Download or read book A Thousand Years in Sicily written by Giuseppe Quatriglio and published by Legas / Gaetano Cipolla. This book was released on 1991 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Sicily written by Sandra Benjamin and published by Steerforth. This book was released on 2010-04-20 with total page 673 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Take a tour through the Mediterranean’s largest island in this first and only history of Sicily for general readers—perfect for armchair travelers, historians, and anyone planning their next Italian vacation. The emigration of people from Sicily often overshadows the importance of the people who immigrated to its shores throughout the centuries. Greeks, Romans, Vandals, Goths, Byzantines, Muslims, Normans, Hohenstaufens, Spaniards, Bourbons, the Savoy Kingdom of Italy—and countless others—have all held sway and left lasting influences on the island’s culture and architecture. Moreover, Sicily’s character has been shaped by what has passed it by. Events that affected Europe, namely the Crusades and Columbus’ discovery of the Americas, had little influence on Italy’s most famous island. The first and only history of Sicily for the general reader, this book examines how location turned this charming Mediterranean island into the epicenter of major historical conquests, cultures, and more. Complete with maps, biographical notes, suggestions for further reading, a glossary, and pronunciation keys, Sicily is at once a useful travel guide and an informative, entertaining exploration of the island’s remarkable history.
Download or read book A Thousand Years in Sicily autofilled written by and published by Legas / Gaetano Cipolla. This book was released on with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Sicily written by John Julius Norwich and published by Random House. This book was released on 2015-07-21 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critically acclaimed author John Julius Norwich weaves the turbulent story of Sicily into a spellbinding narrative that places the island at the crossroads of world history. “Sicily,” said Goethe, “is the key to everything.” It is the largest island in the Mediterranean, the stepping-stone between Europe and Africa, the link between the Latin West and the Greek East. Sicily’s strategic location has tempted Roman emperors, French princes, and Spanish kings. The subsequent struggles to conquer and keep it have played crucial roles in the rise and fall of the world’s most powerful dynasties. Yet Sicily has often been little more than a footnote in books about other empires. John Julius Norwich’s engrossing narrative is the first to knit together all of the colorful strands of Sicilian history into a single comprehensive study. Here is a vivid, erudite, page-turning chronicle of an island and the remarkable kings, queens, and tyrants who fought to rule it. From its beginnings as a Greek city-state to its emergence as a multicultural trading hub during the Crusades, from the rebellion against Italian unification to the rise of the Mafia, the story of Sicily is rich with extraordinary moments and dramatic characters. Writing with his customary deftness and humor, Norwich outlines the surprising influence Sicily has had on world history—the Romans’ fascination with Greek civilization dates back to their sack of Sicily—and tells the story of one of the world’s most kaleidoscopic cultures in a galvanizing, contemporary way. This volume has been a long time coming—Norwich began to explore Sicily’s colorful history during his first visit to the island in the early 1960s. The dean of popular historians leads his readers through the millennia with the steady narrative hand of a master teacher or the world’s most learned tour guide. Like the island itself, Sicily is a book brimming with bold flavors that begs to be revisited again and again. Praise for Sicily “Suavely readable . . . The very model of a popular historian, [Norwich] writes to give pleasure to the common reader. And what pleasure it is.”—The Wall Street Journal “Entertaining on every page . . . There is something ancient and sorrowful in Sicily, ‘some dark, brooding quality,’ just as captivating as its spellbinding history or its beautiful and varied landscapes, from beaches to lemon groves, pine forests to volcanoes. . . . The most amiable and freewheeling of guides, Norwich will always find time for the amusing anecdote.”—The Sunday Times “Utterly engrossing . . . written with passion about the art and architecture of this magical island, filled with gossipy tidbits and sweeping historical theories.”—The Daily Beast “Dazzling . . . Norwich is an elegantly graceful and entertaining storyteller.”—Richmond Times-Dispatch “Charming . . . richly nuanced history relayed with enormous fondness.”—Kirkus Reviews “A brisk and always-lively tour.”—Open Letters Monthly “Norwich is deeply in love with Sicily. [His] boundless affection has inspired a determined effort to understand its painful past. The result is impressionistic, as love often is.”—The Times “Norwich sketches personalities vividly. . . . He does the island and the reader a generous service in providing such an amiable introduction.”—The Sunday Telegraph “Norwich tells [Sicily’s] long, sad but fascinating story with sympathy and brio.”—Literary Review
