Sicily is directly adjacent to the region of Calabria via the Strait of Messina to the east. The early Roman name for Sicily was Trinacria, alluding to its triangular shape. The Sensational Sicily Project http://www.SensationalSicily.com is a collaboration with the Region of Sicily, The Italian Chamber of Commerce, Alessandro Sorbello Productions http://www.alessandrosorbello.com and New Realm Media http://www.newrealm.com.au The volcano Etna, situated close to Catania, is 3,320 m (10,900 ft) high, making it the tallest active 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. Oranges, lemons, olives, olive oil, almonds, and wine are among its other agricultural products. The mines of the Enna and Caltanissetta district became a leading sulfur-producing area in the 19th century but have declined since the 1950s. http://youtube.com/watch?v=NJAalPqBuFo&mode;=related&search;= Sicily is divided into nine provinces: Agrigento, Caltanissetta, Catania, Enna, Messina, Palermo, Ragusa, Syracuse (Siracusa), Trapani History The original inhabitants 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. Phoenicians/Carthaginians, Greeks & Romans Sicily was colonized by Phoenicians, Punic settlers from Carthage, and by Greeks, 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. Byzantines In 440 AD Sicily fell to the Vandal king Geiseric. A few decades later, it came into Ostrogothic hands, where it remained until it was conquered by the Byzantine general Belisarius in 535. But a new Ostrogothic king, Totila, drove down the Italian peninsula and then plundered and conquered Sicily in 550. Totila, 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 Arab conquest of 827-902. It is reported in contemporary accounts that Sicilians spoke Greek or Italo-Greek dialects until at least the 10th century, and in some regions for several more centuries. First Arab invasion of Sicily In 535, Emperor Justinian I made Sicily a Byzantine province, and for the second time in Sicilian history, the Greek language became a familiar sound across the island. As the power of the Byzantine Empire waned, Sicily was invaded by the Arabs in 652 AD. However, this was a short lived invasion and the Arabs left soon after. Arab control from Tunisia and Egypt In around 700, the island of Pantelleria was captured by the Arabs, and it was only discord among the Arabs that prevented Sicily being next. Instead, trading arrangements were agreed and Arab merchants established themselves in Sicilian ports. Then, in 827 a failed Sicilian coup against an unpopular Byzantine governor. Euphemius, a wealthy landowner, who overcame the imperial garrison in Siracusa, declared himself Emperor and invited the Aghlabid Emir of Tunisia to help him. The response was a fleet of 100 ships and 10,000 troops under the command of Asad ibn al-Furat, which consisted largely of Arab Berbers from North Africa and Spain. After resistance at Siracusa, the Arabs gained a foothold in Mazara del Vallo. Palermo fell after a long siege in 831, but Siracusa held out until 878. From 842 to 859 the Arabs captured Messina, Modica, Ragusa and Enna. In 902 Taormina, the last Byzantine stronghold also fell to Arabs and by 965 all of Sicily was under Arab control and Palermo became one of the largest cities in the world. Emirate of Sicily Sicily was ruled by the Sunni Aghlabid dynasty in Tunisia and the Shiite Fatimids in Egypt. The Byzantines took advantage of temporary discord to occupy the eastern end of the island for several years. After suppressing a revolt the Fatimid caliph appointed Hassan al-Kalbi (948-964) as Emir of Sicily. He successfully managed to control the Byzantines and founded the Kalbid dynasty. Raids into southern Italy continued under the Kalbids into the 11th century, and in 982 a German army under Otto II was defeated near Crotone in Calabria. With Emir Yusuf al-Kalbi (990-998) a period of steady decline began. Under al-Akhal (1017-1037) the dynastic conflict intensified, with factions within the ruling family allying themselves variously with Byzantium and the Zirids. By the time of Emir Hasan as-Samsam (1040-1053) the island had fragmented into several small fiefdoms. As a virtually an independent emirate, Sicily played a privileged role as bridge between Africa and Europe. Trade flourished and taxes were low. The tolerant regime allowed subjects to abide by their own laws. Despite freedom of worship, Christians freely converted to Islam and there were soon hundreds of mosques in Palermo alone. The Arabs initiated land reforms which in turn, increased productivity and encouraged the growth of smallholdings, a dent to the dominance of the landed estates. The Arabs further improved irrigation systems. A description of Palermo was given by Ibn Hawqual, a Baghdad merchant