Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Identity
The uniqueness of the Sicilian experience is perhaps summed up best by author Giuseppe
Tomasi di Lampedusa in Sicily's most famous novel,
Il Gattopardo
(The Leopard). In one
memorable passage, his protagonist the Prince of Salina tries to explain the Sicilian charac-
ter to a Piedmontese representative of the new Kingdom of Italy as follows: 'This violence
of landscape, this cruelty of climate, this continual tension in everything, and even these
monuments of the past, magnificent yet incomprehensible because not built by us and yet
standing round us like lovely mute ghosts… All these things have formed our character,
which is thus conditioned by events outside our control as well as by a terrifying insularity
of mind.'
Ogni beni di la campagna veni.
All good things come from the countryside.
In modern Sicily, the prevailing stereotype is that Palermo and Catania stand at opposite
ends of the island's character. 'In Palermo, we're more traditional, more conservative', says
Massimo, a Palermo shopkeeper. 'The Catanians are more outward looking, and better at
commerce.' Some ascribe the Palermitans' conservative character to their Arab prede-
cessors, while the Greeks get all the credit for the Catanians' democratic outlook, their
sense of commerce and their alleged cunning. Beyond this divide, Sicilians are generally
thought of as conservative and suspicious (usually by mainland Italians), stoical and spir-
itual, confident and gregarious, and as the possessors of a rich and dark sense of humour.
Colonised for centuries, Sicilians have absorbed myriad traits - indeed, writer Gesualdo
Bufalino believed Sicilians suffered from an 'excess of identity', at the core of which was
the islanders' conviction that Sicilian culture stands at the centre of the world. This can
make the visitor feel terribly excluded, as there is still an awful lot of Sicily that is beyond
the prying eyes of the tourist.
