Sicily - part nine

And so my time in Sicily and this blog draw to a close. However, I’ll quickly plug the Taormina-Giardini railway station with its Liberty style ceilings …

… and conscienciously watered plants …

… and tell you that Mussolini did not say - although the party was happy to claim so - that he made the trains run on time.

Before ending, an example (as a local told me) of one of Sicily’s many mysteries ... no idea why this poster outside an ‘intimate apparel’ shop in Mazara del Vallo is on its side.

Last examples of my Sicilian street photography …

... including a highly responsible cat ...

... and that 'A CLEAN NEIGHBOURHOOD DEPENDS ON YOU TOO!!!’

If you ask nicely, I’ll tell you where to find a Taormina sushi restaurant that serves Godfather sandwiches …

… and a Mazara del Vallo café with excellent pistachio gelato ... and this unusual mural.

It reminds me that, over many decades, I have travelled hopefully and returned home mostly unscathed, having largely avoided the dog poo.

Arrivederci.

Sicily - part eight

Taormina’s Anglican church and poppies lead nicely into a very brief discussion of Sicily under fascism and Canada’s role in ending it.

Mussolini took power in the 1920s …

 … and much constructed during the fascist era remains.

Among the more interesting is Trapani’s somewhat eccentric 1927 Palazzo delle Poste E Telecomunicazioni.

It combines elements of art nouveau and modernism with stylized aerials and insulators heralding an exciting new world of ever faster communications. 

Fascism coincided with a movement called Futurismo or futurism, which, among other things, emphasized modernity and technological progress.

In this 1932 painting by futurist artist Tullio Crali such advances are celebrated with aerial bombardment. This as Italy consolidated and expanded its empire in places such as Libya and, later, Ethiopia.

Which brings to mind Mussolini’s son’s notorious comment after the 1936 bombing of Adwa (Adowa) in Ethiopia. By comparison with the Italians, the Ethiopians were poorly armed with few defences against attack from the air. Aviator Vittorio Mussolini gloried in virtually unopposed slaughter:

‘I still remember the effect I produced on a small group of Galla tribesmen massed around a man in black clothes. I dropped an aerial torpedo right in the middle, and the group opened up like a rose. It was most entertaining’. (Flights Over the Amba Mountains 1937)

Palermo’s post office, a rationalist building, is typical of the fascist years. 

Confronted with the power of the state (and party) man is insignificant (see figure at the base of one of the columns). If I have to mail a letter, I'd prefer the somewhat quirky, less intimidating Trapani post office.

 

My personal architectural preference is streamlined and here’s Marsala’s 1930s Cine Impero (Empire Cinema). With substantial pillars yes, but stylish curves, and I do like, for lack of a better word, the cinema name's 1930s ‘font’.

Altho’ the Cine Impero survived war (turning the tables the Allies heavily bombed Marsala in 1943), Mussolini’s empire did not. In the Sicilian port city of Messina, a German army road sign and portrait of Mussolini riddled with bullets were evidence of German and Italian defeat. 

However, the buildings, such as Messina’s 1940 Casa Littorio lived on. This was once the home of the local fascist party.

During a visit in 2015, I was astonished to find a fascist slogan still prominent on the building's wall: ’To dare, to last, to win’.

Not only that, but fascist sculptures remained.

Admittedly, one figure’s head had been obliterated, but his companions, imbued with fascist spirit, marched on.

My surprise a decade ago was equalled this year in Aci Castello on Sicily’s east coast. A helpful person pointed out more Fascist-era evidence two floors above an inviting café.

Fading, but some still clear:

'The Italian people have grown the empire with their blood' (Mussolini)

In Germany - even with the rise of the far right - similar obvious reminders of Nazi rule would be quickly removed. Why, 80 years after utter defeat, is this not so in Italy? I have no answer. 

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Although our onetime enemies, I do have time for (some) Italian war memorials, such as this in Taormina’s Villa Comunale, ironically a public garden given to the town by a 19th century English aristocrat. 

