(''Sicilia'' in
Italian and
Sicilian ) is an autonomous region of
Italy and the largest
Island in the
Mediterranean Sea , with an area of 25,700 sq. km and 5 million inhabitants.
This region faces
Calabria over the
Strait Of Messina , which is the only conterminous region.
The
Volcano Etna , is situated close to Catania. Etna is 3,320 m (10,900 ft) high, making it the tallest volcano in Europe. It is also one of the world's most active volcanoes.
The
Aeolian islands to the north are administratively a part of Sicily, as are the
Aegadian Islands and
Pantelleria Island to the west,
Ustica Island to the north-west, and the
Pelagian Islands to the south-west.
Sicily has been noted for two millennia as a grain-producing territory:
Olives and
Wine are among its other agricultural products. The mines of the
Caltanissetta district became a leading sulphur-producing area in the 19th century, but have declined since the
1950s .
''See main article
Transportation In Sicily
Most of Sicily's
Motorways (''autostrade'') run through the northern portion of the island - the most important ones being
Palermo -
Catania , '''A20''' Palermo -
Messina , '''A29''' Palermo -
Mazara Del Vallo and the
Toll Road '''A18''' Messina - Catania. Much of the motorway network is elevated by columns due to the mountainous terrain.
The road network in the south of the country consists largely of well-maintained secondary roads.
Sicily is connected to the Italian peninsula by the national railway company,
Trenitalia , though trains are loaded onto ferries for the crossing from the mainland. Officially, the Stretto di Messina, S.p.A. is scheduled to commence construction of the world's longest suspension bridge, the
Strait Of Messina Bridge , in the second half of 2006. When completed, it will mark the first time in human history that Sicily will be connected by a land link to Italy.
Sicily is served by national and international flights, mostly to European locations, to and from
Palermo International Airport and the substantially busier
Catania-Fontanarossa Airport .
There are also minor national airports in
Trapani and on the small islands of
Pantelleria and
Lampedusa .
Sicily's principal cities include the regional capital
Palermo , together with the other provincial capitals
Catania ,
Messina ,
Syracuse (''Siracusa'' in Italian),
Trapani ,
Enna ,
Caltanissetta ,
Agrigento ,
Ragusa . Other famous Sicilian towns include
Acireale ,
Taormina ,
Giardini Naxos ,
Piazza Armerina ,
Caltagirone ,
Cefalù ,
Bronte ,
Marsala ,
Corleone ,
Castellammare Del Golfo ,
Gela , Francavilla di Sicilia, and
Abacaenum (now Tripi).
See Also: Flag of Sicily
The regional flag of Sicily, recognized since January 2000, is also the historical one of the island, since 1282. It is divided diagonally yellow over red, with the ''
Trinacria '' symbol in the center. The ''trinacria'' symbol is used also by the
Isle Of Man .
, 1778.]]
Sicily is well known as a country of art: many poets and writers were born on this region, starting from the
Sicilian School in the early 13th century, which inspired much subsequent Italian poetry and created the first Italian standard. The most famous, however, are
Luigi Pirandello ,
Giovanni Verga ,
Salvatore Quasimodo ,
Gesualdo Bufalino and the dialectal poet
Ignazio Buttitta . Other Sicilian artists include the composers
Sigismondo D'India (from Palermo),
Vincenzo Bellini (from
Catania ), as well as the
Sculptor Tommaso Geraci .
Noto and
Ragusa contain some of Italy's best examples of
Baroque architecture, carved in the local red sandstone.
Caltagirone is renowned for its decorative ceramics.
Palermo is also a major center of Italian
Opera . Its
Teatro Massimo is the largest opera house in Italy and the third largest in the world, seating 1400.
Sicily is also home to two prominent folk art traditions, both of which draw heavily on the island's
Norman influence. Donkey carts are painted with intricate decorations of scenes from the Norman romantic poems, such as
The Song Of Roland . The same tales are told in traditional puppet theatres which feature hand-made wooden
Marionettes .
