the north coast of Sicily by train

in treno da Palermo a Messina.

leaving Sicily

Today we will leave Sicily. A week in Siracusa, two days Modica, a week in Palermo. This week clouded by a quite unpleasant virus for us both. Remarkably fortunate to have been where we were, above the ultimate fresh food market, able to fetch small delights to cook as well as strawberries and blood oranges and bottles of strangely delicious and pale 'Fanta' - not the real thing really, just a pale Italian version authorised by Coca Cola, containing real juice (three oranges to the bottle, lacking colouring agents. No escaping the globalisation though, bring home a bottle of standard local mineral water (fraction of price of such in Australia) and discover it is a Nestle product.

Many writing projects incomplete. But lasting impressions in the mind. We realise that to be in Capo district we are very much at the centre of old Palermo. Which deserves several essays. Yes you do still have to pay mafia protection for a stall downstairs (conversation with someone who has to pay); yes, we do have, for more research and writing perhaps, photos of the names on the memorial to the fallen in the war against the Mafia, 100 metres away, round the corner, other side of the apartment, piazza of the Tribunale of Palermo and the Ministry of Justice. Yesterday we took the town bus to the hill village of Monreale, where the Normans left their greatest buildings. And shared a superb lunch in a small trattoria with charming Korean friend Lee Junyoung (following the rule: walk 100 metres + away from a tourist attraction).

Today we take the 10am train, the west Sicily intercity for Rome, which meets the east Sicily (Siracusa) intercity for Rome at Messina, at the top left corner of Sicily for the train to the mainland, where the two trains are joined to travel onward. Naples by 8pm. To our apartment in the San Lorenzo district, next to the new modern art museum. Having trained in Sicily for an apartment on the fifth of five floors.

While disappointed that we have been frustrated in not seeing more of Palermo, we sense its size and character and we are prepared in a way not possible coming from the north, to arrive at the other historical capital of the kingdom of Sicily or the Two Sicilies — Naples.

We are not unaware (speak to an older local at the bus stop and swiftly be warned of the dangers, a conversation subject that comes promptly after the weather) that there are personal risks in these places; we have prepared variously for that. At the same time, we compare such risk with other modern cities and suburbs of Sydney in particular.  But this is not central to our focus on these remarkable places, full of life now, full of great history. We did not get to the Greek theatre at Siracusa; we did not take the train from Palermo to the Segesta temple (eat your heart out, Athens). Now the whip may come out, to take, from Naples, the train to Pompeii (the Circumvesuviana railway system) and the bus for Amalfi — the Amalfi drive with the Monterey Peninsula drive in California and Reedy Creek Rd, Eurobodalla, the three most spectacular of the world's scenic roads.

While in recovery from the virus, we watched Il Divo and The Leopard, Italian films of importance both in the history of film and for illumination of Italian history... nice to be able to pause the DVD on the computer and fetch historical background. And special to watch them here in Palermo, with a box of tissues not for the film but the virus.

away from the internet for days and days...

We have been through so many sensations over recent days, in Modica and Palermo. Requiring essays rather than blog bits.

The journey from Siracusa to Modica was a display of extraordinary productive countryside. A film of that below.

We planned three days in Modica choosing to be in a place out of town, surrounded by space, distinct from our experiences elsewhere of living in ancient city centres. A spectacular place, though I draw attention to any who might follow our example that there were a thousand and more steps from our place to the main street of Modica. Went down twice on foot, came back once on foot, once in taxi. Very beautiful place. 

See little film of the Modica passeggiata.

Killer chocolate. We had looked forward to the Modica chocolate, close to Aztec in tradition. Two (or four, or so) pieces and we neither needed more chocolate for days nor could we eat dinner that day.

Thursday in Modica was a deliciously warm day. See small movie of that.

Friday the weather was vicious but we were collected by wonderful friend Silvia Corsini (whose apartment we had rented in Siracusa) and swept away to very generous lunch at the country home of Claudine and Gio Barone, Gio a sculptor, with lovely group of people including architect, art historian and photographer... but leave aside the professions — it was a lovely group of thinking and somewhat radical-minded people with imaginations, meeting whom gave our travels new dimension. Silvia had wanted me to meet in particular Aldo Palazzolo, who kindly brought along a great portfolio of his work for us to see and discuss especially his experiments with 'liquid light'. 

Saturday was clearer and we enjoyed the run through central Sicily by 'Pullman' as buses are known here.  A film of that below.

