Sicily

Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean spanning 9935 square miles including the adjacent islands. The Trinacria, a three-legged lady, is the symbol of triangular shaped Sicily, representing the three sides of the island that rose up from the sea millennia ago ("Trinacria is also one of the ancient names for Sicily). Sicily is separated from the Italian mainland by the Strait of Messina which is less than two miles wide at its northeast tip. Africa lies to the southwest separated from the island by the Strait of Sicily less than ninety-eight miles across at its narrowest point. Sicily's strategic position at the very center of the Mediterranean Sea placed the island at the crossroads of the ancient world. And Sicily's fertile coastal areas also made her land the bread basket of Rome. Sicily is one of the most volcanically active places on the Earth. Sicily has only been officially a part of Italy for 150 years. Before that it belonged to just about everybody else in the region.

Sicily is a rather young island and it is still growing. About 100 Million Years Ago much of Sicily (& half of Italy) were part of a tiny continental plate fragment called Apulia that floated between the African and European Tectonic Plates. Apulia eventually became connected to the European Shelf, landing Sicily and Italy close to their present locations but leaving both completely underwater.

The island of Sicily literally rose from the sea when the African Tectonic Plate smashed violently into the European/Apulian Plate, driving under it like a conveyor belt and hoisting the sea floor upwards. This formed most of the mountain ranges in Southern Europe including the Apennines, the Alps, and the Island of Sicily. Sicily actually sits right on top of the location where the European and the African Tectonic Plates are colliding to this day. About one quarter of the island of Sicily (the southeastern region) is part of the African Plate. The constant pushing and grinding of the two colliding tectonic plates causes numerous seismic events in Sicily including violent earthquakes, tsunamis, and constant volcanic eruptions.

Sicilians have always lived side by side with their homeland's volcanoes, building villages in the foothills sometimes within sight of the lava flows. Luckily the Sicilians have not yet suffered entire cities being wiped out by molten rock. However, in 1908, tectonic plate movement caused an earthquake (7.8) in Messina (followed by a tidal wave) that left the city flattened and 200,000 people dead. It was the worst natural disaster in European history.

There are a number of active volcanoes in Sicily besides the famous Mt Etna and Mt Stomboli; and some of them continue to form new landmasses today. To the northwest, the Sicilian Aeolian Islands are growing larger as the small volcanic island of Vulcanino increases in size every year from lava flows. And a few miles off the southwestern shore near Agrigento, the underwater volcano, Ferdinandea rose up from the sea in 1831 to form Graham Island (claimed by Britain but in dispute).

Some of Sicily's many volcanoes are dormant but not extinct and they could spring back to life at any moment. But of Sicily's active volcanoes, Mt. Etna is by far the biggest; in fact it is the largest volcano in Europe, standing about 3,320 m (10,900 ft) making it the highest mountain in Europe south of the Alps. Etna covers an area of 460 square miles (1190 km²) and is nearly three times the height of Mount Vesuvius and far more active. Mt. Etna is actually one of the most active volcanoes in the world and is in an almost constant state of eruption. Scientists and sightseers alike climb Mt Etna everyday just to watch the magma blasting out of it and the lava pouring down.

Etna is the location of numerous sulfur mines. Sicily supplies 75% of the world's sulfur.

Evidence of volcanism, earthquakes, and tectonic upheavals are everywhere in Sicily.

However this does not stop the Sicilians from living and working dangerously close to the island's volcanoes.

Beside sulfur, Sicily supplies other mined resources such as antimony (a toxic metal once prized, now used for ball bearings and as a fire retardant) and lignite (brown coal or soft coal that still has qualities of compressed peat moss) as well as thousands of tons of asphalt. Sicily is also abundant in sea salt and rock salt because for millions of years it was on the bottom of the sea. If you have every heard the term "he was sent to the salt mines" that meant he was sent to Sicily.

Volcanism, plate tectonics, and seismic activity has shaped Sicily over the millennia to make the island a rocky, mountainous, and hill covered triangle of snow covered peaks, rugged shorelines, rolling foothills, and fertile alluvial plains, all surrounded by the sea. It is truly a beautiful and sometimes intimidating place.

