The cart creator's art is almost a lost one, kept alive by the diligence
and dedication of just a few talented craftsmen --at once carpenters, ironsmiths
and artists.
In these colourful panels, Sicilian kings and knights stride alongside legends
like Roland --the Italians' Orlando. Normans fight Moors and Sicilians combat
Angevins.
In centuries past, these works of art were everywhere in Sicily. The few
that remain, and the few which are created each year, seem to represent
more than another era. They symbolise a way of life, and the fact that Sicily's
unique medieval history has never been far from the popular mind. A few
antique carts can be seen, and new ones purchased, in the Sicilian Cart
Museum behind the apse of Palermo Cathedral.