who visited Sicily in 950. A walled suburb called the Kasr (the palace) is the center of Palermo until today, with the great Friday mosque on the site of the later Roman cathedral. The suburb of Al-Khalisa (Kalsa) contained the Sultan's palace, baths, a mosque, government offices and a private prison. Ibn Hawqual reckoned 7,000 individual butchers trading in 150 shops. The Cathedral of Palermo.In addition to Andalusian Arabs and other Arabs, there were Berbers, Persians, Greeks, Jews, Slavs and Lombards. Western Sicily particularly prospered with Berbers settling in the Agrigento area coupled with Bedouin, Syrians and Egyptian Arabs in Palermo. Muslim rule in Sicily slowly came to an end following an invitation by the Emirs of Catania and Siracusa for a Norman invasion. The Normans, under Count Roger de Hauteville (Altavilla) attacked Sicily in 1061, beginning a thirty year struggle against the Arabs. In 1068, Roger and his men defeated the Arabs at Misilmeri but the most crucial battle was the siege of Palermo in 1072, and the conquest of Sicily was completed by 1091 with the defeat of the last Emir in Noto. Arab-Norman period (1091-1224) Following the Norman conquest, Arab influence continued to persist creating a hybrid culture on the island that has contributed much to the character of modern Sicily. The cultural diversity and religious tolerance of the period of Muslim rule under the Kalbid dynasty made Palermo the capital city of the Emirate of Sicily. This 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 starting in 1194, adopting 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 Muslims from Sicily, temporarily relocating many to a colony in Lucera on the southern mainland, while the rest fled to North Africa. Conflict between the Hohenstaufen house and the Papacy led in 1266 to Sicily's conquest by Charles I, duke of Anjou: opposition to French officialdom and taxation led in 1282 to insurrection (the Sicilian Vespers) and successful invasion by king Peter III of Aragón. The resulting War of the Sicilian Vespers lasted until the peace of Caltabellotta in 1302. Sicily was ruled as an independent kingdom by relatives of the kings of Aragon until 1409 and then as part of the Crown of Aragon. Spanish control 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). Sicily was frequently attacked by Barbary pirates from North Africa. Bad periods of rule by the crown of Savoy (1713-1720) and then the Austrian Habsburgs gave way to union (1734) with the Bourbon-ruled kingdom of Naples, first as independent kingdom under personal union, then (1816) as part of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Sicily was the scene of major revolutionary movements in 1820 and 1848 against Bourbon denial of constitutional government, even though the main request was recognition of an independent status from Naples. 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. Italian unification Sicily was joined with the other Italian regions in 1860 following the invasion of irregular troops led by Giuseppe Garibaldi and the resultant so-called Risorgimento. http://www.greatitalians.com/garibaldi.htm The new Italian state was a strongly centralized nation, and it did not take long before, 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 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 Siciliani led again to the imposition of martial law. Map of the Allied landings in Sicily on 10 July 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 as a side effect of the massive World War II Allied invasion of Sicily on the night of July 10, 1943 when an allied armada of 2,590 vessels freed the then-Fascist Sicily. Mafia was the only organization present in Sicily to be a proved enemy of the Fascist regime and able to offer the Allied occupants a steady grip on the island. The invasion of Sicily was one of the causes of the July 25 crisis. 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. Transport Main article: Transport in Sicily Automobile Most of Sicily's motorways (autostrade) run through the northern portion of the island. The most important ones are A19 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. http://youtube.com/watch?v=RcI8fadvwaY The road network in the south of the country consists largely of well-maintained secondary roads. Railways 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. was 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 would have marked the first time in human history that Sicily was connected by a land link to Italy. In October of 2006 the Italian Parliament scrapped the plan due to lack of popular support, particularly amongst Sicilians.