For the past 15 million year the sea level surrounding Sicily has fluctuated. 10 million years ago the water passage from the Atlantic Ocean closed up causing the Messinan Salinity Crisis during which Mediterranean Sea to evaporate by more than 75% leaving behind two small shallow salty seas on either side of Sicily. This stage ended during the Zanclean Flood five million years later when the Straits of Gibraltar opened back up and the Atlantic rushed in, filling the dry Mediterranean Sea bed to the brim in less than two years and covering much of Sicily and Italy with water.

During the periods of lower sea levels, Sicily had a land bridge to Africa, allowing exotic plants and animals to migrate to the island. When the water lowered those plants and animals often evolved uniquely. Two of these were Dwarf Hippos and Midget Elephants, both hunted to extinction in pre-Roman times. The most recent land bridge linking Sicily with Africa and Italy was during the last great Ice Age when much of the world's water was frozen in the ice caps. This allowed, animals, plants, and early humans to pass back and forth one last time thus giving the island characteristics of both Southern Europe and Northern Africa. Even then Sicily was a crossroads.

Around 10,000 years ago Sicily was pretty close to the shape it is today: a volcanic island composed mostly of mountains and hills with a fertile coastline, a few river valleys, and one fertile plain south of Mt. Etna. Much of the landscape is so rugged that historically many people from the interior villages rarely saw the sea. Because of this the people's diet in the interior is very different from people's diets near the coast. Temperate weather, sufficient rain in the north and east, as well as snow melt flowing in all directions helps make Sicily a rich and fertile land, able to support a large and healthy population. This made it a highly prized location for both the people who lived there and the nations that wanted to conquer it.

In ancient times Sicily was also heavily forested, which made it an especially attractive target for any nation that needed lumber for building things (Rome and Carthage both harvested Sicily's forests for their ancient triremes and later Spain used the last of Sicily's wood for the Spanish galleons that they used to conquer the New World). Needless to say, over centuries of conquest and the exploitation, nearly all of Sicily's primeval woodlands have been deforested. Today, most of the island is made up of farms, grazing land, or simply left fallow and covered with scrub.

Other indigenous animals that evolved on or migrated to the island in ancient times are deer, bears, wild boar, and ... There were the creatures that early human inhabitants either feared, lived along side, or hunted. Today many of them are no longer living in the wild. Some, like the hippo and the elephant are extinct. This includes the Sicilian deer which was hunted to extinction in the middle ages. However the Sicilian wild cat (Felis Lybica Sarda) is merely "close" to extinction but lives on to this day in the Nebrodi Mountains in the north and the Sicilian Miniature Donkey also lives on, both only found on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia.

The sea that surrounds the island (the Tyrrhenian to the North, the Ionian to the East, and the Mediterranean to the West and South) are abundant with life and most Sicilians near the coast have a diet rich in fish, squid, sea urchins, coruscations, and mollusks.

Other than seafood, Sicily's cash crops are traditionally grapes, olives, almonds, pistachio nuts, oranges, lemons, melons, eggplants, beans, grains, fruits, and vegetables. One of the most famous vegetable that originated in Sicily is the artichoke, which grew wild there until the Romans domesticated it and then the Arabs spread it half way across the globe during ht middle ages.

Where farming is difficult, such as at the rocky elevations, the land supports livestock, especially sheep and goats. Sicily's textiles were famous during the middle ages.

Sicily also produces dairy, poultry, and other meats, as well as wool, cloth and olive oil. Sicily also grows grapes and produces world class wines, one of which has been a household name for centuries, Marsala.

As well as having rich land and mild weather, Sicily's strategic importance for both farming and maritime ventures is unparalleled in the Mediterranean world. From the ancient Greeks and Romans to the modern armies of World War 2, Sicily's centralized location has made it one of Europe's most sought after and conquered lands.

Sicily's 1901 census showed 3.6 million inhabitants. The most recent census reports 4.2 million people living in Sicily.

3. 100 Million Years Ago some of Sicily (& half of Italy) were part of a tiny continental plate chip called Apulia. It shifted over the millennia between the eastern and central Mediterranean.

4. 20 Million Years ago Apulia became connected to Europe, placing Sicily at its present location. But Sicily was completely underwater.