Download or read book Seeking Sicily written by John Keahey and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-11-08 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Keahey's exploration of this misunderstood island offers a much-needed look at a much-maligned land."—Paul Paolicelli, author of Under the Southern Sun Sicily is the Mediterranean's largest and most mysterious island. Its people, for three thousand years under the thumb of one invader after another, hold tightly onto a culture so unique that they remain emotionally and culturally distinct, viewing themselves first as Sicilians, not Italians. Many of these islanders, carrying considerable DNA from Arab and Muslim ancestors who ruled for 250 years and integrated vast numbers of settlers from the continent just ninety miles to the south, say proudly that Sicily is located north of Africa, not south of Italy. Seeking Sicily explores what lies behind the soul of the island's inhabitants. It touches on history, archaeology, food, the Mafia, and politics and looks to nineteenth- and twentieth-century Sicilian authors to plumb the islanders' so-called Sicilitudine. This "culture apart" is best exemplified by the writings of one of Sicily's greatest writers, Leonardo Sciascia. Seeking Sicily also looks to contemporary Sicilians who have never shaken off the influences of their forbearers, who believed in the ancient gods and goddesses. Author John Keahey is not content to let images from the island's overly touristed villages carry the story. Starting in Palermo, he journeyed to such places as Arab-founded Scopello on the west coast, the Greek ruins of Selinunte on the southwest, and Sciascia's ancestral village of Racalmuto in the south, where he experienced unique, local festivals. He spent Easter Week in Enna at the island's center, witnessing surreal processions that date back to Spanish rule. And he learned about Sicilian cuisine in Spanish Baroque Noto and Greek Siracusa in the southeast, and met elderly, retired fishermen in the tiny east-coast fishing village of Aci Trezza, home of the mythical Cyclops and immortalized by Luchino Visconti's mid-1940s film masterpiece, La terra trema. He walked near the summit of Etna, Europe's largest and most active volcano, studied the mountain's role in creating this island, and looked out over the expanse of the Ionian Sea, marveling at the three millennia of myths and history that forged Sicily into what it is today.
Download or read book Sweet Sicily written by Victoria Granof and published by William Morrow Cookbooks. This book was released on 2001-08-21 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There's nothing subtle about Sicily. From the towering cake known as the Triumph of Gluttony to the pert cherry-topped pastries called Virgin's Breasts to puckery, palate-tingling ices made from the island's luscious lemons and tangerines, Sicily is known for its audacious -- and delicious -- desserts. Pastry chef and food stylist Victoria Granof has traveled throughout Sicily learning sweet secrets and local lore from the island's pastry chefs and home bakers, and the result is Sweet Sicily, a lushly photographed exploration of authentic Sicilian pastry-making. For more than two thousand years, Sicily has been coveted for its fertile land and unique location in the Mediterranean. The Greeks, Romans, Normans, Austrians, French, Bourbons, and Saracens have all landed on its shores, and in turn left their imprints on its food. Granof's magical tour takes us to Modica, where Franco and Pierpaolo Ruta of the Antica Dolceria Bonajuto create chocolate pastries using a five-hundred-year-old recipe that originated with the island's Bourbon conquerors, and to the Baroque town of Noto, where master pastry chef Corrado uses jasmine blossoms planted by Saracens more than a thousand years ago to flavor his jasmine gelato. Granof goes on a quest to find the most authentic ingredients and recipes, including delectable homemade ricotta made from the milk of sheep that graze on fragrant herbs and pistachios that grow in the shadow of Mount Etna, the island's still active volcano. In Sicily, every holiday and festival has its proper sweet accompaniment: marzipan lambs at Easter, honeyed pastry fritters at Christmas, crunchy, clove-scented cookies called "bones of the dead" for All Soul's Day. Granof explores these customs and festivals, gathering heirloom recipes, along with local anecdotes and advice. In addition to sweets that are already familiar to Americans, such as cannoli, cassata, and lemon ice, she introduces us to dozens of delectable pastries, confections, and cookies that are destined to become favorites as well. With a guide to festivals and pastry shops throughout the island, and nearly one hundred recipes formulated for use in American kitchens, Sweet Sicily is an unforgettable exploration of the desserts of the world's most beguiling island.