[2]. Air 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. Metro The city of Palermo has an urban metropolitan service, handled by Trenitalia, with eleven stations, including an airport stop. Catania also has an underground rail system, which completes the circuit on the circumetnea narrow gauge railway. Towns and cities 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 Sicilian towns include Acireale, Taormina, Giardini Naxos, Piazza Armerina, Bagheria, Partinico, Carini, Alcamo, Vittoria, Caltagirone, Cefalù, Bronte, Adrano, Marsala, Corleone, Castellammare del Golfo, Calatafimi, Gela, Termini Imerese, Francavilla di Sicilia, Ferla, Sciacca, and Abacaenum (now Tripi). The regional flag of Sicily, recognized since January 2000[3], is also the historical one of the island since 1282. It is divided diagonally yellow over red, with the trinacria symbol in the center. "Trinacria" literally means "3 points" and it most probably is a solar symbol even though lately, it has been considered representative of the three points of the island. The head shown on the Sicilian trinacria is the face of Medusa. The trinacria symbol is used also by other regions like the Isle of Man. Arts Palermo is the regional capital of Sicily. Landscape with temple ruins on Sicily, Jacob Philipp Hackert, 1778Sicily is well known as a region of art: many poets and writers were born here, 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. Other Sicilian artists include the composers Sigismondo d'India, Girolamo Arrigo, Salvatore Sciarrino, Giovanni Sollima (from Palermo), Alessandro Scarlatti (from Trapani or Palermo), Vincenzo Bellini, Giovanni Pacini, Francesco Paolo Frontini, Alfredo Sangiorgi, Aldo Clementi, Roberto Carnevale (from Catania). Noto, Ragusa and particularly Acireale 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 1,400. Sicily is also home to two prominent folk art traditions, both of which draw heavily on the island's Norman influence. A Sicilian wood cart, or Carretto Siciliano, is 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, especially in Acireale, the capital of Sicilian puppets. Sicily is the setting for many classic Italian films such as Visconti's La Terra Trema (1948)and Il Gattopardo (1963), Rosi's Salvatore Giuliano(1962) and Antonioni's L'avventura (1960). The 1988 movie Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, was about life in a Sicilian town following the Second World War. It is also the setting for Michael Radford's Il Postino (1994) starring Massimo Troisi. People 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, 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.[10][11][12] However, other research has failed to detect any such division.[13][7] 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.[6][14][15][16][17][18] 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, Canada, Australia and the EU countries. The island today, like all of western Europe, is home to growing communities of immigrants, including Tunisians, Moroccans, Nigerians, Indians, Romanians, Russians, Chinese and Gypsies from the Balkans. Language Main article: Sicilian language,. Many Sicilians are bilingual in both Italian and Sicilian, a separate Romance language, with Greek, Arabic, Catalan and Spanish influence. 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. The Sicilian language was an early influence in the development of the first Italian standard, although its use remained confined to an intellectual élite. This was a literary language in Sicily created under the auspices of Frederick II and his court of notaries, or Magna Curia, which, headed by Giacomo da Lentini also gave birth to the Scuola Siciliana, widely inspired by troubadour literature. Its linguistic and poetic heritage was later assimilated into the Florentine by Dante Alighieri, the father of modern Italian who, in his De Vulgari Eloquentia (DVE claims that "In effect this vernacular seems to deserve a higher praise than the others, since all the poetry written by Italians can be called Sicilian" (DVE, I, xii). It is in this language that appeared the first sonnet, whose invention is attributed to Giacomo da Lentini himself. 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. Malta 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 [u] for singular masculine nouns and adjectives, and [a] for feminine. The plural is usually [i] for both masculine and feminine. By contrast, in Italian masculine nouns and adjectives that end in [o] in the singular pass to [i] in the plural, while the feminine counterparts pass from [a] to [e]. 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 [d] but rather [ɖ]. For example, the Italian word bello 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. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicily

• published: 12 Jul 2007
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