The 1988 movie ''
Nuovo Cinema Paradiso '' was about life in a Sicilian town following the
Second World War .
The
Autochthonous peoples of Sicily, long absorbed into the population, were tribes known to Greek writers as the
Elymians , the
Sicani and the Siculi or
Sicels . Of these, the last were clearly the latest to arrive on this land and were related to other
Italic Peoples of southern Italy, such as the ''Italoi'' of Calabria, the
Oenotrians ,
Chones , and
Leuterni (or Leutarni), the
Opicans , and the
Ausones . It's possible, however, that the Sicani were originally an
Iberian tribe. The Elymi, too, may have distant origins outside of Italy, in the
Aegean Sea area.
(temple E, dedicated to Hera, built in the 5th century BC.)]]
Sicily was colonized by
Phoenicians and
Punic settlers from
Carthage and by
Greek s, starting in the 8th century BC. The most important colony was established at
Syracuse in 734 BC. Other important
Greek Colonies were
Gela ,
Acragas ,
Selinunte ,
Himera , and
Zancle or Messene (modern-day
Messina , not to be confused with the ancient city of
Messene in
Messenia ,
Greece ). These city states were an important part of classical Greek civilization, which included Sicily as part of
Magna Graecia - both
Empedocles and
Archimedes were from Sicily. Sicilian politics was intertwined with politics in Greece itself, leading Athens, for example, to mount the disastrous
Sicilian Expedition during the
Peloponnesian War .
The Greeks came into conflict with the Punic trading communities with ties to
Carthage , which was on the African mainland not far from the southwest corner of the region, and had its own colonies on Sicily. Palermo was a Carthaginian city, founded in the
8th Century BC , named Zis or Sis ("Panormos" to the Greeks). Hundreds of Phoenician and Carthaginian grave sites have been found in necropoli over a large area of Palermo, now built over, south of the Norman palace, where the Norman kings had a vast park. In the far west, Lilybaeum (now
Marsala ) never was thoroughly Hellenized. In the
First and
Second Sicilian Wars , Carthage was in control of all but the eastern part of Sicily, which was dominated by Syracuse. In
415 BC ,
Syracuse became an object of
Athenian imperialism as exemplified in the disastrous events of the
Sicilian Expedition which reignited the cooling
Peloponnesian War .
In the
3rd Century BC the
Messanan Crisis motivated the intervention of the
Roman Republic into Sicilian affairs, and led to the
First Punic War between
Rome and Carthage. By the end of war (
242 BC ) all Sicily was in Roman hands, becoming Rome's first province outside of the Italian peninsula.
The initial success of the Carthaginians during the
Second Punic War encouraged many of the Sicilian cities to revolt against Roman rule. Rome sent troops to put down the rebellions (it was during the siege of Syracuse that Archimedes was killed). Carthage briefly took control of parts of Sicily, but in the end was driven off. Many Carthaginian sympathizers were killed-- in
210 BC the Roman consul
M. Valerian told the Roman Senate that "no Carthaginian remains in Sicily".
For the next 6 centuries Sicily was a province of the
Roman Empire . It was something of a rural backwater, important chiefly for its grainfields which were a mainstay of the food supply of the city of Rome. The empire did not make much effort to Romanize the region, which remained largely Greek. The most notable event of this period was the notorious misgovernment of
Verres as recorded by
Cicero in
70 BC in his oration,
In Verrem .
In AD
440 Sicily fell to the
Vandal king
Geiseric . A few decades later it came into
Ostrogoth ic hands, where it remained until it was conquered by the Byzantine general
Belisarius in
535 . But a new Ostrogoth king,
Totila , drove down the Italian peninsula and then plundered and conquered Sicily in
550 . He in turn was defeated and killed by the Byzantine general
Narses in
552 . For a brief period (
662 -
668 ) during Byzantine rule Syracuse was the imperial capital, until
Constans II was assassinated. Sicily was then ruled by the
Byzantine Empire until the
Muslim Arab conquest of AD
827 -
902 . Up until the 10th century, Sicialians primarily spoke Greek or Italo-Greek dialects.