Download or read book Midnight In Sicily written by Peter Robb and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2014-08-05 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year From the author of M and A Death in Brazil comes Midnight in Sicily. South of mainland Italy lies the island of Sicily, home to an ancient culture that--with its stark landscapes, glorious coastlines, and extraordinary treasure troves of art and archeology--has seduced travelers for centuries. But at the heart of the island's rare beauty is a network of violence and corruption that reaches into every corner of Sicilian life: Cosa Nostra, the Mafia. Peter Robb lived in southern Italy for over fourteen years and recounts its sensuous pleasures, its literature, politics, art, and crimes.
Download or read book Sicily Before History written by Robert Leighton and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, one of the most varied in appearance, and least insular in terms of cultural development. It has often been described as a meeting place of cultures, where East meets West.
Download or read book The Invention of Sicily written by Jamie Mackay and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether you’re vacationing in Italy or simply an armchair traveler, this guide to the Mediterranean island of Sicily is a dazzling introduction to the region’s rich 3,000-year history and culture. A rich and fascinating cultural history of the Mediterranean’s enigmatic heart Sicily is at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, and for over 2000 years has been the gateway between Europe, Africa and the East. It has long been seen as the frontier between Western Civilization and the rest, but never definitively part of either. Despite being conquered by empires—Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Hapsburg Spain—it remains uniquely apart. The island’s story maps a mosaic that mixes the story of myth and wars, maritime empires and reckless crusades, and a people who refuse to be ruled. In this riveting, rich history Jamie Mackay peels away the layers of this most mysterious of islands. This story finds its origins in ancient myth but has been reinventing itself across centuries: in conquest and resistance. Inseparable from these political and social developments are the artefacts of the nation’s cultural patrimony—ancient amphitheaters, Arab gardens, Baroque Cathedrals, as well as great literature such as Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s masterpiece The Leopard, and the novels and plays of Luigi Pirandello. In its modern era, Sicily has been the site of revolution, Cosa Nostra and, in the twenty-first century, the epicenter of the refugee crisis.
Download or read book Civilizations written by Jane McIntosh and published by . This book was released on 2003-05 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Civilizations takes the reader forward from the earliest days of human settlement to the civilizations of the New World overthrown by the Spanish Conquistadors.
Download or read book Been Here a Thousand Years written by Venezia, Mariolina and published by Farrar Straus Giroux. This book was released on 2009-06-09 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this sweeping work, Venezia portrays five generations of the Falcone family. Through their complicated, funny, tragic, and astonishing stories, Venezia also recounts a century and a half of Italy's tumultuous history.
Download or read book That Summer in Sicily written by Marlena de Blasi and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2008-08-05 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “At villa Donnafugata, long ago is never very far away,” writes bestselling author Marlena de Blasi of the magnificent if somewhat ruined castle in the mountains of Sicily that she finds, accidentally, one summer while traveling with her husband, Fernando. There de Blasi is befriended by Tosca, the patroness of the villa, an elegant and beautiful woman-of-a-certain-age who recounts her lifelong love story with the last prince of Sicily descended from the French nobles of Anjou. Sicily is a land of contrasts: grandeur and poverty, beauty and sufferance, illusion and candor. In a luminous and tantalizing voice, That Summer in Sicily re-creates Tosca’s life, from her impoverished childhood to her fairy-tale adoption and initiation into the glittering life of the prince’s palace, to the dawning and recognition of mutual love. But when Prince Leo attempts to better the lives of his peasants, his defiance of the local Mafia’s grim will to maintain the historical imbalance between the haves and the have-nots costs him dearly. The present-day narrative finds Tosca sharing her considerable inherited wealth with a harmonious society composed of many of the women–now widowed–who once worked the prince’s land alongside their husbands. How the Sicilian widows go about their tasks, care for one another, and celebrate the rituals of a humble, well-lived life is the heart of this book. Showcasing the same writerly gifts that made bestsellers of A Thousand Days in Venice and A Thousand Days in Tuscany, That Summer in Sicily, and de Blasi’ s marvelous storytelling, remind us that in order to live a rich life, one must embrace both life’s sorrow and its beauty. Here is an epic drama that takes readers from Sicily’s remote mountains to chaotic post-war Palermo, from the intricacies of forbidden love to the havoc wreaked by Sicily’s eternally bewildering culture.