Sunday in Palermo we found weather much as Sydney winter and a little film of our walk shows that. We are dealing with the world through unpleasant viruses but that does not entirely account for the sense of treacly-ness about doing things here. Great beauty. Extraordinary history. Vivacity and diversity. But it seems, more than anywhere else, a reminder of how young the state of Italy is. Many we deal with in simple transactions and attempted conversations are themselves wrestling with Italian as a second language, which means that while we have been doing well in Italian it can be a more irritated exchange with people who do not understand clear Italian and speak something impenetrably else. Monday when we went out we went past people who still come to our Piazza Porta Carini in mid-town to carry water home from a tap in big plastic containers. A few steps down the street through the Mercato del Capo where we had bought fresh things for breakfast earlier. Turn left again and enter the precinct of the Ministry of Justice; stop to pay respect to the impressive long wall of monument to Magistrates assassinated while pursuing the Mafia in recent decades. Along streets increasingly rough (and interesting) of restorers and sellers of antiques real and imagined (much as Rome centre and Trastevere in the 1960s. To the Cathedral with its remaining fragments of the Norman Cathedral noting on the door who from Roger II was crowned there. Roger on Christmas Day 1130. The Norman boys who went to England did OK and got to stay; these boys sent off south, to ease land inheritance issues for these Viking families come ashore in the lower Sienne valley did exceptionally well. But a hell of a lot harder to hang onto Sicily than England, Sicily at the centre of the world, England the strategic door to the Faeroes. Walk back home through more narrow streets, as a pedestrian, living and moving safely and swiftly, after the manner of and between the graces of Palermo car drivers. Sicily is a place that fails to make it, to get out of poverty, to get good politics, to offer work to the young. So many of those with whatever have left here, over and over again for centuries; successions of outside powers have invaded. It remains, the people remain, the centre of the world. Religion is deeply ingrained, Catholic imagery seems more serious (more real than imagery) and central to life than elsewhere except say in central America or rural Philippines. 

The flatness of Palermo has an effect, intensifying the enclosure, mercifully in late winter; it must be so much greater in summer. We may get to see the end of a street, the spire of a church, but intense life is in small places.

So here are films:

TRAIN FROM SIRACUSA TO MODICA



THE PASSEGGIATA AT MODICA



MODICA MORNING



PULLMAN TO PALERMO



PALERMO SUNDAY

All about Bronte

When we went on the Circumetnea railway(earlier post) I asked several people about Lord Nelson. They rushed to tell the story warmly. Yes, he became the duke, he had the castle built but he never came here. I offered comment about Nelson's dirty role in the suppression of the liberal revolution in Naples in 1799. My comments puzzled. There was a reluctance or perhaps lack of knowledge of Nelson other than as hero, also a conservatism among ordinary people. In London, Nelson's conduct at Naples in 1799 was severely criticised; he was brought back to command the Channel Fleet.

 I later find this history of some of it.

The cast:

King Ferdinand IV

Queen Carolina perhaps lover of

Sir John Acton, made Prime Minister by Carolina

William Hamilton, British Minister

Lady Hamilton whose oft demanded dance smote...

... the heart of Horatio, Lord Nelson, who became the callous agent of these women

Admiral Caracciolo, different sort of hero chap, done in viciously by the other lovely people here.

In Naples in 1799 the situation was in simple terms this. The king, Frederick IV, was recognised by all who dealt with him as a fool, uninterested in affairs to state, committed to hunting and fun and games with ladies in waiting and military officers. His wife, Maria Carolina, daughter of the former Austrian emperor, brother now of the current emperor Joseph and sister of Marie Antoinette, decapitated Queen of France in the revolution, was the centre of power. Joseph, reflecting on a visit to Naples, provides a dreadful account of daily life at court, concluding, of Frederick the king, that he has

"... so definite an aversion from all innovation, so great an indolence of mind and a distaste for reflection, that I must assure you that the man has never reflected in his life about himself, or his physical or moral existence, his situation, his interests, or his country. He is quite ignorant of the past and the present and never thought about the future..." [cited in Harold Acton, The Bourbons of Naples 1734-1825, London 1956; quoted at page 9, Modern Naples, A Documentary Historuy 1799-1999 John Santore, New York 2001]

Around Maria Carolina was an extraordinary gaggle of English. Upon achieving a place on the Council of State on the birth of her first child, the Queen had ousted a moderate and sensible prime minister replacing him with a hardline (as regards the absolute right of kings and inappropriateness of popular assemblies) prime minister Sir John Acton, of a line of knights and lords Actons of some fame in history. This one was reputedly Maria Carolina's lover, certainly very much her agent. A close friend and influence on the Queen was the young Emma Hamilton, wife of the much older British Minister to Naples, Lord Hamilton. Emma was also rather openly the lover of Nelson.

