History of Sicily

[Sergio D'brante]

Sicilian Baroque. "Collegiata" in Catania, designed by Stefano Ittar, circa 1768

[Sergio D'brante]

Unification of Italy

Sicily was joined with the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1860 following the expedition of Giuseppe Garibaldi's Mille; the annexation was ratified by a popular plebiscite. The Kingdom of Sardinia became in 1861 the Kingdom of Italy, in the context of the Italian Risorgimento.

In 1866, Palermo revolted against Italy. The city was bombed by the Italian navy, which disembarked on September 22 under the command of Raffaele Cadorna. Italian soldiers summarily executed the civilian insurgents, and took possession once again of the island.

A limited, but long guerrilla campaign against the unionists (1861-1871) took place throughout southern Italy, and in Sicily, inducing the Italian governments to a severe military response. These insurrections were unorganized, and were considered by the Government as operated by "brigands" ("Brigantaggio"). Ruled under martial law for several years, Sicily (and southern Italy) was the object of a harsh repression by the Italian army that summarily executed thousands of people, made tens of thousands prisoners, destroyed villages, and deported people.[citation needed]

The Sicilian economy did not adapt easily to unification, and in particular competition by Northern industry made attempts at industrialization in the South almost impossible. While the masses suffered by the introduction of new forms of taxation and, especially, by the new Kingdom's extensive military conscription, the Sicilian economy suffered, leading to an unprecedented wave of emigration.

In 1894 labour agitation through the radical left-wing Fasci dei lavoratori led again to the imposition of martial law.

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Ongoing government neglect in the late 19th century period ultimately enabled the establishment of organised crime networks commonly known as the mafia. These were gradually able to extend their influence across all sectors over much of the island (and many of its operatives also emigrated to other countries, particularly the United States). The mafia was partly contained under the Fascist regime beginning in the 1920s, but recovered quickly following the World War II Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943.

[Sergio D'brante]

Map of the Allied landings in Sicily on 10 July 1943.

[Sergio D'brante]

Following some political agitation, Sicily became an autonomous region in 1946 under the new Italian constitution, with its own parliament and elected President. Sicily benefited to some extent from the partial Italian land reform of 1950-1962 and special funding from the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno, the Italian government's development Fund for the South (1950-1984). Sicily returned to the headlines in 1992, however, when the assassination of two anti-mafia magistrates, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino triggered a general upheaval in Italian political life.

In the past decade, Sicily, and its surrounding islets, has become a target destination for illegal immigrants and people-smuggling operations.

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                                                Al-Idrisi And Roger’s Book





Written by Frances Carney Gies

In the year 1138, the royal palace at Palermo, Sicily was the scene of a long-awaited meeting between an unusual Christian king and a distinguished Muslim scholar. As his visitor entered the hall, the king rose, took his hand and led him across the carpeted marble to a place of honor beside the throne. Almost at once the two men began to discuss the project for which the scholar had been asked to come from North Africa: the creation of the first accurate—and scientific—map of the entire known world.



The monarch was Roger II, King of Sicily.

                                                                       

                                                                        His distinguished guest the Arab geographer al-Idrisi.

Born in Ceuta, Morocco, across the strait from Spain, al-Idrisi was then in his late 30's. After studying in Cordoba, in Muslim Spain, he had spent some years in travel, covering the length of the Mediterranean, from Lisbon to Damascus. As a young man with poetic pretensions he had written student verse celebrating wine and good company, but in the course of his journeys he had discovered his real passion: geography.


Al-Idrisi's writings tell us less about his own character and personality than about those of the man who became his host and patron. Roger II, son of a Norman-French soldier of fortune who had conquered Sicily at the beginning of the 12th century, was an anomaly among Christian monarchs of his time. His co-religionists, commenting on his oriental life-style, complete with harem and eunuchs, disparagingly referred to him as the "half-heathen king" and "the baptized Sultan of Sicily." Educated by Greek and Arab tutors, he was an intellectual with a taste for scientific inquiry, and relished the company of Muslim scholars, of whom al-Idrisi was one of the most celebrated.


Such cultural communication at a time when Crusaders and Muslims were battling in the Holy Land and while Mediterranean pirates of both faiths plundered each other's ships and ports may seem surprising. But Crusades and piracy notwithstanding, medieval merchants did brisk business across the frontiers of religion, and inevitably ideas were exchanged as well as products.


Sicily in particular was a meeting ground for the two civilizations. Captured by the Arabs in 831, the island had remained in Muslim control until the end of the11th century. Like Muslim Spain (see Aramco World, September-October, 1976), it was a beacon of prosperity to a Europe caught in the economic slow-down we call the Dark Ages. The occupying Arabs had built dams, irrigation systems, reservoirs and water towers, introduced new crops—oranges and lemons, cotton, date palms, rice—and exploited the island's mines and fishing grounds.

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Archaeological area of Palike'







                                                             P A L I K E'




 
Contrada Rocchicella,
Mineo (Palagonia) -
CATANIA
Tel. 349 0792280
 
Archaeological excavations performed by the Soprintendenza BB.CC. AA. di Catania since
1995, have revealed ruins of a town on the top of the hill and in front of the grotto at the
foot of the hill structures of the Sanctuary of the Divine Palikoi.

