Castellinaria - free ebook by Henry Festing Jones

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Castellinaria

Henry Festing Jones

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CASTELLINARIA and other sicilian diversions

CASTELLINARIA and other sicilian diversions

by HENRY FESTING JONES Title page LONDON: A. C. FIFIELD 1920 First Published . . . 1911 Re-issued . . . 1920 al caro • compare ALBERTO • AUGUGLIARO di • monte • erice alla cara • comare GIUSEPPINA • AUGUGLIARO e a • tutti gli • amici • siciliani che gareggiando in cortesia • ospitalità • affezione hanno • fatto della • loro • isola una • seconda • patria per l’autore • riconoscente...

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PREFACE

PREFACE

It is probable that every book contains, besides misprints, some statements which the author would be glad to modify if he could. In Chapter V of Diversions in Sicily it is stated that the seating arrangements of the marionette theatre in Catania would be condemned by the County Council, which I believe to be correct, but, on visiting the theatre since, I find I was wrong in saying that there are no passages; I did not see them on my first visit because the audience hid them. Again, in Chapter

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CHAPTER I CHANGES IN THE TOWN

CHAPTER I CHANGES IN THE TOWN

Enrico Pampalone entered the world with a compliment to his godfather, for of all the days in the year he chose to be born on my birthday. Peppino sent me a telegram at once, then a formal invitation to the christening, then a letter, an extract from which I translate: With immense joy I inform you that Brancaccia has given to the light a fine, healthy boy. Mother and child are well and send you their salutations. We are all beside ourselves with delight at this happy event and my father is t

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CHAPTER II FESTA RIMANDATA

CHAPTER II FESTA RIMANDATA

One day the bells were ringing for the festa of S. Somebody, but it was not really his day. Peppino told me that his proper day had been stormy or unsympathetic or the people had had some crops to get in or something else to do, and so the saint had had his festa shifted; or it may have been because some greater festival had fallen on S. Somebody’s day owing to the mutability of Easter or for some other reason. I had been wishing I could have been at Castellinaria for the first anniversary of

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CHAPTER III MARIONETTISTS AT HOME

CHAPTER III MARIONETTISTS AT HOME

Alessandro Greco to the Author . Marionette Theatre , Piazza Nuova , Palermo , 4 June , 1909. My dear Enrico , Since I last wrote to you there has been a continual to-do and no time for writing letters. What has been the to-do? Is it possible you have forgotten my telling you that I am studying to be a singer and that I take lessons every day? Now listen to this: Here in Palermo, a new opera was performed recently for the benefit of the victims of the earthquake at Messina. The story was tak

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CHAPTER IV MALAGIGI

CHAPTER IV MALAGIGI

Next morning I called on the buffo in his workshop. His two combustible Turkish pavilions were finished, ready to be fired by Ettorina, and he was full of his devils. I inquired why we were doing Guido Santo so soon; it was only a year since my last visit to Palermo, when I had witnessed his lamented end after a fortnight of starvation in prison, and, at this rate, the story would be over in fourteen months instead of lasting eighteen. The buffo said they had made the experiment of shortening

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CHAPTER V ARGANTINO

CHAPTER V ARGANTINO

As I had missed the emotional interview at the tomb the buffo generously arranged that there should be a private repetition of the scene specially for the young ladies and me; but it could not be that afternoon because it would take time to prepare and we had the appointment to go to his professor’s house for his singing lesson, and that also would take time. Before singing one does a few exercises, the effect of which is to warm up the throat and awaken the voice, because the warmer the throat

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CHAPTER VI THE ESCAPE FROM PARIS

CHAPTER VI THE ESCAPE FROM PARIS

Although I had to miss a great deal that it would have been interesting to see on the stage, I spent a couple of mornings with the buffo in his workshop helping to make the scene of the people escaping, which was perhaps even better than being among the audience later. I think he is most happy when he is holding up the mirror to nature and reproducing modern Palermitan life as it appears to him. He enjoyed the devils and the subterranean road, but the inhabitants of Paris in modern costume, ea