5. 10-15 million years ago the African Tectonic Plate slammed into Europe & Apulia, driving itself with great force under the Mediterranean sea floor and the Apulian plate (Subduction), lifting the underwater mountain ranges of Sicily and hoisting them upwards which made the island essentially rise from the sea. The African Plate continues to roll under Sicily today like a conveyor belt, forcing lava from the molten mantel upwards through every crack and hole on the surface. Sicily is Europe's most volcanically active location.

6. 9 Million Years ago the Straits of Gibraltar closed tight, shutting off the flow of water from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. This caused the Mediterranean to evaporate by more than 75%, lowering the sea level so that Sicily became attached to both Tunisia and Italy by two wide land bridges and essentially splitting the Mediterranean Sea into two salty marshes. This is known as the Messinian Salinity Crisis. Sicily's five million year long land bridge connection with Africa is the source of much of the exotic nature that sprang up in Sicily including Dwarf Hippos and Midget Elephants (both hunted to extinction in pre-Roman times).

7. 5 Million Years ago the dry Mediterranean seabed was suddenly refilled when the Straits of Gibraltar split open again and water from the Atlantic Ocean came rushing in. This event is called the Zanclean Flood and it filled the Mediterranean Sea back up in less than two years, leaving Sicily with a similar coastline to the one it has today.

8. Mt. Etna (10,890 ft, the tallest active volcano in Europe) and Mt. Stromboli are two of the world's most famous active volcanoes - but there are many others in Sicily including Lipari, Vulcanello, & Vulcano on Sicily's Aeolean Islands off the northwest coast; and Empedocles and Pantelerria in the south; plus the underwater Phlegraean volcanic fields in the Straits south of Trampani. There is also the once submerged Sicilian volcano, Ferdinandea that erupted from the sea to form an island in 1831 (claimed by Britain as Graham Island but that is in dispute).

9. Because of the island's many volcanoes Sicily mines/produces three-quarters of the world's sulfur. Other cash-crop minerals mined/produced in Sicily are antimony, lignite, asphalt, and rock salt.

10. For it's entire history, Sicily has either been it's own independent country/kingdom, or one of the richest provinces of a far flung empire (Greek, Carthaginian, Roman, Goth, Byzantine, Arab, Norman, Spanish, German, & French). The island had it's own history, cuisine, dress, culture, and language (a Sicilian/Italian dialect that sounds like guttural Portuguese, only weeping). Sicily became part of Italy for the first time only 150 years ago.

Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean. Its area, including the adjacent islands, is 9935 square miles. Sicily has many earthquakes and active volcanoes because it sits right on top of the spot where the European and the African Continental Plates collide. About one quarter of southeastern Sicily is African Plate.

This collision created every mountain range in Italy as well as pushed the Mediterranean sea floor upwards thousands of feet above the surface of the water to form the island of Sicily. The violence beneath the Sicilian landmass continues to this day as this African Plate rolls under it like a conveyor belt causing earthquakes and volcanic eruptions constantly.

As with the Bosporus in Turkey and the Straits of Gibraltar in Spain, the separation between Sicily and it's neighbor to the south is narrow and quickly traveled, easily connecting Sicily to cultures and commerce from Africa and beyond. Sicily is made up of coastline, fertile lowlands, and rugged interior mountain ranges. Mt. Etna is Sicily's highest peak, and along with Mt. Stromboli to it's north, both are Europe's most active volcanoes.

Although the land is fertile in many places the majority of Sicily is mountainous. The landscape is often so rugged that in ancient times many people from the interior rarely saw the sea. In prehistoric times Sicily was heavily forested, but over the centuries of conquest and exploitation much of it has become barren or been converted to farmland. The sea that surrounds the island however remains abundant with sea life and fishing is still a major industry. Other than seafood, Sicily's cash crops are traditionally grapes, olives, almonds, artichokes (which originated on the island), pistachio nuts, oranges, lemons, melons, eggplants, beans, grains, fruits, dairy, poultry, and sheep. In prehistory there were also large land mammals such as hippopotamus and dwarf elephants that have long become extinct.

As well as having rich land, the weather in Sicily is mild which makes it a place of strategic importance for both farming and maritime ventures. Because of these and it's centralized location, Sicily remains Europe's most conquered land.

9. Because of the island's many volcanoes Sicily mines/produces three-quarters of the world's sulfur. Other cash-crop minerals mined/produced in Sicily are antimony, lignite, asphalt, and rock salt.

