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.