Sicily (Italy): 4 creepy places and stories that won't let you sleep
When you say "Sicily", whatever comes to mind? Imposing Mount Etna, sparkling Taormina, Palermo's loud street sellers, the scented lemon tree trails around Noto, the sweetest Sicilian "arancini" rice balls, the Sicilian-style "sfincione" pizza, and of course the huge prickly pear trees on the Aeolian Islands, just to give a few examples.
Would you think about scary places and stories?
During my trips to Sicily I have learnt that with this Italian island you are never quite sure what to expect, and, to tell you the truth, I am a bit of a scaredy-cat when it comes to mysteries.
I am not a horror film fan, but I undertand that in creepy movies nothing is real, except what we want to imagine. Is this true also for the creepiest stories and spots in Southern Sicily? How would you feel about touring Sicilian places where enigmas come to life in every corner?
Sicily is packed with mystery towns. If eerie stories are you favourite, here are four spine-chilling spots in Sicily that I have visited some years back on a self-drive trip from Catania to Marsala.
If an evil spirit has had a hand in Agrigento urban planning, the ugly town centre development affairs is definitely his work. Agrigento is no longer the creative place that it used to be when the Sicilian native genius writer, Luigi Pirandello, used to thrive at the end of the XIX century.
"Did you know that in Cathedral of Agrigento you can find the Devil's letter?", our blonde-haired host lady asked us one morning while Paolo and I were eating a delicious Sicilian "minni di virgini" pastry (literally, "the Virgin's breast cakes": no explanation needed!). The small nipple-like candy which sat on the top of the pastry got stuck on Paolo's lips.
Paolo and I stared at each other as if we had seen a ghost. The round-faced landlady smiled slyly. "Sorry? The devil's letter in Agrigento?," I marked the words "devil" and "letter". I already wanted to hear more of that story. "Yes. It was all over the news last year," she added. "They have deciphered the letter," she concluded.
I don't know why but my mind went back to another frightening letter: the flaming scarlet letter "A" that stuck out on Heather's clothes in the American drama film, "The Scarlet Letter". I remembered only that the poor girl in the film had been accused of adultery, and that the film had been adapted from the book by American novelist, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
"What's the Devil's letter about?," I asked pressing the lady. "Go and see for yourself," she concluded smiling mischeviously.
Four hundred years later since the Devil's letter was written, upper Medieval Agrigento is full of hurrying tourists, and scaffoldings that seem to choke the Cathedral of Saint Gerland where the mysterious letter has been stored.
I would not say that the mixed-style church building before us was attractive, quite the opposite: the huge flight of steps leading to the red tufa church facade was sealed off by metal fences for ongoing restoration works . Our landlady had told us that in 2017 thousands of people gathered there to turn attention to the collapse of the Cathedral caused by underground landslide.
The church looked abandoned on the outside: the left portal was walled and the main door had been locked since God only knows when. The stillness of the place was halted just by one or two occasional passers-by.
"We are lucky", said Paolo. "After all, we haven't come all the way up here for nothing. Let's go inside". He was right: reaching the top of the hill by car hadn't been an easy task, especially winding through the parked cars of the intricate maze of Agrigento. Yes, indeed we were lucky, or maybe it was the holy intercession of Saint Gerland. The 10,000 square-metre church dedicated to the French Saint who came to Agrigento with the Normans was strangely open.
The cavernous climb up the narrow spiral staircase which took us to the upper floor of the church increased the "wow" effect once we moved from the church vestry to the actual church nave.
What stroke us was the light that filtered through and hit the shining marble altar, Baldassare Peruzzi's golden organ pipes, the Catalan-style golden leaves on the columns and hundreds of Baroque angels carved all over the place. A celestial view animated by the constant fluttering of little puttos on the white walls. It was one of the most breathtaking celestial vision I have seen!
"Are you here for the devil's letter?", asked the tall attendant. How did he know?, I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "The Devil's letter", he stressed again by looking up towards the Cathedral tower.
"Here we have just a copy of the letter which was written by Suor Maria Crocefissa della Concezione, a Benedictine nun who lived in Palma di Montichiaro monastery", he explained eagerly. His eyes started to sparkle. "Why would a nun write that letter?", I asked with curiosity.