The cultural diversity and religious tolerance of the period of Muslim rule under the
Kalbid dynasty, that made Palermo the capital city of the
Emirate Of Sicily , continued under the
Normans who conquered Sicily in
1060 -
1090 (raising its status to that of a kingdom in
1130 ). During this period, Sicily became one of the wealthiest states in Europe, and according to historian
John Julius Norwich , Palermo under the Normans became wealthier than the England of its day. After only a century however, the Norman
Hauteville dynasty died out and the south German (
Swabian )
Hohenstaufen dynasty ruled from
1194 , adopting as well Palermo as its principal seat from
1220 . But local Christian-Muslim conflicts fueled by the
Crusades were escalating during this later period, and in
1224 ,
Frederick II , grandson of
Roger II , expelled the last remaining Arabs from Sicily.
Conflict between the Hohenstaufen house and the Papacy led in to insurrection (the
Sicilian Vespers ) and successful invasion by king
Peter III of
Aragón .
Ruled from
1479 by the kings of
Spain , Sicily suffered a ferocious outbreak of plague (
1656 ), followed by a damaging earthquake in the east of the region (
1693 ). Periods of rule by the crown of
Savoy (
1713 -
1720 ) and then the
Austria n
Habsburg s gave way to union (
1734 ) with the
Bourbon -ruled kingdom of
Naples as the kingdom of the
Two Sicilies .
Sicily was the scene of major revolutionary movements in
1820 and
1848 against
Bourbon denial of constitutional government. The
1848 Revolution resulted in a sixteen month period of independence from the Bourbons before its armed forces took back control of the island on
15 May 1849 .
In late
1852 ,
Prince Emanuele Realmuto had set up power in North Central Sicily. Highly educated, the prince established a political system set to bring Sicily's economy to the highest levels in all of Italy. The Prince's life however was shortened by an assassination in
1857 . To this day some of his work is still present in the Italian parliament.
Sicily was joined with the kingdom of Italy in
1860 following the expedition of
Giuseppe Garibaldi and the resultant
''Risorgimento'' .
In
1866 , Palermo revolted against Italy. The city was soon 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 long extensive guerrilla campaign against the unionists (
1861 -
1871 ) took place throughout southern Italy, and in Sicily, inducing the Italian governments to a ferocious military repression. Ruled under martial law for many years Sicily (and southern Italy) was ravaged by the Italian army that summarily executed hundreds of thousands of people, made tens of thousands prisoners, destroyed villages, and deported people. The Sicilian economy collapsed, leading to an unprecedented wave of emigration. In
1894 labour agitation through the radical ''
Fasci Dei Lavoratori '' led once again to the imposition of martial law.
1943 ]]
The organised crime networks commonly known as the
Mafia extended their influence in the late
19th Century (and many of its operatives also emigrated to other countries, particularly the
United States ); partly suppressed under the
Fascist regime beginning in the
1920s , they recovered following the
World War II Allied Invasion Of Sicily .
An autonomous region from
1946 , 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 indemnification 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.
The position of Sicily as a stepping stone of sorts in the center of the
Mediterranean Basin has lent it strategic importance throughout history, resulting in an endless procession of settlers and conquerors. Modern methods of genetic testing enable us to see which have had the greatest demographic impact. Several studies show strong ties between Sicily, mainland southern Italy and Greece,L.L. Cavalli-Sforza (1997)
Genes, peoples, and languages Vona et al. (1998)
Genetic structure of western Sicily Rickards et al. (1998)
Genetic history of the population of Sicily Francalacci et al. (2003)
Peopling of Three Mediterranean Islands (Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily) Inferred by Y-Chromosome Biallelic Variability DiGiacomo et al. (2004)
Y chromosomal haplogroup J as a signature of the post-neolithic colonization of Europe suggesting that the Siculi, Elymi and Greek colonizations were the most important.
