Leave The Past In The Fire

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,…

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…

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…