I imagined Suor Maria Crocefissa della Concezione lying on the cold floor of the secluded convent: her long robe with black buttons on the hemline. Suor Maria Crocefissa was lifeless. The pitch black of her manly tunic contrasted with the whiteness of her scapular garnment, and the deadly colour of her blood-washed face.
"Can we see the copy of the letter?", I hoped. "No, I'm afraid not. The tower is closed for restoration works. You have to come back", replied he with what seemed to me a grin, taking his leave from us. He disapperared behind a door, never to be seen again. The young volunteer offered to guide us through the church, providing us with interesting stories and information about the cathedral.
Upon exiting the church, we looked up towards the tower where the copy of the Devil's letter was stored: like the unfinished letter story, the mutilate tower looked incomplete, though charming.
"Don't you want to know the content of the Devil's letter?", I asked Paolo with disappointment while pulling our car door. "We will find out soon", he smiled at me cunningly.
We did found out more about the Devil's letter on the same day: the nun was a weirdo. She spoke and wrote several ancient languages, but she was quite obessed about the devil taking possession of her. She was scaring her Benedictine sisters by screaming, raving mad and fainting all the time. She possibly had been suffering from mental disorders.
Until 2017 no one had managed to decipher the mysterious letter: the letter was full of ancient symbols, and apparently meaningless graphics. According to Suor Crocefissa, the letter had been handed over to her by the Devil on 11th August 1676.
A group of researchers, military experts and scientists from the Ludum Science Museum in Sicily managed to crack the mysterious letter code by using a military encryption software.
More information about Agrigento Cathedral.
"Sciacca is a special case", told me Giuseppe, a born and bread local. Sciacca looked like a sleepy coastal town in southern Sicily, and saccensi, the people living in Sciacca, did not seem rattled by blood trails in the least.
Life in Sciacca revolves around its busy harbour filled with boats that come and go in one of the richest sea ports of Sicily. When you stroll along Sciacca's sea promenade, the only really scary thing that one can experience is the cries of seagulls that hover over the quays, and the nose of the boat rigging tugged by the waves.
Sciacca is the sea, and the view of the horizon is also a quiet place to rest the eyes, away from the port. But that's about it. However, we soon found out that the sea in Sciacca is the only place where you can breathe this sense of traquillity. The rest of the town is imbued with a sense of old despair and a feeling that there is something not quite right there.
If you look at Sciacca from a distance, at first you are fascinated by the Lego-like colourful houses, but when get a closer look, they seem crooked. Even the scenic Piazza Scandaliato, an amazing lookout on the sea is like a mirage with its shining marble floor in the hottest time of the day.
And what about the ornate buildings along the main promenade, Corso Vittorio Emanuele? Indeed behind the beauty of the convoluted decorations of the front facades, the palaces are hiding secrets and dreadful stories. Well, actually, not just behind, in front too!
Along Corso Vittorio Emanuele there's Palazzo Perollo, an alluring XV century palace with three Gothic windows. You'd be surprised to know that for two days his owner, Giacomo Perollo, lay still in front of the main front door: dead.
Giacomo Perollo was killed by the supporters of Sigismondo Luna, his sworn enemy during the so-called "the case of Sciacca", a bloody feud betweren rival families. Sigismondo Luna was so vengeful and bloodthirsty that he tied his rival's dead body onto a horse and dragged him along Sciacca's streets. A sort of historical splatter film set between 1459 and 1529.
"We really should hike uphill and see the Luna's Castle", I declared to Paolo enthusiastically after having read about the Sciacca's horror story of the two feuding families. He looked at me with resignation. Then he smiled. He wasn't thrilled at the idea of climbing up all the steps to the Luna's castle, but he knows that being a bit of a history buff, I would not give in.
Between the Luna's Castle and the Palazzo Perollo there is a 20 minutes walk uphill, but the two buildings are worlds apart.
"If you had lived at that time, would you have sided for the Perollo's or the Luna's?", asked Paolo surprisingly. "It doesn't really matter: it was a fight for the political leadership started by a silly wedding debacle", I replied bitterly. "8,000 people in Sciacca died!", he raised his voice. I would have never thought that Paolo got excited about a Sicilian story of feudal hatred.