It has been proposed that a genetic boundary divides Sicily into two regions, reflecting the distribution of Siculi and Greek settlements in the east, and Sicani/Elymi, Phoenician/Arab and Norman settlements in the west.Ghiani et al. (2002)
New data on the genetic structure of the population of Sicily: analysis of the Alia population (Palermo, Italy) Romano et al. (2003)
Autosomal microsatellite and mtDNA genetic analysis in Sicily (Italy) Calo et al. (2003)
Genetic analysis of a Sicilian population using 15 short tandem repeats However, other research has failed to detect any such division.Walter et al. (1997)
GM and KM allotypes in nine population samples of Sicily No data exists on the contribution of Normans, but a number of studies hint that North African and Middle Eastern gene flow was limited by the physical barrier of the Mediterranean Sea and resulting cultural differentiation. Simoni et al. (1999)
Patterns of gene flow inferred from genetic distances in the Mediterranean region Kandil et al. (1999)
Red cell enzyme polymorphisms in Moroccans and Southern Spaniards: New data for the genetic history of the Western Mediterranean Scozzari et al. (2001)
Human Y-chromosome variation in the western Mediterranean area: Implications for the peopling of the region Cruciani et al. (2004)
Phylogeographic Analysis of Haplogroup E3b (E-M215) Y Chromosomes Reveals Multiple Migratory Events Within and Out of Africa Capelli et al. (2005)
Population Structure in the Mediterranean Basin: A Y Chromosome Perspective
Sicily's population is approximately 5 million, and there are an additional 10 million people of Sicilian descent around the world, mostly in the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Australia and fellow
EU countries.
See Also: Sicilian language
Many Sicilians are bilingual in both
Italian and
Sicilian , a separate
Romance Language , descended from
Vulgar Latin , with
Greek ,
Arabic ,
French ,
Provençal ,
German ,
Catalan and
Spanish influences. It is important to note that Sicilian is not a derivative of Italian. Although thought by some to be a dialect, ''Sicilianu'' is a distinct language, with a rich history and a sizeable vocabulary (at least 250,000 words), due to the influence of the different conquerors of, and settlers to, this land. Sicilian dialects are also spoken in the southern and central sections of the Italian regions
Calabria (Calabrese) and
Puglia (Salentino); and had a significant influence on the
Maltese Language , which was a part of the
Kingdom Of Sicily (in its various forms) until the late 18th century. With the predominance of
Italian in Italian schools, the media, etc., Sicilian is no longer the first language of many Sicilians. Indeed, in urban centers in particular, one is more likely to hear standard Italian spoken rather than Sicilian, especially among the young.
Sicilian generally uses the word ending for singular masculine nouns and adjectives, and for feminine. The plural is usually for both masculine and feminine. By contrast, in Italian masculine nouns and adjectives that end in in the singular pass to in the plural, while the feminine counterparts pass from to .
The "-LL-" sound (in words of Latin origin, for example) manifests itself in Sicilian as a
Voiced Retroflex Plosive with the tip of the tongue curled up and back, a sound which is not part of Standard Italian. In Sicilian, this sound is written simply as "-dd-" although the sound itself is not but rather . For example, the Italian word is '''beddu''' in Sicilian.
In numerous villages, the
Arbëreshë dialect of the
Albanian Language has been spoken since a wave of refugees settled there in the 15th century. While it is spoken within the household, Italian is the official language and modern Greek is chanted in the local Byzantine liturgy. There are also several areas where dialects of the
Lombard Language of the
Gallo-Italic family are spoken. Much of this population is also tri-lingual, being able to also speak one of the Sicilian dialects as well.