All shared a detestation of the Napoleonic regime. It was of course central to British policy to sustain Neapolitan hostility to Napoleon and commitment to war against France. With the added value of Maria Carolina's links to Austria. The French had occupied Rome. With some kind of agreement from Austria that Austria would join the party, Ferdinand sent his army north and removed the French from Rome—briefly. No Austrians arrived. The Austrians had massed forces against France in central Europe where they were (along with much of the rest of the old power of Europe) defeated at the battle of Austerlitz on 27 December 1798. Napoleon then ordered his brother Joseph to leave Paris secretly to lead armies he had sent to Italy. On 19 January 1799 he wrote again to say:

"I wish you to enter the Kingdom of Naples in the first days of February, and I wish to hear from you in the course of February that our flag is flying over the walls of the capital. You will make no truce, you will hear no capitulation: my will is that the Bourbons shall have ceased to rule at Naples." [Santore, op.cit, p56]

At news of the French nearing Naples, the two trios (Frederick, Maria Carolina, Acton; Lord and Lady Hamilton and Nelson) scuttled off for Palermo aboard Nelson's flagship, leaving behind an exhortation to the people of Naples to resist, cleverly signed as from Rome a week before. A 'Parthenopean Republic' of prominent largely landowning aristocratic liberals was put in place with the support of the French after the French had suffered unprecedented and ferocious resistance from the masses, the Lazzaroni... who detested the new republic, which itself did nothing much more as a government other than debate theological issues. This was the seat of a court which after 300 years of occupancy by foreign rulers, was full of courtiers and hangers on and diverse leeches who extracted impoverishing taxes from the countryside of southern Italy and Sicily.

From Palermo Frederick despatched a Cardinal to Calabria who led growing peasant forces north, turning out the republic. He granted amnesty to the republicans and embarked on policies of reform. But returning to Naples before the king, Maria Carolina ended the amnesty, re-arrested the republicans and their supporters including the popular naval commander Admiral Caracciolo. She reportedly asked Nelson to treat Naples, the richest and largest city in Europe, as if it were a rebellious Irish town. Nelson participated fully in reprisals and executions. Caracciolo was hung from his flagship's yard arm.

There was never any doubt as to Caracciolo's fate. Queen Caroline had relayed to Nelson her wish that Caracciolo should hang, no matter what. Caracciolo was tried aboard a British ship, Foudroyant, by Neapolitan royalist officers and charged with high treason. He was not permitted to call witnesses in his defence. He was condemned to death by three votes to two. He was not given the customary twenty-four hours for personal matters of the spirit. His request to be shot was denied and he was hanged from the yardarm of the Minerva on the morning of June 30, 1799. His body was weighted and thrown into the sea.  One of the mainstays of modern Neapolitan mythology is that the body refused to sink, floating to the surface and eerily bobbing its way towards shore. Indeed, there is even a painting showing King Ferdinand aboard his ship, aghast at the sight of the admiral's corpse floating alongside. Whatever the case, Caracciolo's body was retrieved from the sea and his remains now rest in the small church of Santa Maria della Catena in the Santa Lucia section of Naples.

© Jeff Matthews 2002-2012 entry May 2003

For Nelson's services to the state, a package of lands way round the back of Mount Etna was turned into a duchy called Bronte and Lord Nelson was made the first Duke of Bronte. He never got there, called back to London, criticised for his role at Naples and  sent off to the Channel fleet. Hamilton too returned to London, having offered resignation years earlier.

After the death of Lord Hamilton and divorce from his wife, Horatio Nelson was able to place Emma Hamilton and their daughter Horatia in a small farm near what is now Charing Cross in London. To which he came for an idyllic leave with them, only to be swiftly called back to the Engish fleet with the French fleet massing. He led the defeat of the French at the Battle of Trafalgar, himself dying from a shot from a French marksman in the close quarters battle. And after all that, famously said "Kiss me Hardy." Two accounts of which, here and here.

This secured an heroic historical place for Nelson. By some theories, a Patrick Brunty who changed his name to Bronte, did so in admiration of the Admiral.  Thus his daughters Emily, Charlotte and Anne's literary works were not published under the name Brunty but Bronte.

Lady Hamilton was now bereft of male supporters in a world where women owned nothing, while her lavish habits of spending persisted. She spent time in debtors prison.

I will leave you, again, at the smudgy station sign at Bronte...