It's hard to imagine anything bloodier than the Luna's and Perollo's rivalry. If you read about this dreadful feud, you would perceive the two families' long-standing rivalry every step that takes you up to the Castle.
The rought steps taking you to the hilltop make you feel tired and thirsty under the hot sun. Every step gets steeper and steeper, and now and then amongst the blocks of flats built alongside the uphill street there is a desolate courtyard where washclothes hang almost forgotten.
The higher we climbed, the worse looked the area surrounding us: garbage bags on the pavement, and stray dogs bumming around looking for something to sniff or eat. Then the drilling of a pneumatic hammer from a nearby building works site seemed to announce our arrival to the castle.
"Is that it?", I was shocked at the disappointing sight. "What did you expect to see?", Paolo looked at the poorly maintained castle ruins. "Hatred is corrosive of people's souls and homes", he said wisely.
We did not get into the Luna's Castle, not because it had been the castle of Hate, more simply because it was locked behind a rusty gate: the turrents and bastions had collapsed almost completely, giving the impression of a disheveled place. The skeleton of the castle was still there, but inside it was empty.
"So the noble woman Margherita Peralta was forced to get married to one of the Luna's nobleman, rather than the man whom she loved, Giovanni Perollo. Sciacca got into all this bloodshed for a wedding?", Paolo summed up quite simply the gist of the story. "That's right. All the Luna's and Perollo's family members who came after kept on killing each other for 200 years", I confirmed looking at the tall weeds covering the castle ground.
Another traveller with his camera was crouching to get the best view in focus for a close-up of the Castle ruins. I wondered whether he was aware of the bloody story. Lizards scattered through the cracks on the castle walls, competing for space with wild violets. Paolo and I found a chipped stone on which we sat down to eat our tasty "tabisca saccense": a traditional Sciacca-style pizza with onions, anchovies and pecorino cheese which we had bought before climbing up. To me even food tastes differently if you eat it in a place which is special for you. This was definitely a special place.
While taking a bite into my tasty tabisca, I wondered whether on the stone where I was sitting something momentuous had happened at the time of the feud. What I knew for sure was that one of Perrollo's members had stabbed one of the Luna's nobleman, and trampled him on the face. He thought the rival had died; in fact, he had not. And that's where we go back to the murder at the beginning of our tragic love story: the resurrected Luna's noble man slaughtered his enemy in front of Palazzo Perollo.
"I know exactly how it all ended", declared my other half. "They all died in the end, including the last member of the Luna's: he asked the Pope to be forgiven for the vicious actions of his family. However, the Pope did not answer and he threw himself into Rome's Tiber river".
We came to Sciacca's Castle to find some factual clues on the bloody case of Sciacca. In the end we found nothing: no blood, no bones, just the madness of men.
In the thriller film by Italian film maker Dario Argento's Stendhal Sindrome, the terrified young police woman, Anna Manni, is walking in Florence's Uffizi corridor when after looking at a painting by Pieter Brughel she is suddenly overcome by a sense of dizziness, and in the end she faints.
I felt the same dizziness and increased heartbeat when I stood in front of the dangerous bronze statue, the Dancing Satyr. It is on display in the former Church of San Egidio in Mazara del Vallo, another lovely Sicilian town located in the South west of Sicily that you can't really miss.
He didn't move.
I had felt the same mix of wonder, fascination and confusion on another occasion: many years ago I had been lucky to witness the restorers' work on the muscular bronze statues of the Riace Warriors, just before they were displayed to the public in 2011 in Reggio Calabria.
While I was lost in my thoughts, Paolo had taken seat in the tiny museum video room which was crammed with people watching a video about the Satyr, and the recovery operations from the depth of the Mediterranean sea.
I saw Paolo waving at me, indicating that he had grabbed a seat for me. I didn't want to disappoint him, so I sat next to him. However, out of the corner of my eye, I managed to catch the statue's dangerous gaze under the soft lights.