The island of Sicily rose up from the sea floor to take a prominent position at the very center of the Mediterranean Sea; so, over the millennium it has been the crossroads for numerous flora, fauna, cultural expansions, conquests, and colonizations coming from East, West, North, or South. There is fossilized evidence of Neanderthals on the island of Sicily dating from as far back as 50,000 years ago but the group identified as indigenous to the island are the Sicani who left cave drawings dating back to the end of the Pleistocene epoch, around 8000 BC. The Sicani (Greek Σικανοί Sikanoi), or Sicanians were possibly descendants of Ligurian Celts, early Italics, Iberians or a combination of all three. According to Thucydides, the Sicani traveled from what is now Catalonia in northeastern Spain but there is no serious archeological proof of this. By the end of the second millennium BC the Sicanian culture dominated all corners of Sicily.

The second major Indo-European group to migrate to Sicily were the Elymians thought to be from the ancient civilization of Troy (there is substantial evidence to support this).

that it is a diverse land of foothills, valleys, and volcanic mountains. It's fertile lands along the coasts and rivers supports the farming of grain, grapes, pistachios, and olives. The island is surrounded by abundant sea life and blessed with moderate winters.

The first Neolithic people on the island were the San Cano-Diana and Serraferlichio pre-Indo-European cultures between 2750 and 2250 BC. There is evidence of wandering Celts from the Celto-Ligurian band who traveled from the Western Mediterranean to land on Sicily's shores around 1850 BC.

Garibaldi Sicilian's as subjects of Italy The Cosa Nostra Hope in the New World

Sicily is at the very center of the Mediterranean Sea and so has been the crossroads for numerous cultural expansions, conquests, and colonizations going East, West, North, or South. it is a diverse land of foothills, valleys, and volcanic mountains. It's fertile lands along the coasts and rivers supports the farming of grain, grapes, pistachios, and olives. The island is surrounded by abundant sea life and blessed with moderate winters. Neanderthals lived there during the Ice Age to be replaced by Early modern Humans (Cro-Magnons) between 40,000 and 15,000 years ago. Early Italic Celts migrated to the island from the North during prehistoric times leaving marvelous cave paintings. Greeks from Ionia and the Peloponnesus arrived in the first millennium BC to civilize the island and set up colonies and trading centers that have lasted to this day (Sicily and Calabria were called Magna Greacia for over five hundred years).

The Phoenicians, who were by far the greatest sea traders in the ancient world set up outposts in Sicily and permanent colonies just to the south at Cartage on the coast of Africa. In turn, the Carthaginians conquered Sicily from the Greeks and took the island as a buffer against the growing power of Rome (they both wanted Sicily for its enormous supply of grain). So began the Punic Wars which turned Sicily into a battle ground for a hundred years finally ending in Roman victory. For the first time the Sicilians stopped speaking Greek and started speaking Latin. Sicily remained a province of Rome (one of the richest) until the Ostrogoths marched in from the forests of Germania and Rome fell like a ton of bricks. After a short period of peace under the Germanic Barbarians, the Eastern Roman Empire known as Byzantium came smashing in, looking to take back the goods. After a couple of hundred years of warfare and the changing of hands many times Sicily became a province of the Byzantine Empire and once again spoke Greek. Then, Mohamed took to his horse and conquered all of North Africa and a few places in Europe, mainly Spain and Sicily. Now the Sicilians spoke Arabic (even though they were allowed to remain Christian). This was one of the best things to every happen to the Sicilians because they missed the whole Dark Ages that happened in the rest of Europe. While the French and the Germans were burning every book but the bible including all of the ancient Greek masters, Sicily was building universities and copying the works of Aristotle and Euclid into common language texts that everyone could read. Then the shit hit the fan, the Arabs were ousted, and the Norman's from France came in an took over creating the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies which comprised Sicily, and Southern Italy with Naples and Palermo vying over the centuries for the role of Capitol. Over the next seven hundred and fifty years the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies passed from the Normans to the Spanish to the French and back again all due to marriages with the royal families of Europe but not once did a full Sicilian blood king sit on the throne. This situation lasted until 1860 when Garibaldi led his forces to unite all the Italian lands under one King (a German fellow up in Lombardy named Victor Emmanuel II). It worked: the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was dissolved and everyone on the island had to swear fealty to Victor Emmanuel. But just because someone said "you are now one people" did not instantly make it so.

