Experience Sicily

Tag: arte

  • Lia’s Sicilian Hospitality

    Even in upstate New York, for me, Sicily is never too far away. Where my husband Joe and I ate dinner this evening, at Lia’s Mountain View Restaurant, in Pine Plains, New York you’ll find warm- Sicilian hospitality.

  • A World of Women’s Voices

    This painting by Ettore De Maria Bergler, hangs in Palermo’s Palazzo dei Normanni, the house of the Sicilian Parliament. Titled, “The Ruins of the Temple of Jupiter in Syracuse,” or “I Ruderi del Tempio di Giove di Siracusa,” it was painted in 1891.  Please join me in Middletown, Connecticut this Saturday, June 10 as part…

  • Voilà, It’s Majolica! 

    Santo Stefano di Camastra is one of Sicily’s ceramics centers. There is an entire street of the town lined with ceramics shops that are filled with majolica ceramics (maiolica in Italian). Majolica describes a technique of decorating earthenware (ceramics made with red clay, AKA bisque or biscuit) that has been fired at a relatively low…

  • Small-group 

    One of my favorite visits during our Enchanting Sicily tour is with artist Michele Ducato in his studio. Michele the keeper of the Ducato family business: painting Sicilian carts. He is so generous with his time and sharing his knowledge about his craft. 

  • Teatro Massimo’s Gilded Echo Chamber

    Teatro Massimo, Palermo’s opera house that opened in 1897, is a master work of Greek and Roman inspired architecture designed by Giovan Battista Filippo Basile (1825-1891). The interior frescoes of the theater were painted by artists Rocco Lentini, Ettore De Maria Bergler, Michele Cortegiani, and Luigi Di Giovanni, who likely brushed this detail I photographed…

  • Oh, Amore Mio! Tesore Mio!

    Oh, Amore Mio! Tesore Mio! (Oh, my love! My treasure!) … Can’t you hear her say? Love is in the air and on Sicilian carts with their illustrations of chivalry from “Orlando furioso” and other stories of princesses and knights. Master cart painter Michele Ducato in Bagheria showed us this cart, almost completed, in his…

  • Me and My Dream Car

    I’ve talked about this treasure in Castelvetrano before. Well, here I am enjoying a moment with it–my dream car, a Fiat 500 painted in the style of a Sicilian cart by the artists of Ceramiche Galfano.

  • The 12th Day of Christmas 

    Happy Epiphany, the 12th day of Christmas!  Painting hanging in a chapel of Chiesa di San Domenico in Castelvetrano (Trapani), “Circumcision of Jesus” (1580) by Simone de Wobreck (c. 1557 – c. 1587). 

  • Bagheria’s Renato Guttuso

    Yesterday in Bagheria at Villa Cattolica, they celebrated the re-opening of the Museo Guttuso which had been closed for renovation for a year and a half. On what would have been the 105th birthday of artist Renato Guttuso (1911-1987), a group of dignitaries including Bagheria Mayor Patrizio Cinque, Palermo Mayor Leoluca Orlando, and film maker…