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 Sicily and the Mediterranean written by Claudia Karagoz and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2015-08-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The island of Sicily has for centuries been a meeting point where civilizations transformed one another and gave life to the cultural developments at the foundation of European modernity. The essays collected here explore Sicily as a place where these cultural interactions have produced conflict but also new material and intellectual exchange.
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 Sicily and the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages written by Hiroshi Takayama and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-03-22 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a collection of milestone articles of a leading scholar in the study of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, a crossroads of Latin-Christian, Greek-Byzantine, and Arab-Islamic cultures and one of the most fascinating but also one of the most neglected kingdoms in the medieval world. Some of his articles were published in influential journals such as English Historical Review, Viator, Mediterranean Historical Review, and Papers of the British School at Rome, while others appeared in hard-to-obtain festschrifts, proceedings of international conferences, and so on. The articles included here, based on analysis of Latin, Greek, and Arabic documents as well as multi-lingual parchments, explore subjects of interest in medieval Mediterranean world such as Norman administrations, multi-cultural courts, Christian-Muslim diplomacy, conquests and migrations, religious tolerance and conflicts, cross-cultural contacts, and so forth. Some of them dig deep into curious specific topics, while others settle disputes among scholars and correct our antiquated interpretations. His attention to the administrative structure of the kingdom of Sicily, whose bureaucracy was staffed by Greeks, Muslims and Latins, has been a particularly important part of his work, where he has engaged in major debates with other scholars in the field.
Download or read book Sicily written by Cleveland Museum of Art and published by J Paul Getty Museum Publications. This book was released on 2013 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published on the occasion of the exhibition Sicily: art & invention between Greece and Rome, on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa in Malibu, from April 3 to August 19, 2013; at the Cleveland Museum of Art from September 30, 2013 to January 5, 2014; and at Palazzo Ajutamicristo, Palermo, from February 14 to June 15, 2014.
Download or read book Where Three Worlds Met written by Sarah C. Davis-Secord and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-20 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Where Three Worlds Met, Sarah Davis-Secord investigates Sicily's place within the religious, diplomatic, military, commercial, and intellectual networks of the Mediterranean by tracing the patterns of travel, trade, and communication among Christians (Latin and Greek), Muslims, and Jews. By looking at the island across this long expanse of time and during the periods of transition from one dominant culture to another, Davis-Secord uncovers the patterns that defined and redefined the broader Muslim-Christian encounter in the Middle Ages.
Download or read book Narrating Muslim Sicily written by William Granara and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-06-27 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 902 the last Byzantine stronghold in Sicily fell, and the island would remain under Muslim control until the arrival of the Normans in the eleventh century. Drawing on a lifetime of translating and linguistic experience, William Granara here focuses on the various ways in which medieval Arab historians, geographers, jurists and philologists imagined and articulated their ever-changing identities in this turbulent period. All of these authors sought to make sense of the island's dramatic twists, including conquest and struggles over political sovereignty, and the painful decline of social and cultural life. Writing about Siqilliya involved drawing from memory, conjecture and then-current theories of why nations and people rose and fell. In so doing, Granara considers and translates, often for the first time, a vast range of primary sources - from the master chronicles of Ibn al-Athir and Ibn Khadun to biographical dictionaries, geographical works, legal treatises and poetry - and modern scholarship not available in English. He charts the shift from Sicily as 'warrior outpost' to vital and productive hub that would transform the medieval Islamic world, and indeed the entire Mediterranean.