Carmello Raciti was born in the port city of Messina on the northeast corner of the island of Sicily, an important trading town for the newly created Kingdom of Italy. This was the first time that the entire Italian peninsula had been unified since the days of the Roman Empire. Until 1860, Italy had been a chaotic cluster of City States, Minor Duchies, Fledgling Republics, and small Independent Kingdoms (the largest of which was The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies). Needless to say, the feeling amongst Italians of belonging to a new nation beholden to the greater good was tempered by their deep rooted sense of loyalty to one's own bloodline, clan, and local heritage. Giuseppe Garibaldi, the hero of the revolution joined King Victor Emmanuel II, the father of the unified nation ("Padre della Patria") to become symbols of the new Italian Kingdom and inspirations to Italians everywhere. I'm sure that even young Carmello was inspired by the battlefield just outside of his hometown where Garibaldi led his outnumbered Redshirts up the hill towards the overwhelming force of French soldiers that were protecting the last of the Bourbon Kings still ruling Sicily. Garibaldi would have been crushed if it weren't for the Sicilian Partisan fighters that left their farms and fishing boats to join him in defeating the French and sending the Bourbons back to where they came from. Sicily was set free to unify with her sister kingdoms to the north so together they could form the Kingdom of Italy. That battle near Carmello's birthplace, the battle for Messina, was the first major military victory for Garibaldi. It helped to launch a series of successful campaigns that led directly to the ascension of Victor Emmanuel II as the King of all Italians. But the former subjects of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies soon found themselves left out of the most prosperous parts of their new country. As it was before, the age old regional differences from one Italian province to another was too great to completely overcome. And no place in the new nation was more specifically it's own separate country than Sicily.

Still, Italy after unification enjoyed a period of unique growth and prosperity during which bright young Italian men finally felt that they could truly make something of themselves in the world at large. This feeling was especially if they came from Northern Italy and had a little breeding and wealth. But it was not so true for those young men from the South, and most certainly not for those former subjects of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (whose deposed king, Francis II, last of the Bourbons, was living in exile in Marseilles, waiting to be returned to his throne). Italy as a whole was still poor, with all of the industrialized cities located in north and most of its sprawling population of farmers, peasants, and fishermen in the South. rapidly dominating the national economy and so the political arena as well. and an agrarian South, divided in spirit by economics, modernization and localized identity.

Carmello's father knew this and so made certain that Carmello and his three siblings had a decent education just like him. There were rumors that Carmello's mother's family came from Tuscany in her distant past, but his father's surname, Raciti, is distinctly from the south, primarily Sicily and Calabria (which for many centuries were part of the same kingdom called Kingdom of the Two Sicilies). Like most boys Carmello's age, growing up in a busy port city on the Straits of Messina, watching the ships come in and out, he and his father would dream of great and prosperous adventures abroad. And like nearly every Italian in the south, the place they longed to go and seek their fortune was America.

" went back hundreds of years as a surname for families from Sicily and Calabria

Victor Emmanuel II (ruled Italy from 1861 - 1878) "Padre della Patria" (father of the fatherland)

(Sicily was one of the first independent Italian kingdoms to join and Garibaldi's victory at the battle of Messina was the deciding factory).

. The Unification of Italy had happened less than twenty years earlier in 1860 with .

Giuseppe Garibaldi, the greatest hero of the new nation (every young Italian boy dreamed of becoming) will die in 1882.

Garibaldi (in sicily): An apocryphal but realistic story had him say to his lieutenant Nino Bixio, Qui si fa l'Italia o si muore, that is, Here we either make Italy, or we die.

Six weeks later, he marched against Messina in the east of the island, winning a ferocious and difficult battle at Milazzo. By the end of July, only the citadel resisted.

* The island of Sicily is mostly volcanic. The volcanic ashes make the island very fertile.

* The highest mountain is the Aetna, an active volcano with spectacular eruptions and numerous lava tubes.

* In the 1st Century BC the Cult of Isis spread to Sicily and become a dominant religion (the island also had the Cult of Mithras). from Sicily it spread to Rome.

* During the Jurrasic Period the Super-Continent of Laurasia (Europe and Asia) did not include the much smaller continental plate called Appulia which was composed of what is now Italy and Sicily