What are the Sicilian Literary Parks?

Literary Park named after Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Literary Park named after Luigi Pirandello

Leonardo Sciascia Literary Park

Literary Park named after Salvatore Quasimodo

A Literary Park named after Giovanni Verga

The Elio Vittorini Literary Park

The Literary Park named after Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

It stretches over a vast area of western Sicily: from Palermo, passing through the Santa Margherita area, to Palma di Montechiaro and embraces all the places linked to the writer’s family and childhood. Palermo, for example, is the setting of the famous book ‘The Leopard’ and the place of residence of the Tomasi family.

The park named after Luigi Pirandello

It focuses mainly on his house-museum in Contrada Caos, in the Agrigento area. The area extends as far as the maritime area of Porto Empedocle – a crucial place for the young Pirandello where his father’s warehouses were located – and the surrounding areas, rich in sulphur mines, a symbol of a popular world now lost but which strongly influenced the author.

The Leonardo Sciascia Literary Park

The area covered by this park is also vast: here a single route brings together the areas of the sulphur mines in western Sicily with places that have become famous for mafia-related news stories. The focal points are Regalpietra, the town born from the author’s imagination, Recalmuto, the writer’s birthplace, and Caltanissetta, where Sciascia was educated and spent his youth.

Salvatore Quasimodo Literary Park

La Terra impareggiabile (The Unrivalled Land) is the title of his last collection of poems, as well as the name of Salvatore Quasimodo’s Literary Park. Created by the will of his only heir, the park intends to take the visitor to Quasimodo’s main places: Modica, Roccalumera, Messina, Tindari, the Aeolian Islands, Syracuse, Pantalica and the Agrigento area.. All places where it is still possible to breathe in the roots of Sicilianity and the ancient Greek lyricism so dear to the author.

The Literary Park dedicated to Giovanni Verga

The Arcipelago dei Ciclopi, the municipality of Aci Trezza and the Norman Castle of Aci Castello, in the province of Catania, are the areas of the Literary Park dedicated to Giovanni Verga, where the protagonists of the author’s veristic novels lived. Here it is possible to visit places linked to the history of the Toscano family, such as the Casa del Nespolo (Medlar House), the fountain and the church of Aci Trezza.

The Literary Park named after Elio Vittorini

Last but not least is the Park dedicated to the famous writer Elio Vittorini in Syracuse. The magical city of Syracuse was the birthplace of the author and provided a wonderful backdrop for several of his works. The route includes the Island of Ortigia, the Umbertino Bridge and the astonishing beauty of the cathedral, leading visitors into a visual tale that engages all the senses.

The Road of the Writers

The Region of Sicily recently decided to dedicate a state road – which crosses the provinces of Agrigento and Caltanissetta – to its most famous writers: the Strada degli Scrittori (Writers’ Road). Created thanks to the idea of Sicilian journalist Felice Cavallaro, the stretch of SS 640 is another example of the importance that the island attaches to its culture and to the men who have made it famous throughout the world.

If you too would like to discover a special itinerary and immerse yourself in the island’s literary culture, contact us for a tailor-made tour.

L'articolo <strong>The Literary Park in Sicily</strong> proviene da Sicilytudine.

Stories of “truvature”, big hidden treasures and vain attempts to find them, are part of the rich local traditions.

From a distance the soaring rock with the old monastery on top reminds one of a “meteor”, those turrets with sheer walls typical of the landascape of Thessalia.

It is all around this mountain, known as San Paolino, that the history of Sutera has developed over the centuries.

It is an ancient history with roots in legend of the mythical founder: Dedalus and archeological evidences of the presence of Sicani 6000 BC. The Greeks called it “Soter” which means “safe” for the strategic position controlling the Platani valley.

The Arab presence is reflected in the picturesque “Rabato” district, which means “closed burgh”. Along the narrow and winding alleys wrapped in silence and surrounded by little houses you breathe an old and rarefied atmosphere, as if the time has stopped. The quarter formed around the mosque, built in 875 A.d., a few traces of which are still inside the main church built in 1545 on a previous one of 1370 built by Giovanni Chiaramonte, with a nave and two side aisles with sequin gold decorations and a spectacular fusion of marble and inlays in the baroque style in the Sacrament Chapel.

Every year, at Christmas,  the little streets become the natural scenario for a living crib.

75 broad steps start from Piazza del Carmine and head to Monte san Paolino flanking the rock where stands the sanctuary dedicated to Paolino and Onofrio.Two splendid urns, masterpieces of Sicilian goldsmith art, are kept inside, containing the relics of the two protector saints.  

A walk on the big terrace is a must to enjoy the breathtaking view. Amid bare valleys and little woods you can make out the countours of no fewer than 22 towns and villages in Sicily and the imposing Mussomeli castles.