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CHAPTER VII THE BUFFO’S HOLIDAY

CHAPTER VII THE BUFFO’S HOLIDAY

I do not remember who started the idea that the buffo should come to Catania with me; it grew up, as inevitable ideas do, without any of us being sure whether he suggested it, or Papa, or Gildo, or one of the sisters, or I, and it became the chief subject of conversation in the Greco family for days. It would not be true to say that he had never been away from Palermo, because when he was a boy all the family went to try their fortune in Brazil and stayed there five years running a marionette th

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CHAPTER VIII THE NASCITA

CHAPTER VIII THE NASCITA

Once I was at Trapani in September, and observed in a small shop in a back street some queer little dolls’ heads made of wax. They seemed to form a set, some women and some men, and there were hands of wax to match. I did not think much about them, one cannot very well investigate everything one notices in a Sicilian town, and, as I turned away, these little heads were driven out of mine by Ignazio Giacalone, who was coming down the street. He is a young avvocato whom I have known since he wa

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CHAPTER IX THE COMPARE

CHAPTER IX THE COMPARE

Michele Lombardo, a goldsmith of Trapani, came to me one day and said he wished me to be his compare. I at once had a vision of myself as a black man riding round a circus on a bare-backed horse and jumping through hoops. That was because, at the time, all my knowledge about a compare was derived from a conversation I had had in the house of the Greco family at Palermo. Among the photographs grouped on the wall was one of a pleasant-looking nigger in European costume. I asked who he was, and

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CHAPTER X COMPARE BERTO

CHAPTER X COMPARE BERTO

In 1901 I spent ten days on Mount Eryx, now usually called Monte San Giuliano, near Trapani, where I went to see the nocturnal procession of Noah’s Ark and the Universal Deluge ( Diversions in Sicily , Chapter X). During those days I made the acquaintance of about twenty young men of whom Alberto Augugliaro, the son of the professor of mathematics in the Ginnasio, was the chief. I have seen him nearly every year since, first as a student at Trapani, then at the University of Palermo, and again

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CHAPTER XI BERTO’S WEDDING

CHAPTER XI BERTO’S WEDDING

A Sicilian wedding is conducted either on system a , when the happy couple go away for their honeymoon and the ceremony is performed in the morning, or on system b , when they do not go away but have a ball at home, and then the ceremony is performed in the evening. The wedding of Ignazio proceeded on system a , that of Berto and Giuseppina on system b . As for Alberto Bosco, his wedding was either a combination of a and b or an exceptional case. Berto’s brother Nicolào came to fetch me at 5.3

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CHAPTER XII SULPHUR

CHAPTER XII SULPHUR

Caltanissetta is a busy town of some 45,000 inhabitants near the middle of the island and about 2000 feet above the sea. It depends for its prosperity on almonds, grapes, olives and sulphur, especially the last, for there is much sulphur in the pores of the rock. I have several friends there of whom one, Beppe (Giuseppe) Catena, is an engineer with an interest in Trabonella, the largest sulphur mine in the neighbourhood, and another, Gigino (Luigi) Cordova, is an advocate. Sometimes Beppe is

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CHAPTER XIII OMERTÀ AND THE MAFIA

CHAPTER XIII OMERTÀ AND THE MAFIA

When the drunken sulphur-miners quarrel and kill one another on Saturdays and Sundays, the murderers are seldom brought to justice because of Omertà; a word which is said to be derived from uomo and to signify manliness in the sense of power of endurance, the power, for example, of keeping silence even under torture; hence it comes to be used for an exaggeration of that natural sense of honour, that Noblesse Oblige or Decency Forbids, which makes an English schoolboy scorn to become a sneak. It

