using the old bench as a place to stop and rest when they were halfway home from the local shops. She saw it as a social necessity – and she succeeded in getting the council to install a new one.

I wonder if her spirit will somehow bring about the appearance of a new bench by the side of Lake Avernus, entrance to the Underworld.

From this distance I can only hope so... but I am looking forward to my next visit to find out.

The water is wide   Photo©Nigel Summerley