The Dancing Satyr's face expression under the Dyonisian orgiastic passion impulses that he had been feeling since ages were showing his unbriddled lust. He was experiencing a trance-like state caused by his whirling dance, and by a drunken stupor: his abandoned head and parted lips showed that the joys of the flesh had taken over.
I could not really see his face in full as he was sitting on a tall metal pole, and he looked up attracted by something that I was not able to figure out. I caught a glimpse of his rather hellish look through his white alabaster eyes.
His desperate eyes without pupils pointed to a danger, up in the air. It was a corrupt beauty which I could spot in the curves of his muscular body, in his unwrinkled face, and in his free-flowing hair curls.
His cruel grin etched on his ephebe's face must have scared to death even Capitan Ciccio's fishermen who pull him out of water on 4th March 1998 at 500 metre sea depth, 50 miles out to sea.
As the museum video kept on illustrating the story of the statue, Paolo whispered: "Are you not watching the video?". For minutes and minutes I had been staring at the statue absent-mindedly. I had lost track of the world around me.
"Yes... no...yes. Is the video over?", I babbled under my breath to disguise being distracted, and to avoid the inquisitive look of a lady sitting to my right. "What did the video say?", Paolo liked to test me for fun as a school teacher would do with a rebellious student. I had no idea of what the video had reported, but I smiled at him and said cheekily: "It was boring".
"I am going out, and waiting for you outside", he told me. He was clearly tired of sitting down. Paolo sounded like a sailor longing to a seafaring life after a time of forced rest on dry land. "I won't be long", I replied knowing that I was lying. I wanted to stay there more with the dangerous Satyr. The Greek statue had definitely cast an evil spell on me.
I thought that the Dancing Satyr must have felt the same need that had just struck Paolo when the fishermen from Captain Ciccio boat rescued him from the sea: he wanted to be saved by the fishermen.
"Do you know that Captain Ciccio said that he would never forget the Satyr's face emerging from the dark water?", Paolo had patted me on my shoulders, just before leaving. Paolo had obviously watched the report carefully. Even though Captain Ciccio was used to coming across ancient amphorae on his fishing trips out to sea, he declared that the discovery of this Greek sculpture had been different.
The fisherman said that the statue seemed to beg for his help to be taken out of the sea: his last chance to stay alive. The captain declared that he had sat on the boat deck all night to watch him: he couldn't take his eyes off him.
I looked around me: a couple of museum attendands wearing a bright red lipstick were looking at me to see what I was actually up to. A sudden thought struck me: my soul was the emotional translator of this dark art work that has been intriguing humankind. His evil smile, his venous eyes, and his dirty beauty all boiled down to me: subconscious fantasies, passions and forbidden joys have been keeping on fascinating and frightening me like other spectators for ages. I cast a last glance on him. Ultimately it was a majestic piece of bronze, but still a piece of bronze.
I dashed out into Mazara del Vallo's main square, joining Paolo on the seafront promenade full of cheerful people walking and chatting. I took in the sunny air at the top of my lungs as if I had just emerged myself from the dark mysterious sea depths.
4 - MOTYA (MARSALA): THE KIDS' CEMENTERY
There is an island near Marsala where you can see a kids' cementery. Not a normal burial ground, a gruesome sacrificial one.
To the west of Sicily, there lies a private tiny island which belongs to the Anglo-Sicilian family, the Whitaker. The islet is called Motya, and it is a short boat ride away from the Marsala coast. Giuseppe Whitaker, the most prominent member of this noble family, made a fortune out of the exports of Marsala, the sweet wine produced in Sicily. He was a passionate archeo lover and spent lots of time in excavating around this part of Sicily. Thanks to his valuable work, a small museum and later a Foundation were set up in Motya.
If you are looking for a special archeo site, the Whitaker Foundation on Motya is definitely a must-see: the Motya youth (also called the Motya Charioteer) is the main attraction there, a beautiful enigmatic Greek statue of 5th century BC which Giuseppe Whitaker had found in 1979 . However, my interest on the island was not just for the stunning Motya boy statue: the ghostly "Tophet" kids' cementery was my target.
"What is a Tophet?", asked Paolo before leaving Marsala. I thought the word "Tophet" was sweet sounding. "It means passage through the fire in Hebrew", I replied locking the door of our room. Such a sweet sound would be revealing us horrific secrets.