As you continue your visit of the town, you really do feel as if you were going through an open-air museum with the sensation of going back into past,  into a dimension which is ancient and genuine, in which traditions mantain their charm unaltered.

To keep good memory of all of that, try the gastronomic specialities like : “Pitirri” (a vegetable soup), “maccu” ( bean purèe), “‘mbriulati” focaccias filled with olives, sausage, onions), bread and egg rissoles, Sutera taralli, little ricotta cassatas, easter chickens, “buccellati” (Christmas sweetmeats filled with walnuts, almond and figs).

L'articolo Sutera: a picturesque village at the foot of a giant proviene da Sicilytudine.

I told him to be comforted, because God used poverty often as a means of bringing people to Him. and used riches never, or but rarely. So Giuseppe was comforted ì, and I gave him a little book of devotion, very pretty and with far more pictures than prayers in it;  so of great service to Giuseppe, whose eyes are beautiful. I also gave him many lire,and prophesied for him a Cardinal’s hat, if he remain very good, and never forgot me.

He said he never would: and indeed I don’t think he will, for every day I kissed him behind the high altar.

L'articolo Oscar Wilde in Sicily proviene da Sicilytudine.

The sicilian spring usually begins in January, and it makes its appearance as a bouquet of colors worthy of a queen, in the garden of a wizard when everything has bloomed: the mint blossoms on the banks of streams, dead tree branches are encrusted with bushes of wild roses, and even the rough harsh cactus produces its tender shoots. April is the most cruel month: but not in here.
In Taormina is bright as the snow on Etna’s summit. Children playing are climbing along the slopes of mountains and fill their bags with flower petals for the festival remanbrance of a Christian saint, and the fishermen are passing with baskets filled with pearl coloured fish adorn themselves by wearing a geranium behind the ear.            

May, and spring has reached its twilight: the sun expands more wider, and one remembers that the African continent is just 80 miles away. In June the wheat is ready for the harvest. With a definite melancholy we listen to the rusting of scythes operating in the gold coloured fields”

T. Capote paints a surreal picture of Fontana Vecchia, “…it is very like living in an airplane, or a ship trembling on the peak of a tidal wave. There is a momentaneous feeling each time one looks from the windows, steps onto the terrace, a feeling of being suspended, like the white reeling doves, between the mountains and above the sea. If we do not go to the beach, there is only one other reason for leaving the house: to shop in Taormina, and have an aperitif in the piazza at Wunderbar. Taormina is as scenically extravagant as Goethe claims.”             

T. Capote shared his villa with his lover, dancer Jack Dunphy for 13 months. If the villa’s old walls could speak, what a story they could tell. There was a day at Fontana Vecchia when Capote is said to have swapped lovers with Tenessee Williams, though it is uncertain if Williams and Capote ever engaged in sex. Williams was often seen sipping drinks with Capote at the famous Wunderbar.

” We do not have many visitors at Fontana Vecchia; its too far a walk for casual callers, and days go by when no one knocks at the door except the ice boy.”             

At their departure in mid September 1951, Truman and Jack stuffed their belongings into the little Renault, they said farewell for the last time to Taormina, whose appeal had depended, more than they had thought, on the charms of Fontana Vecchia and good fortune must have smiled on Capote for he went on to become the most photographed writer of his generation. 

L'articolo Taormina and Fontana Vecchia House proviene da Sicilytudine.

“You call it Sicily, people, but Eternu Patri is lu diamonds!”

The central plateau of Sicily is an irregular plateau that slopes gently towards the Sea of Africa, with imprecise borders that bear the deep imprint of human work and hide the precious sulfur, the gypsum – which sometimes shines in the sun – and the volcanos of mud called “maccalube”.

“At the top of the mountain, between tamarisk and sparse cork trees, the appearance of the vera reappeared

Sicily, the one in which the baroque cities and citrus groves are only f

negligible frills. The aspect of an infinitely undulating dryness, a rump

over croups of which the mind could not grasp the main lines conceived in

delusional moment of creation: a sea that had suddenly become petrified

the moment a change in the wind made the waves demented. “

( G. Tomasi di Lampedusa, the Leopard)

The heights are grouped in an extraordinarily confused complex: isolated mountains and mountains, similar to huge breakers of a stormy sea, follow one another intertwined in a twisted and disordered system. Here, too, the climate is different from the rest of the island: “innaru capu di stato, austu capu d’vernu, while autumn is simply“ quannu arrifrisca u tempu ”; it is spring that offers the best spectacle, while in summer the lands appear yellow and brown, sunburned and deserted.

“Here, where the enchantment is reached and complete abandonment, you can rediscover the myth of a Sicily sacred to the goddess Ceres, Rome’s granary, a land enslaved by its own beauty. The green expanse of wheat which in spring reduces every other color to a simple shade and carries within itself the wonder of the mirage, is the clearest and most authentic sign of life in this fertile desert “

(W. Goethe, Journey to Sicily)

The intense agrarian colonization and the canalization and water conservation works carried out by the Arabs gave way to the feudal cereal large estates: numerous fortresses remain as evidence of the power of the nobility on earth and men.