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CHAPTER XIV MALA VITA

CHAPTER XIV MALA VITA

Sicilians sometimes claim that much of what has been stated in the foregoing chapter is now out of date, and that, with the advance of civilisation, the power of the mafia and the respect for omertà are giving way to confidence in the police. And they go on to regret that Giovanni Grasso should have so much success with his plays in foreign countries, because they contain a great deal of mafia and mala vita which he presents with so much realism that foreigners are encouraged in the idea that a

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CHAPTER XV THE CARDINALESSA

CHAPTER XV THE CARDINALESSA

One day, as I was travelling through the island by rail, I lunched in the restaurant-car and divided my attention between the colazione, the view and the other lunchers. At the table in front of me sat three gentlemen; beyond them, at a separate table, sat a distinguished-looking lady, quietly but well dressed in foamy white musliny stuff, with a good deal of lace and a few touches of pale green. She had a lovely hat and a veil, which she wore in such a way that I thought how well she would loo

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CHAPTER XVI THE CORPORAL

CHAPTER XVI THE CORPORAL

One makes friends rapidly in Sicily. I made friends for life with all the coast-guards during three or four hours which I spent with them in their caserma. The corporal was the most demonstrative, and after I returned to England we exchanged post-cards for some months. Then he suddenly left off writing, and I drew the conclusion that it is as easy to unmake friends as to make them. But I was wrong. After four and a half years of undeserved neglect I received another post-card: Since the dea

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CHAPTER XVII TOTÒ CARBONARO

CHAPTER XVII TOTÒ CARBONARO

One morning, in the autumn of 1908, I was sitting in front of one of the windows of the albergo looking out across the harbour at the mountains of Calabria, waiting for coffee and thinking of Omertà . I had been spending a week in Messina with Giovanni Grasso and his company of Sicilian Players, and Omertà was the play they had performed the preceding evening. I remembered how at the end Giovanni had staggered in mortally wounded and refused to give the name of his murderer—though the audience

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TURIDDU BALISTRIERI

TURIDDU BALISTRIERI

Among the members of Giovanni’s company whose acquaintance I made during my week in Messina were two ladies who acted under their maiden names, viz. Marinella Bragaglia and Carolina Balistrieri; the first is married to Vittorio Marazzi and the second to Corrado Bragaglia, Corrado being the brother of Marinella. I also often saw in the theatre Turiddu (Salvatore) Balistrieri, brother of Carolina and therefore brother-in-law to Corrado and brother-in-law by marriage (or whatever the correct expre

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RAILWAY PORTERS

RAILWAY PORTERS

Some years ago the station porter who attended to my luggage at Messina gave me his name and address, saying that if I would send him a post-card next time I came, he would meet me and look after me. Since then I have passed through Messina once, and sometimes twice, a year and he has always met me. I wrote to him from London after the earthquake inquiring whether he was alive or dead, but he did not receive my card till nearly eight months later, after it had been returned to me and I had sen

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GIUSEPPE PLATANIA

GIUSEPPE PLATANIA

In Catania I saw my friend Lieutenant Giuseppe Platania, who was quartered in Messina during the winter of 1908-9. He was away for Christmas and returned about midnight on the 27th December and went to bed at two in the morning on the 28th. He was awakened by the falling of a picture, which hit him. He guessed the reason, covered his head with the pillows and lay still, waiting. He had to wait fifty-seven seconds—at least many people told me the earthquake lasted fifty-seven seconds, but the

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GIULIO ADAMO

GIULIO ADAMO

In Trapani I talked with another friend, a doctor, Giulio Adamo of Calatafimi. Communication was broken and it was not until the evening of the 29th that they began to know in Trapani that there had been an earthquake in Messina. Giulio went with others by train to Milazzo and the train could go no further. They continued the journey by boat from Milazzo to Messina, where he arrived on the 30th. When they approached the city and saw the row of houses facing the harbour where the Albergo Trin

