Release today what you don’t want to bring into the new year! There isn’t a long history of celebrating New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day in Sicily. Only over the past century has it become a milestone holiday. Therefore, modern Sicilians celebrate New Year’s Italian-style–eating sausage (cotechino), grapes, and lentils. (Lentils, with their coin-shape,…
Tag: nativity
Old Fashioned Olive Press In Sicily
At last year’s Presepe Vivente (Living Nativity scene) in Custonaci, Sicily, they presented an old fashioned olive press. For this antique method, ripe olives were placed in the round, stone trough, the horse was attached to the wooden beam, and when he walked in a circle, he pulled the round, upright stone press that crushed…
The Days Between Christmas And Epiphany in Sicily
In the days between Christmas and Epiphany (January 6, also known as La Befana or Three Kings Day), Sicilians spend time with family and friends and often enjoy festivals and presentations featuring the nativity scene–both performed live with actors or in diorama form, like this one created by Zio Lillo (Uncle Lillo) in Sant’Angelo Muxaro.
Merry Christmas | Palermo’s Caravaggio
Merry Christmas! This magnificent depiction of the Nativity was commissioned by Palermo’s Oratorio of San Lorenzo in 1609. It illustrates the newborn baby Jesus with Saint Francis (top right) and Saint Lawrence (left) looking over the shoulder of the Virgin Mother. Painted by Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610)) in the chiaroscuro technique, it captures…
Expecting Him …
These 16th century marble statues of the Virgin Mother and Saint Joseph came from the Church of Saint Stephen in Salemi, Trapani province. They are now housed in the town’s outstanding Museum of Sacred Art. The sculpture group of a nativity scene, which is attributed to Sicilian sculptor Antonello Gagini (1478-1536), is missing the Baby…
Sant’Elia Seaside Nativity Scene
This is a nativity scene (or presepio or presepe) photographed by Experience Sicily’s Filippo Buttitta on the seaside at Sant’Elia. This photo was taken yesterday. Filippo reported that the weather in Sicily has been fantastic in recent weeks.
Away in a Manger
Throughout Sicily, building and viewing presepe, or the nativity scene, is a Christmas tradition. From table top diorama-sized statues, like this one pictured from Chiesa di San Bartolomeo in Scicli, to performances featuring actors and live animals that can be found in towns like Sutera, Gangi, and Termini Imerese, to name just a few, displaying…
Knocking on Heaven’s Door
Door knocker, Sutera, Sicily. The town of Sutera, which as I’ve explained in the past, is so high up on a mountain that it seems to scrape the sky, is well-known throughout Sicily for its live Nativity scenes–locals dress as Joseph and Mary, and along with an infant, some live animals, and eventually some wise…