Download or read book Between Scylla and Charybdis written by Shlomo Simonsohn and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2011-04-11 with total page 795 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of the Jews in Sicily covers a period of over a thousand years, from Antiquity to the Expulsion, based on some 40,000 archival records, most of them hitherto unpublished. It illustrates the political, legal, economic, social and religious vicissitudes of the Jewish minority and its relations with the surrounding majority of Romans, Moslems and Christians. While the antecedents of the Jewish presence on the island are shrouded in mystery, more and more historical records surface with the passage of time.
Download or read book Mattanza written by Teri Maggio and published by Counterpoint LLC. This book was released on 2000 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A US freelance travel writer descended from Sicilian immigrants chronicles her intimate encounter with the languishing lifestyle of fishermen engaged in the mattanza ritual trapping of bluefin tuna on an island off the coast of Sicily. This memoir-cum- travelogue and natural history includes thumbnail bandw photos. c. Book News Inc.
Download or read book The Dangerously Truthful Diary of a Sicilian Housewife written by Veronica Di Grigoli and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When career-girl Veronica flies to Sicily for a friend's wedding, she accidentally falls in love with one of the groom's three-hundred cousins. A year later she has given up her job, house and friends, and is planning her own wedding with her Latin Lover in the shimmering heat of Sicily.
Download or read book Sicilian Splendors written by John Keahey and published by Thomas Dunne Books. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A wondrously joyous account of travel as it should be." –Publishers Weekly A travel narrative that focuses on Sicily's little-known regions, from the author of Seeking Sicily and Hidden Tuscany. From Palermo to Castiglione di Sicilia to Alimena, Sicily holds great secrets from the past and unspoken promises. Tradition, in the form of festivals, the written word, photographs, and song, reverberates through village walls. Now, slowly shaking itself free of the Mafia, Sicily is opening itself up to visitors in ways it never has before. Sicilian Splendors explores the history, politics, food, Mafia, and people which John Keahey encounters throughout his travels during his return to Sicily. Through conversing with natives and immersing himself in culture, Keahey illustrates a brand new Sicily no one has ever talked about before. Villagers, eager to welcome tourism and impart awareness of their cultural background, greet Keahey for meals and drink and walk him through their winding streets. They share stories of well-known writers, such as Maria Messina, who have found inspiration in Sicily’s villages. Keahey’s never-ending curiosity as a traveler shines light on Sicily’s mythical mysteries and portrays the island not only through his eyes but also through Sicily’s heart. This picturesque travel memoir navigates Sicily today and seeks to understand Sicily’s past. In lyrical prose and vivid dialect, Keahey paints images of the island’s villages, people, and culture with careful strokes and a meticulously even hand. Keahey not only serves as a guide through the marvel of Sicily’s identity, but he also looks deeply into Sicily’s soul.
Download or read book The Leopard written by Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa and published by Everyman's Library. This book was released on 1991-10-15 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sicilian prince, Don Fabrizio, hero of Lampedusa's great and only novel, is described as enormous in size, in intellect, and in sensuality. The book he inhabits shares his dimensions in its evocation of an aristocracy confronting democratic upheaval and the new force of nationalism. In the decades since its publication shortly after the author's death in 1957, The Leopard has come to be regarded as the twentieth century's greatest historical fiction. Introduction by David Gilmour; Translation by Archibald Colquhoun (Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed)