...and this correspondence from Lady Hamilton to husband Sir William Hamilton's nephew before and after Sir William's death:

Letters

FROM

LADY HAMILTON

TO

THE HON. CHARLES GREVILLE,

Nephew of Sir William Hamilton.

I.

25th of February, [1800.]

DEAR SIR,

I received your letter by Mr. Campbell. He is lodged with us. We find him a pleasant man; and shall write fully by him. He will tell you a little how we go on, as to our domestic happiness. We are more united and comfortable than ever, in spite of the infamous Jacobin papers, jealous of Lord Nelson's glory, and Sir William's and mine. But we do not mind them. Lord N. is a truly virtuous and great man; and, because we have been fagging, and ruining our health, and sacrificing every comfort, in the cause of loyalty, our private characters are to be stabbed in the dark. First, it was said, Sir W. and Lord N. fought; then, that we played, and lost. First, Sir W. and Lord N. live like brothers; next, Lord N. never plays: and this I give you my word of honour. So I beg you will contradict any of these vile reports. Not that Sir W. and Lord N. mind it; and I get scolded by the Queen, and all of them, for having suffered one day's uneasiness.

Our fleet is off Malta: Lord Nelson has taken Le Genereux, and was after the frigates; so the attempt to relieve Malta has failed.

I have had a letter from the Emperor of Russia, with the Cross of Malta. Sir William has sent his Imperial Majesty's letter to Lord Grenville, to get me the permission to wear it. I have rendered some services to the poor Maltese. I got them ten thousand pounds, and sent corn when they were in distress. The deputies have been lodged in my house; I have been their Ambassadress, so his [I.]M. has rewarded me. If the King will give me leave to wear it abroad, it is of use to me. The Q——n is having the order set in diamonds for me; but the one the Emperor sent is gold. I tell you this little history of it, that you may be au fait. Ball has it also, but I am the first Englishwoman that ever had it. Sir W. is pleased, so I am happy. We are coming home; and I am miserable, to leave my dearest friend, the Q——. She cannot be consoled. We have sworn to be back in six months; and I will not quit her, till Sir William binds himself to come back. However, I shall have a comfort in seeing some of my old friends; and you, in particular. We have also many things to settle. I think, I can situate the person you mention about the Court, as a Camerist to some of the R. F——y, if her education is good.

It is a comfortable situation for life; so, I will bring her out.
The Q. has promised me. Let this remain entre nous.

II.

[April 1803.]

Lady Hamilton will be glad to know how long Mr. Greville can permit her to remain in the house in Piccadilly, as she must instantly look out for a lodging; and, therefore, it is right for her to know the full extent of time she can remain there. She also begs to know, if he will pay her debts, and what she may depend upon; that she may reduce her expences and establishment immediately.

Research reading

Yes, we are organised, all proceeding to plan. The time for planning has allowed me time to do a lot of reading (Helen is jealous: fiendishly preoccupied with office work, lobbying for things, in advance of ten weeks long service leave. But much focused on learning Italian.)

For this entry, not in Italian, breaking my principle announced with last entry...   But this is reflective and full of ideas, which you need real skill to translate.

My favourite bookstore, www.betterworldbooks.com, as usual delivers the goods. (No profit for me in saying so, no clink of money on using that link, c.f. Amazon links.) It has been great this year for sending modest-priced second hand text books to friends in Uganda, now has sent me a variety of books on Sicilian and Neapolitan history. Turning my perspective around in several directions.

At light level, to discover that Archimedes came from Siracusa. Archimedes killed by the Romans after they broke into Siracusa on a dirty ruse, after months of siege in the wars with Carthage. Archimedes had been the director-general of defence science, his devices punishingly keeping the Romans out.

Two hundred years before, they had kept out the Athenians out (I have to read Thucydides next) when the Athenians were jealous of Siracusa, a Greek city, having the reputation of largest and most impressive city of the (European) world 4-500BC.  Sadly, Dennis (Dionysius) of Siracusa became the exemplar of tyranny, breaking away from Greek manners of democracy. He asked for body guards, they gave him 500, he doubled that, game end.

I have read again of the Normans in Sicily, briefly possessing, from Palermo, the most fabled multicultural state in much of European history in the 1200s, swiftly undone, a little more swiftly perhaps, than the United States in the 1900s and 2000s... but largely by the same process, overextension and preoccupation with guns.

And then there is the history of Naples, fabulous among European capitals for several hundred years, then berefted with the unification of Italy and thus loss of taxes and service industry employment - which had supported an indolent court-based, not industry-based, capital to which those of manners flocked.

