Live from Sicily! We’ve experienced so much during these past two days while in Agrigento Province. A highlight has been seeing the work of the two brotherhoods from San Biagio Platini for their annual Archi di Pane, or the Easter Bread Arches. An Easter Sunday procession that unites Jesus and Mary in the center of…
Category: Architecture
Chiesa di San Francesco d’Assisi in Palermo
Built between 1255 and 1277, the Chiesa di San Francesco d’Assisi has survived earthquakes and Allied bombings. Its facade, designed in 1302, sports a zigzag, Gothic design.
Liberty Style Architecture In Palermo
You may be familiar with the term Art Nouveau, a freer architectural style that swept Europe and the Americas at the end of the 19th century into the early 20th century. Well, differently, in Palermo, Art Nouveau is known as “Liberty Style,” and it was championed by architects Giovan Battista, who designed Palermo’s Teatro Massimo…
Palermo’s Santa Caterina’s Dizzying Baroque
The dizzying rococo baroque decorations of the Church of Santa Caterina, built between 1580 and 1596 on Palermo’s Piazza Bellini, feature multicolored marble inlay. The altar, pictured, is lit by the sun through a window at midday.
A Diamond In The Mishmash of Palermo’s Cathedral
When you visit Palermo’s Cathedral, be sure to go around to the north side of it, pictured. To me, the back side posesses the most beautiful architectural elements of the mishmash of styles that make up this temple dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin. The inlaid lava stone designs (AKA intarsias) are from the…
Scraping the Sky: Teatro Andromeda
Scraping the sky of the Sicanian mountains, Teatro Andromeda is a modern sculpture created by artist and shepherd Lorenzo Reina. Although it feels ancient, the theater, which sits 1000 meters (3280 feet) above sea level, was built by Reina one stone at a time over the past 30 years. When you talk with the Lorenzo,…
Embracing The Longest Night
As we observe the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year, I recall how beautiful the UNESCO site Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, Sicily is at night, when the the monuments, like this, the Temple of Concordia, are lit. Even in ancient times (Concordia was erected between 440 and 430 B.C.E.), it was…
Randazzo’s Dazzling Cathedral
Like something out of a fairy tale, the (almost) 800-year old Santa Maria Cathedral in the City of Randazzo was constructed in the Frederick Gothic Style, a style encouraged by a civic and military program sponsored by Holy Roman Emperor and King of Sicily Frederick II of Hohenstaufen. The black lava stone blocks of the…
Otherworldly In Agrigento, Sicily
Close your eyes and imagine yourself at the foot of the remains of an ancient Greek temple from the 5th century B.C.E., like the Temple of Castor and Pollux, pictured left. After learning about the thriving civilization that built Agrigento in the centuries before the common era from your archaeologist-guide, you’ll then savor a picnic…
Teatro Andromeda Is Out Of This World
When my co-host, wellness practitioner Tony Allicino, and I were planning the itinerary for our May 2019’s Myths & Mysteries of Sicily: As Above/So Below tour, planning a day at the Teatro Andromeda, one of Sicily’s hidden gems, was an absolute must. So, if you join us, from the top of the mythic Sicani mountains…