It's a World War Two Italian manned torpedo. 

A reminder that, despite the Allies often disparaging Italian wartime efforts, many Italians exhibited great courage in defence of an appalling regime. With such torpedos, in 1941 the Italians badly damaged two Royal Navy battleships, the Queen Elizabeth and Valiant in Alexandria harbour. 

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As mentioned in an earlier post, some 26,000 Canadians, along with the British and Americans, successfully invaded Sicily in 1943. 562 Canadians died on the island with many more to be killed after landing on the Italian mainland. 

I couldn't reach the main Canadian cemetery well inland. However, I was able to visit the Commonwealth War Graves cemetery in coastal Syracuse.

A cemetery gardener showed the way to the Canadian graves …

… among them something I’d not seen before, the remains of two Canadians in one grave, their headstone immediately abutting that of a British soldier.

A Toronto friend, who volunteers for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, says in 1960 the three were moved to the Syracuse cemetery from where they’d been found:

 

“The original graves registration report states that all three were killed on 10 July 1943 and they seem to be treated as killed together … If the burials had been found today, they might have been able to use DNA to identify the Canadians. There were obviously enough clues to identify them as Canadian, probably uniquely Canadian equipment or uniform … that they had been buried almost 20 years made it hard to identify them.”

Equally poignant is this headstone - Canadian? British? Perhaps even German or Italian? Soldier? Civilian? A victim of war only ‘Known into God’.

 

In Palermo’s large Anglican church - legacy of empire ... 

... I found a memorial to Toronto’s 48th Highlander, ‘Faithful Forever’.

And back home, close to Toronto City Hall, I often pass this unusual memorial with its evocation of a battle-scarred Italian town.

A plaque reads ‘The Italian-Canadian Community dedicates this memorial to the more than 93,000 Canadians who took part in the Italian Campaign of World War II. We admire them, we are grateful to them, we honour them’.

Sicily - part seven

Syracuse’s cathedral spans Sicily’s transition from Greek to Roman to Christian to Arab and back to Christian, so I was disappointed the front was covered with scaffolding …

… but will purloin an internet image … 

… to help explain the church actually incorporates the 5th century BCE temple of Athena (Minerva). First a temple, then church, then mosque, becoming church again in 1086. The front is baroque, but, as you can see in my own photo, the base and framework is formed by twelve great fluted Doric pillars of the ‘pagan’ temple. 

Perhaps someday it will become a temple of reason.

Indeed, largely I prefer the Greek temples …  however, must make an exception for Mazara’s seaside Chiesa di San Vito a Mare. 

At quick glance, when driving by, I first thought the church was a modern example of the often stunning European postwar church architecture. How wrong I was. The church was built in 1776 and its austere, ‘un-baroque’ simplicity appeals … to me, at least. 

Appropriately for a church honouring a saint said to protect fishermen, the foundations are lapped by the Mediterranean. I gather the church is well situated on a rock and not on sand (see Matthew 7:24-27), but, as sea levels rise, wonder what its future holds.

I’ve been unable to date the main doors, but delighted to find that, as Jesus preaches from a fishing boat, even dogs and perhaps a cat join the gathering crowd.

And finally, when in Taormina, a relatively small town, something completely unexpected. I was surprised to come on a small, built in 1922, Anglican church. 

St. George’s speaks to the number of British visitors who, from the 1870s on, have escaped UK winters in this Mediterranean resort.

Its plain exterior and unfussy nave and chancel … 

… memorials to British soldiers who passed by in the 1943 invasion …

… and welcoming priest and his wife fortuitously there on a weekday …

… made this a happy find.

The Reverend Shawn Denney and Mary Ann Denney, preparing for the Remembrance Day service, made sure I left with a poppy.

 

And here I’ll give a plug for British poppies with sensible plastic attachments, unlike the Canadian poppies that have pins with which I yearly stab myself.