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CECÈ LUNA

CECÈ LUNA

In Palermo I talked with another doctor, Cecè (Francesco) Luna, of Trapani, whose acquaintance I made many years ago on Monte Erice when he was there as a student in villeggiatura. In September, 1909, I found him in the children’s hospital at Palermo. As soon as news of the earthquake reached the city, the Regina Margherita was fitted out to help the wounded and Cecè went in her among the doctors. When they arrived at Messina, they could neither enter the harbour nor take anyone on board beca

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FUGITIVES AND VICTIMS

FUGITIVES AND VICTIMS

At Caltanissetta they told me that the trains were bringing fugitives from Messina all day and all night. The fugitives were mostly naked and all very dirty, some with rugs, some with cloaks, some with rags. A woman got out of the train clothed, like Monna Vanna, in nothing but a cloak which a soldier had given her. They asked her: “What do you want done for you?” She opened her cloak and showed that she wanted everything. Another woman came with her daughter whose leg was broken and they wer

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CHAPTER XVIII LAVA

CHAPTER XVIII LAVA

We started from Catania at three o’clock on a dull afternoon at the end of March to see one of the streams of lava that Etna was sending out during the eruption of 1910. Peppino Di Gregorio had arranged everything and provided four of his friends to make company for us and to act as guides, some of them having been before. He and I went in a one-horse carriage with two of the friends and the other two came on their bicycles. There was, first, another Peppino who had been in America, where he

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CHAPTER XIX S. ALFIO

CHAPTER XIX S. ALFIO

I was back in Catania before the 9th of May and began talking about S. Alfio in the Teatro Machiavelli. One of the actors whose name is Volpes, the one who did the listening father in the play about Rosina and the good young man, is employed by day in the cathedral, his department being the brass-work; he is therefore something of a hagiologist. He was going on business to Lentini, which is situated to the south of Catania on the way to Siracusa, it is the place where the three saintly brother

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CHAPTER XX THE NAKED RUNNERS

CHAPTER XX THE NAKED RUNNERS

One may see in the foregoing story of S. Alfio the foundation of some of the incidents painted on the carts, and perhaps the saints’ travelling bareheaded and barefooted is the origin of the people running so to Trecastagne, but I can find nothing in the book to support the belief that S. Alfio was a medical man or that he ever cured anyone of hernia. Nevertheless that he was a medical man, especially successful in treating hernia, is believed by everyone in and round Catania. Fortified by my

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CHAPTER XXI HOLY WEEK

CHAPTER XXI HOLY WEEK

Being in Catania for Holy Week I went to the cathedral on Palm Sunday. The archbishop in his yellow mitre, red inside because he is also a cardinal, accompanied by nine canons in white mitres and many priests and others, passed out of the church by a side exit and proceeded to the western entrance, which was closed against him. I heard him knock and listened to the chanted dialogue which he carried on with those inside. I saw the great doors thrown open and watched the procession enter and pa

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CHAPTER XXII O FOUNTAIN ARETHUSE

CHAPTER XXII O FOUNTAIN ARETHUSE

When “Arethusa arose From her couch of snows In the Acroceraunian mountains” she had scarcely reached the age at which women begin to dream of love. She spied the approaching river-god Alpheus and, to preserve what was dearer to her than life, for she was a nymph of Diana, plunged heroically into the earth. Alpheus, who had reached the age when men desire to act, plunged in after her. They flowed along inside the ground and under the sea, he following her, all the way from Greece to Sicily an

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NOTES.

NOTES.

[60] This table— —is much merrier than usual this evening. Enrico! I drink to the health of your sister. [61a] This table is not dirty, it is clean. Enrico! Eat, and do not pay attention to them. [61b] The animal Will not do it any harm. [61c] Now that I have eaten I am no longer fasting; I drink to the health of Enrico, who is a poet. [61d] I also, if I may make so bold, wish to drink the health of Enrico who desires to hear me sing; for a year I have not seen you, O, my de

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