Country Life
Travels in the Heart of Sicily
Its magical effect is inescapable if you travel around this unique island --as you certainly will when you venture from place to place in search of castles, temples and cathedrals, and even if you're just looking for secluded beaches. It's the "real Sicily." Rustic towns, surrounded by endless fields, orchards or woods, seem to express a different character in every part of every province. Messina's forests, Catania's citrus groves, Caltanissetta's crumpled wheat fields. An occasional farmhouse or, less frequently, a baglio or castle enhances a landscape which would otherwise seem to have been abandoned by time, and which in many areas has turned from green to scorched brown by early June. Traversed by the occasional herd of sheep, winding roads lead you to a world of stone houses, abandoned monasteries and Baroque churches (which in some cases were originally Gothic). It's an underpopulated world, since many Sicilian towns have far fewer people today than they did in the middle of the nineteenth century, when the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies became part of the Kingdom of Italy. Emigration and a declining birth rate have altered that aspect of Sicilian life.

Sicily's rural towns owe much of their ambience to location. Communities on Etna's temperamental slopes exist in an unsettled reality entirely different from the comparative serenity of coastal towns like Cefalù. Sutera and Calascibetta are perched atop butte-like mountains, while Erice, Taormina, Enna and Caccamo crown majestic peaks. Trapani, with its windmills, and Catania, with its volcanic stone, seem to reflect entirely different historical legacies, but these provincial capitals are cities, even if their historical districts reflect a past not unlike that of the typical small town. It's the smaller communities that epitomize Sicily's rural past. To most Sicilian country people, city life is something to be endured out of necessity. Most city residents would live in the country if they could.

The land itself has changed in all these millennia. Rivers which in the nineteenth century were still full of fish are now little more than trickling drainage streams. Much of the island's interior was already deforested by the sixteenth century. The Arabs, who brought the lemon, the orange and sugar cane, introduced irrigation systems to ensure the success of the new agriculture, but theirs was another era. Sicily's wildlife was gradually decimated in successive centuries.

The casual traveler immediately recognizes Sicilian towns as distinct from those of Piedmont and Tuscany. There's more stone and stucco, less wood and brick. Fewer porticos on the public buildings and fewer public gardens. In the countryside there are more goats and sheep, and fewer cows. More hard wheat and grazing grass but very little corn (maize) and no rice.

The layout of most Sicilian towns owes much to ancient Greek civic design. Typically, the Greeks favored a public central square, or agora, with streets branching off in various directions, sometimes in a linear grid work. In that respect, ancient cities like Solunto and Morgantina aren't too different from contemporary Sicilian towns. Other typical Greek urban structures were temples and amphitheatres, though the former might be erected outside the town. The cemetery was outside town, too. The houses themselves were usually attached to each other in rows.

Traditionally, Sicilians lived in the towns proper, which in medieval times were often built around castles and towers. This was true even before the Norman era; the castle of Mistretta, for example, was a Saracen structure. One might encounter a villa or farmhouse outside the protection of a town, but this was exceptional. Even if a family's farm were located between two towns, they would usually live in one of those localities rather than on their land.

Economies and geography might influence a town's architecture somewhat, but whether they're coastal fishing settlements, hilltop hamlets or flat sprawling villages, Sicilian towns are all similar in certain respects. They usually have a main square where the Mother Church (Chiesa Madre) or town hall (municipio) is located. In this main square may be found the palazzo of the locality's principal noble family, or perhaps the abandoned monastery of a religious order. There are exceptions, naturally. In desmenial communities (where the feudal lord was the King) like Piazza Armerina, Vizzini and Calascibetta, there were several noble families, each with its own palatial residence in a different part of the town, but there was still a main piazza where the church or town hall was located. In newer towns, the community may have developed along a road instead of around a castle or monastery. An unincorporated hamlet associated with a larger (chartered) locality is a frazione. A group of houses or other buildings at a crossroads is a contrada.

Why, one wonders, are these depopulated towns so important? It's a question of history, really. Until the eighteenth century, the vast majority of Sicilians lived in towns. The only real cities were Palermo, Catania, Messina, and perhaps Siracusa. Most of the people who live in the larger cities today are descendants of people who lived in rural towns just a century or two ago. (That's actually true of large cities everywhere.) To ignore the history of the small towns is to ignore the history of Sicily itself.

The towns represent Sicily's ancient and medieval legacy, but also its modern history. The Normans' battles at Messina and Palermo were decisive, but it was the Battle of Francavilla, fought in 1719 between Spanish and Austrian forces near a town in a valley between Etna and Taormina, that was probably the biggest battle fought in Sicily since Roman rule. If Francavilla were a larger city, this battle would be more famous, but it was decisive nevertheless.

Nations are made up of smaller communities, and the collective history of those communities can shape the destiny of a nation. During the War of the Vespers in 1282, it was the nobles of the feudal towns who decided Sicily's fate; even though the revolution started in Palermo, complete victory would not have been possible without the support of the island's smaller communities.

The larger cities are the heart of Sicily, but the smaller communities are its soul. It's impossible to truly understand Sicily's people and history without discovering something about these smaller communities.

Certain features characterize country life the world over: A stronger sense of community, a slower pace, and an essentially agricultural economy. The air seems fresher and the food seems more wholesome. But to say that Sicilian country life is frozen in time would be inaccurate. Even in many smaller towns the landscape has been scarred by ugly houses, and villages near larger cities have been encroached upon, becoming suburbs in everything but name.

Despite the winds of time, Sicilian county life reminds us of what Sicilian society once was. That's something not to be overlooked by anybody who seeks to discover the secrets of this ancient place.

(Sicilian nature and wildlife is described in The Land and Its People.)