Download or read book The Fight for Greek Sicily written by Melanie Jonasch and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The island of Sicily was a highly contested area throughout much of its history. Among the first to exert strong influence on its political, cultural, infrastructural, and demographic developments were the two major decentralized civilizations of the first millennium BCE: the Phoenicians and the Greeks. While trade and cultural exchange preceded their permanent presence, it was the colonizing movement that brought territorial competition and political power struggles on the island to a new level. The history of six centuries of colonization is replete with accounts of conflict and warfare that include cross-cultural confrontations, as well as interstate hostilities, domestic conflicts, and government violence. This book is not concerned with realities from the battlefield or questions of military strategy and tactics, but rather offers a broad collection of archaeological case studies and historical essays that analyze how political competition, strategic considerations, and violent encounters substantially affected rural and urban environments, the island’s heterogeneous communities, and their social practices. These contributions, originating from a workshop in 2018, combine expertise from the fields of archaeology, ancient history, and philology. The focus on a specific time period and the limited geographic area of Greek Sicily allows for the thorough investigation and discussion of various forms of organized societal violence and their consequences on the developments in society and landscape.
Download or read book Sicily and the Mediterranean written by Claudia Karagoz and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-08-12 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The island of Sicily has for centuries been a meeting point where civilizations transformed one another and gave life to the cultural developments at the foundation of European modernity. The essays collected here explore Sicily as a place where these cultural interactions have produced conflict but also new material and intellectual exchange.
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 Sicily written by Joseph Farrell and published by Interlink Publishing. This book was released on 2014-06-19 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Reading these guides is the next best thing to actually going there with them in hand.” —Foreword Magazine AN ENGAGING INTRODUCTION TO A CULTURAL GIANT Long before it became an Italian offshore island, Sicily was the land in the center of the Mediterranean where the great civilizations of Europe and Northern Africa met. Sicily today is familiar and unfamiliar, modernized and unchanging. Visitors will find in an out-of-the-way town an Aragonese castle, will stumble across a Norman church by the side of a lesser travelled road, will see red Muslim-styles domes over a Christian shrine, will find a Baroque church of breathtaking beauty in a village, will catch a glimpse from the motorway of a solitary Greek temple on the horizon and will happen on a the celebrations of the patron saint of a run-down district of a city, and will stop and wonder. There is more to Sicily than the Godfather and the mafia.
Download or read book The Crusades The Kingdom of Sicily and the Mediterranean written by James M. Powell and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this collection of studies by James M. Powell, two related centres of attention can be seen. One is the campaigns undertaken by western Europeans in the eastern Mediterranean, chiefly in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries - the Crusades - the reasons for them and manner in which they were organized and promoted. The other is the Kingdom of Sicily under Frederick II, himself a Crusader, and its society and economy, including its Muslim population. A characteristic feature is the author's interest in ordinary participants and the attempt to get behind the generalizations of macro-historians to the extent that may be possible.
Download or read book Mediterranean Winter written by Robert D. Kaplan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-11-23 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Mediterranean Winter, Robert D. Kaplan, the bestselling author of Balkan Ghosts and Eastward to Tartary, relives an austere, haunting journey he took as a youth through the off-season Mediterranean. The awnings are rolled up and the other tourists are gone, so the damp, cold weather takes him back to the 1950s and earlier—a golden, intensely personal age of tourism. Decades ago, Kaplan voyaged from North Africa to Italy, Yugoslavia, and Greece, luxuriating in the radical freedom of youth, unaccountable to time because there was always time to make up for a mistake. He recalls that journey in this Persian miniature of a book, less to look inward into his own past than to look outward in order to dissect the process of learning through travel, in which a succession of new landscapes can lead to books and artwork never before encountered. Kaplan first imagines Tunis as the glow of gypsum lamps shimmering against lime-washed mosques; the city he actually discovers is even more intoxicating. He takes the reader to the ramparts of a Turkish kasbah where Carthaginian, Roman, and Byzantine forts once stood: “I could see deep into Algeria over a rib-work of hills so gaunt it seemed the wind had torn the flesh off them.” In these austere and aromatic surroundings he discovers Saint Augustine; the courtyards of Tunis lead him to the historical writings of Ibn Khaldun. Kaplan takes us to the fifth-century Greek temple at Segesta, where he reflects on the ill-fated Athenian invasion of Sicily. At Hadrian’s villa, “Shattered domes revealed clouds moving overhead in countless visions of eternity. It was a place made for silence and for contemplation, where you wanted a book handy. Every corner was a cloister. No view was panoramic: each seemed deliberately composed.” Kaplan’s bus and train travels, his nighttime boat voyages, and his long walks in one archaeological site after another lead him to subjects as varied as the Berber threat to Carthage; the Roman army’s hunt for the warlord Jugurtha; the legacy of Byzantine art; the medieval Greek philosopher Georgios Gemistos Plethon, who helped kindle the Italian Renaissance; twentieth-century British literary writing about Greece; and the links between Rodin and the Croa- tian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic. Within these pages are smells, tastes, and the profundity of chance encounters. Mediterranean Winter begins in Rodin’s sculpture garden in Paris, passes through the gritty streets of Marseilles, and ends with a moving epiphany about Greece as the world prepares for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. Mediterranean Winter is the story of an education. It is filled with memories and history, not the author’s alone, but humanity’s as well.