A selection of the finds from the excavations is displayed in the site’s Antiquarium (fig.3),
which has been restored with the financial support of the European Community.

Rocchicella is a hill located in the Margi river valley in an area that was the heartland of the
indigenous, Sikel people (fig.5). The area was famous in Antiquity because it was the site of
the sanctuary of the divine brothers, the Palikoi, sons of Zeus and the Ninpha Thalia. This
cult, among the most venerable for the Sikel people, developed around a group of small lakes
(fig.6), whose water was said to ‘boil’ due to the presence of carbon dioxide. The Naftia lakes
have now disappeared because of land reclamation and industrial projects.

Rocchicella has been home for prehistoric populations since early times. Flint tools used in hunt-
ing and other activities, as well as faunal remains of bos primigenius, cervus elaphus and equus
hidruntinus recovered from trenches opened in front of the grotto that have now been refilled,
give us information about people that were living in the area during the 11th and 10th millennia B.C.


One may still see in open trenches two terracotta platforms, a hearth and several grinding
stones dating at the Neolithic Age (VI –V mill. B.C.) (fig., an Early Bronze Age (ca. 2000
B.C.) hut with a circular plan, and several Late Bronze Age (ca. 1300-1100 B.C.) rock-cut
tombs opened in the cliff face of the Grotto. Beginning with the Archaic age (ca. VII century
B.C.), the area in front of the grotto attests the remains of buildings that were certainly
once part of the sanctuary. One of these structures stands in a central position and its rect-
angular plan is divided into two rooms, which originally were refurnished with a stone flooring.
These architectural details lead us to identify this structure as a small temple (fig.9).


Around the 450 B.C., a monumental complex was built on a series of terraces.
This complex includes a hestiaterion (banquet hall) and two stoai, or porticoes.
The hestiaterion (fig.10) has rectangular plan, four large, lateral rooms for banqueting, and
three small rooms facing the entrance.

It is the best-built structure found to date at the sanctuary, and it was constructed of
regular, ashlar blocks.

In the central larger room of stoà B (fig.12) pottery and tools connected with food prepa-
ration were recovered, and in a separate sector a bothros (sacred pit) with cups and
animal bones was found. (fig.13)

It is likely that the monumentalization of the Palikoi sanctuary in this phase was the idea
a Sikel leader known as Ducetius. Ducetius transferred the population of Menainon to a
new town that he called Palikè near the sanctuary of the Divine Palikoi, and he divided the
surrounding land. The sanctuary is likely to have served as the seat of Ducetius’s Sikel
League, which was founded in defense against the powerful Greek city Syracuse.

The remains of the town of Palikè on the summit of the hill, closed on its eastern side by
a wall in so-called woven masonry (muro a telaio) (fig.14), which dates to the IV cent. B.C.,
reflect a rapid reconstruction after the violent destruction of Ducetius’ Palikè.

In the area of the Grotto traces of human activity are documented by at least two restora-
tions of the hestiaterion under the Roman empire. The use of the building for cult related
activity seems to have ceased by the third century A.D., when a mill and an oven were
built in one of the large rooms.

Excavated strata show continuity of activity in the area from late antiquity through the
13th century A.D.

An apsidal structure, interpreted as an early Christian church, was constructed on the
remains of the Hestiaterion in about the eighth century A.D., and the cult of the Divine
Palikoi itself with its topographic associations was all but forgotten by early Christian times.


http://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis_sicily.htm

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Bibliografia



G. V. Gentili, Cinturone eneo con dedica da Palikè, in Roem. Mitt. 69, 1962, pp.14-20;

L. Bernabò Brea, Palikè Giacimento paleolitico e abitato neolitico ed eneo, in Bullettino di
Paletnologia Italiana, 16, 1965, pp.23-46;

L. Maniscalco, Rocchicella in Le ceramiche impresse nel Neolitico Antico. Italia e Mediter-
raneo a cura di M.A. Fugazzola Delpino, A Pessina, V. Tinè Roma 2002, pp.737-743.

Maniscalco L. 2005. Il Neolitico in Sicilia come appare a Rocchicella di Mineo, in Papers in
Italian Archaeology VI, II, BAR Int. Ser. pp.535-540.

L.Maniscalco, B. McConnell, Ricerche e scavi attorno Palikè, in Kokalos, 43-44, 1997-98,
pp.173-188;

L.Maniscalco, B. McConnell , The Sanctuary of the Divine Palikoi (Rocchicella di Mineo, Sicily):
Fieldwork from 1995 to 2001 in American Journal of Archaeology 107 (2003) pp.145-180; 


http://www.regione.sicilia.it/beniculturali/dirbenicult/musei/musei2/engpalike.htm


http://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis_sicily.htm

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FIG. 3

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FIG. 5

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FIG. 6

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FIG. 8

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FIG. 9

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FIG. 10

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FIG. 12





http://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis_sicily.htm