...Perhaps good for comparative reading in Australian educational programs pondering the (no, no, impossible, impossible, farfetched, as Naples advisors also found) end of the flood of money to government from the resource sector. We are somewhat more progressive to be sure, but there are lessons to be seen. In other current language, Naples was steamrollered by a level playing field.

Noting also that the present scourge of the Camorra arose from the 1300s on, with unemployment and dispossession in a society where divisions between rich and poor. And that pattern also, of course, relates to the rise of so-called terrorism, dependent on dispossession as it is. The ordinariness of violence in these earlier historical periods contributes also long term attitudes. Liddell Hart attributed the violence of the Spanish Civil War to the violence of the Peninsular War against Napoleon (wherein the term guerrilla began), as he also attributed the rise of middle east terrorism (B L H died in 1970) to the good work of Lawrence of Arabia... which latter in particular points to the core principle in modern warfare, seldom seen by statesmen, that it is not your motives and objectives but your manners that impact on the host country (and I add, flood back into your own)... We still struggle with domestic violence (the arrogation of righteousness and application of it by rough means) when we cannot see that this is what our self-righteous goverments do routinely in the use of violence. Sigh...

I much prefer travel with wider insight to travel with gawk, but enough for now...

THE PLAN!

We plan to go to Italy from Australia, via Vancouver and Seattle, a natural thing to plan when you have family in Seattle. And surprisingly the flights to and from  Rome via Vancouver are only marginally longer  in total than more conventional routes via Asia and perhaps London. The stop in north America will break travel all into comfortable legs. From Vancouver to Seattle we use ferry or train or Amtrak coach (three or four hours). The customs and immigration processes are said to be considerably less hectic than travelling via LA.

We will be away from home 3 February to 16 April 2011.

Arriving Rome 8 February, we depart next day by train (all day, the train crosses the straits of Messina at lunchtime) for Siracusa in Sicily. Go south for warmth in February, be back in Rome for spring! Two week-long bookings are in place in Sicily, another three day booking to come. Then by ferry overnight from Palermo to Naples. After a week in Naples (who was it who said "see Naples and die"..? Aha, here is the interesting answer) we take the short train trip to Rome where we will be based from 6 March to 7 April. Some lovely places to stay at quite reasonable prices for holiday rentals... four and a half weeks in a romantic hideaway right in the centre of Rome, tre passi dalla Piazza Navona  ---- around $2000 Australian. Suddenly, writing 'tre passi" [three steps] I am reminded of my stunned youthfulness, or youthful stunnedness, 42 years ago, first weeks in Rome, going to see Tre Passi Nel Delirio with very little Italian.

After this first entry we will try to write in Italian first...

Andiamo in Italia provenienti dall Australia, passando Vancouver e Seattle, e be - una cosa naturale  quando si ha famiglia a Seattle. E scopriamo che i voli da e per Roma via Vancouver sono solo marginalmente pui lunghi delle rotte convenzionali attraverso l'Asia. Fermarci in Nord America e confortevole. Da Vancouver a Seattle usiamo traghetto o in treno o in pullman Amtrak (tre o quattro ore). I processi di immigrazione e doganali sono detto di essere molto meno frenetico rispetto al viaggio via Los Angeles.

Saremo fuori da casa 3 febbraio - 16 Aprile 2011.

Arriviamo a Roma 8 febbraio. Il giorno dopo partiamo con il treno (tutto il giorno, il treno attraversa lo stretto di Messina a mezzogiorno) per Siracusa in Sicilia. Andiama al sud per il calore nel mese di febbraio, torniamo a Roma per la primavera! Abbiamo due prenotazioni di una settimana in atto in Sicilia, cerciamo un posto per un altro tre giorni. Poi un notte in traghetto da Palermo a Napoli. Dopo una settimana a Napoli (chi ha detto "vedi Napoli e muori "..?  Aou, ecco l'informazione - interressante) prendiamo il breve viaggio in treno a Roma, dove saremo dal 6 marzo al 7 aprile. Bel posti a prezzi abbastanza ragionevoli per affitti vacanze ... quattro settimane e mezzo in un rifugio romantico proprio nel centro di Roma, tre passi dalla Piazza Navona ---- circa 2.000 dollari australiani. Improvvisamente, la scrittura 'tre passi' mi viene in mente la mia gioventù della stordito, o 'sturditamente' giovane, 42 anni fa, settimane prima a Roma, andare a vedere Tre Passi nel Delirio con molto poco italiano.

...E dopo questo primo post di blog, proveremo scrivere per prima in Italiano.