Download or read book The Sicily Cookbook written by Cettina Vicenzino and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-03-18 with total page 527 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Embark on the enchanting culinary journey and experience the culinary delights of the Sicilian diet. Join Sicilian cook, writer, and photographer Cettina Vicenzino as she shares more than 70 authentic and mouth-watering recipes from this unique Mediterranean island. While only a few miles from Italy, Sicily's heritage is proudly distinct from that of the mainland, favoring dishes packed with spices, citrus fruits, cheeses, olives, tomatoes, eggplants, and seafood. Featuring three strands of Sicilian cooking - Cucina Povera (peasant food), Cibo di Strada (street food), and Cucina dei Monsù (sophisticated food) - alongside profiles on local chefs and food producers, The Sicily Cookbook invites you to discover the island's culinary culture and let your summer cooking burst with Mediterranean sunshine.
Download or read book The Greek Cities of Magna Graecia and Sicily written by Luca Cerchiai and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 2004 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After colonizing the Aegean islands and the coast of Asia Minor, the ancient Greeks turned toward southern Italy and Sicily, driven by the unrest that troubled their homeland in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. The new arrivals brought with them their language, as well as their cultural and religious traditions and the institution of the polis. In Italy they created an autonomous political community that eventually surpassed the cities of Greece in wealth, military power, and architectural and cultural splendor. Such forefathers of Western philosophy as Pythagoras, Parmenides, and Archimedes lived and worked within this civilization. The Greek Cities of Magna Graecia and Sicily presents an overview of Greek colonization in Italy and the principal historical events that took place in this area from the Archaic period until the ascendancy of the Romans. This comprehensive survey is followed by a review of the major archaeological sites in the region.
Download or read book Rick Steves Sicily written by Rick Steves and published by Rick Steves. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Swim in the sparkling Mediterranean, marvel at the peak of Mount Etna, and get to know this region's timeless charm: with Rick Steves on your side, Sicily can be yours! Inside Rick Steves Sicily you'll find: Comprehensive coverage for spending a week or more exploring Sicily Rick's strategic advice on how to get the most out of your time and money, with rankings of his must-see favorites Top sights and hidden gems, from Mount Etna and the Byzantine mosaics of Monreale to the Ballarò street market and Siracusa's puppet museum How to connect with culture: Savor seafood-centric cuisine made from ancient recipes, catch an opera performance at the Teatro Massimo, or sample authentic Marsala wine Beat the crowds, skip the lines, and avoid tourist traps with Rick's candid, humorous insight The best places to eat, sleep, and relax with a glass of local Nero d'Avola Self-guided walking tours of lively neighborhoods and incredible museums Detailed maps for exploring on the go Useful resources including a packing list, a historical overview, and useful Italian phrases Over 350 bible-thin pages include everything worth seeing without weighing you down Complete, up-to-date information on Palermo, Cefalù, Trapani and the West Coast, Agrigento and the Valley of the Temples, Ragusa and the Southeast, Catania, Taormina, and more Make the most of every day and every dollar with Rick Steves Sicily.
Download or read book Italy Sicily and the Mediterranean 1100 1400 written by David Abulafia and published by Variorum Publishing. This book was released on 1987 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