- Empedocles (c. 490 BC – 430 BC), scientist and philosopher
- Gorgias (c. 483 BC – 375 BC), philosopher
- Timaeus (c. 345 BC – 250 BC), historian
- Theocritus (c. 310 BC – 250 BC), poet
- Archimedes (c. 287 BC – 212 BC), scientist
- Diodorus Siculus (c. 90 BC – 30 BC), historian
- Pope Leo II , Pope from 682 to 683
- Jawhar As-Siqilli (911 - 922) Military leader, founder of Cairo
- Cielo D'Alcamo (c. 1200 – 1250), poet
- Giacomo Da Lentini (1210 – 1260), poet
- Guido Delle Colonne (1215 – 1290), poet
- Antonello Da Messina (1430 – 1479), painter
- Antonello Gagini (1478 – 1536), sculptor
- Francesco Maurolico (1494 – 1575), mathematician
- Sigismondo D'India (1582 – 1629), composer
- Pietro Novelli (1603 – 1647), painter
- Giacomo Serpotta (1656 – 1732), sculptor
- Alessandro Scarlatti (1660 – 1725), composer
- Filippo Juvarra (1678 – 1736), architect
- Giovanni Meli (1740 – 1815), poet
- Vincenzo Bellini (1801 – 1835), opera composer
- Francesco Crispi (1819 – 1901), politician
- Emanuele Realmuto (1830 – 1857), Prince
- Giovanni Verga (1840 – 1922), novelist
- Giuseppe Sergi (1841 – 1936), anthropologist
- Vito Cascio Ferro (1862 – 1943), mafioso
- Luigi Pirandello (1867 – 1936), dramatist, winner of the Nobel Prize In Literature
- Nino Martoglio (1870 – 1921), poet
- Luigi Sturzo (1871 – 1959), politician
- Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa (1896 – 1957), writer, poet
- Julius Evola (1898 – 1974), political philosopher
- Ignazio Buttitta (1899 – 1997), poet
- Salvatore Quasimodo (1901 – 1968), poet, winner of the Nobel Prize In Literature
- Ettore Majorana (1906 – ?), scientist
- Renato Guttuso (1912 – 1987), painter
- Andrea Camilleri (born 1925), novelist
- Antonino Zichichi (born 1929), scientist
- Bernardo Provenzano (born 1933), mafioso
- Nino Vaccarella (born 1933), racecar driver
- Giovanni Falcone (1939 – 1992), judge
- Paolo Borsellino (1940 – 1992), judge
- Franco Battiato (born 1945), musician, filmmaker.
- Giuseppe Tornatore (born 1956), filmmaker
- Domenico Dolce (born 1958), fashion designer
- Angelo D'Arrigo (1961 – 2006), aviator
- Anna Kanakis (born 1962), model, actress
- Salvatore Schillaci (born 1964), football player
- Maria Grazia Cucinotta (born 1969), actress
- Roy Paci (born 1969), musician
- Roger I Of Sicily , Count of Sicily 1072 – 1101
- Simon, Count Of Sicily , 1101 – 1105
- Adelaide Del Vasto , Regent of Sicily 1101 – 1112, mother of Simon and Roger II
- Roger II Of Sicily , Count of Sicily 1113 – 1130, King of Sicily 1130 – 1154
- William I Of Sicily , King of Sicily 1154 – 1166
- William II Of Sicily , King of Sicily 1166 – 1189
- Tancred Of Sicily , King of Sicily 1189 – 1194
- William III Of Sicily , King of Sicily 1194
- Constance Of Sicily , Queen of Sicily 1194 – 1198 and mother of Frederick II
- Frederick II (1194 – 1250), Holy Roman Emperor and King of Sicily (Frederick I of Sicily)
- Conrad I Of Sicily (and Conrad IV Of Germany ), King of Sicily 1250 – 1254
- Conradin , King of Sicily 1254 – 1258
- Manfred Of Sicily , King of Sicily 1258 – 1266
- Frederick III Of Sicily , King of Sicily 1296 – 1337
- Peter II Of Sicily , King of Sicily 1337 – 1342
- Louis Of Sicily , King of Sicily 1342 – 1355
- Frederick III The Simple , King of Sicily 1355 – 1377
- Mary Of Sicily , Queen of Sicily 1377 – 1402
- Martin I Of Sicily , King of Sicily 1390 – 1409