In the rural centers, the church and the baronial palace are located in the heart of the town, the peasant houses are arranged around them – following an orthogonal grid – with the blocks arranged in a comb according to the maximum slope lines to facilitate the flow of water, creating a undifferentiated urban fabric inhabited by a single social class. The streets are narrow, not only to shelter from the sun but also because the street is considered almost a continuation of the house, a place to be together with the other inhabitants of the “village”.

L'articolo At the “Roots” of the Island proviene da Sicilytudine.

When cooking, we draw on the precious goods that nature puts at our disposal and harmoniously combine them to create combinations of taste that tickle the palate.

At the table, food unites souls but – as Fr. Bourdieu said in “The body between nature and culture” – it is also a form of culture that strengthens group identity and separates and distinguishes “we” from “others”.

Evidence of the reality of the tables of the poor are, for example, the photos with documentary intent taken by Giovanni Verga – writer, playwright and Italian senator, considered the greatest exponent of the literary current of Verismo – around Sicily, starting from 1848.

Black bread (which differs from white bread, intended for masters) is the true protagonist of an extremely reduced diet and together with onions and wine it becomes the reward for farmers and fishermen who, after a long day, see their hard work paid off. work. From here derive expressions that are still known to all today as “getting the bread”.

A typical dish of the humble is also the bean soup with onions, wheat soup, sardines and oranges presented by Verga in “Nedda”; its scent characterizes Verga’s scenographies and makes them more real and truthful.

Pasta and meat seasoned with tomato paste are instead the menu of the rich, as Tomasi di Lampedusa recounts in his “Gattopardo”, where the timbale of macaroni brought to the table of the prince of Salina “was well worthy of evoking tremors of admiration. The burnished gold of the casing, the fragrance of sugar and cinnamon that emanated from it were only the prelude to the sensation of delight that was released from the inside when the knife tore through the crust: at first a vapor loaded with aromas erupted, you could see then the chicken livers, the hard eggs, the fillets of ham, chicken and truffles entangled in the greasy, very hot mass of short macaroni to which the meat extract gave a precious chamois color “.

The simple and refined flavors and the secret recipes of the nuns of Catania

Following the earthquake of 1693 only 6 of the 14 female monasteries then existing in the city were rebuilt: 5 Benedictines and one of Poor Clares . Inside, many recipes were kept and handed down that would otherwise have been lost.

In their canteens it was possible to taste both more elaborate and refined dishes and dishes of the popular tradition of a more rustic and peasant matrix, but always with great attention to hygiene, to the correct conservation of food and to the use of leftovers, anticipating the modern home economics concept.

The ability to invent always new and varied recipes was of extreme comfort in cloistered female monasteries , where the days passed all the same and without events capable of giving rise to joys or pleasant surprises and cheering the soul of young girls and older nuns. elderly.

Meals were also moments of aggregation and sharing and had to include two cooked dishes to which a ration of fresh fruit or legumes could be added. A kilo of bread a day and a quarter of wine diluted with water were allowed.

The tables of the rich and noble Benedictines were often adorned with a rich trousseau and fine crockery. The dishes abounded with fish-based dishes, such as tuna and tench, but also plenty of wheat, wine, broad beans and barley, which were partly sold to provide the monastery with more income.

Here too bread was the main food, pasta was packaged weekly in the preferred formats of lasagna, macaroni, vermicelli, seasoned with various types of sauces.

The use of rice was reserved for desserts and dishes from lean days, such as salads. The meat was mainly from poultry, but on feast days they preferred roasts and boiled beef and sheep and dishes prepared with sausage, breaded and rolls.

The legumes and vegetables, widely consumed, came from the community garden where aromatic herbs were also grown that were able to enhance even the most frugal meals. There was no shortage of salads with cheeses and eggs, caponata, pancakes, stuffed ravioli, pies, soups and the excellent wine that was produced from the grapes of the monastery’s vineyard and mostly sold.

The Poor Clares , on the other hand, to supplement their meager income, used to devote themselves to the trade of eggs, wine, sweets and biscuits ; “The nun’s biscuits”, in fact, are still known today. The famous S-shaped biscuits were the pride of the convent of Santa Chiara, which kept the recipe secret. It was one of the last converse, Mara Messina, to bring the recipe with her, making it the workhorse of the family pastry shop, of the grandson Cav. Arena, founder of the famous biscuits in via Mancini. To the S-shaped biscuits, also used for children’s meals, were added the “nzuddi”, dry and perfumed biscuits with orange peel and decorated with an almond, once produced only by the Vincentian nuns.

L'articolo The great Sicilian writers at the table proviene da Sicilytudine.