Upon approaching Motya on a tourist boat sailing between the Stagnone pond and the Sicilian sea salterns, I could not see any "passage through the fire". If you looked at Motya from the sea, it appeared surrounded by the glittering waters: Motya was like a mirror reflecting the sun rays. Maybe that's what the word "passage through fire" stood for.
Motya looked a bit of a run-down place, full of crooked pines, salty weeds and ivy climbing all over the silent rocks and old ruins.
On the island I was overcome by an eerie feeling: apart from the sun-drenched surroundings and emptiness of the place, if you looked over the Motya sea, you would spot boats floating in the sky. It was just my imagination: these Fata Morgana mirages made me feel that there was definitely something not quite right on the island.
We walked on the ground dotted with yellow wildflowers: did the old Phoenicians stepped on the same flowers 3,000 years ago when they settled here? Bamboo canes, calendula flowers, dwarf palms and Aleppo pines are spread in the natural reserve: 2,000 hectars of reserve where the Phoenicians used to extract the sea shells to dye textiles and trade them abroad.
When I read in books about the sad end of Motya and its Phoenician dwellers, a sense of bereavement had taken over me. After its foundation in 8th century BC and centuries of great trades, Motya was razed to the ground by the Greek tyrant Dyonisius in 400 B.c. and fall into oblivio.
"So is this the Tophet?", inquired Paolo. "Yes", I replied careless, trying not to trip on the pointed stones of the kids' cementery. "Is there evidence of kids being sacrificed by the Phoenicians for some rites?", urged Paolo again. "There are several views on the topic. I think this is quite controvertial. Some studies say that the sacrifice of a child was for the good of the community as it was a kind of offering to the gods.", I answered feeling a pang of pain for the children' murder.
Today the ghastly void left by history on Motya has been replaced by the cycles of Nature: everything around us was living a second life. The atoms of one thing had become those of another, and the Phoenicians had become the tenacious plants blossoming around us.
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| Mount Etna |
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| Taormina at night |
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| Aeolian Islands |
You would never attach the Italian island to spooky places. At least I wouldn't have until Paolo and I bumped into 4 creepy places and stories in Southern Sicily during our holidays.
During my trips to Sicily I have learnt that with this Italian island you are never quite sure what to expect, and, to tell you the truth, I am a bit of a scaredy-cat when it comes to mysteries.
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| Sicilian puppets are creepy |
I tie Sicilian mysterious stories to scary films memories. Don't ask me why. If I think back to the scariest films I have ever watched, my list is quite short, considering that a film like "Four flies on grey velvet" by the Italian horror film director, Dario Argento, still keeps me awake at night and gives me the shivers (it's a 1971 film!).
I am not a horror film fan, but I undertand that in creepy movies nothing is real, except what we want to imagine. Is this true also for the creepiest stories and spots in Southern Sicily? How would you feel about touring Sicilian places where enigmas come to life in every corner?
Sicily is packed with mystery towns. If eerie stories are you favourite, here are four spine-chilling spots in Sicily that I have visited some years back on a self-drive trip from Catania to Marsala.
1 - THE DEVIL'S LETTER (AGRIGENTO)
If an evil spirit has had a hand in Agrigento urban planning, the ugly town centre development affairs is definitely his work. Agrigento is no longer the creative place that it used to be when the Sicilian native genius writer, Luigi Pirandello, used to thrive at the end of the XIX century.
Somehow the past splendour and charm of the Valley of the Temples is tarnished by the horrifying ugliness of the modern city. Just look at the picture below!
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| Ugly modern blocks of flats in Agrigento |
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| The Valley of the Temples with Agrigento in the background |
I was very disappointed by the town centre at first: old Agrigento is hiding its Medieval Norman attractions behind horrible high-rise blocks of flats, sitting on the lower part of the hill overlooking the magnificent Valley of the Temples.
The town in itself looks quite lonely and wrecked from a distance as if it had been forgotten by the world and by the politicians who seem more prone to building speculations than nurturing their past.
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| The unattractive centre of Agrigento |
However, Agrigento dejected historical town will treat you to surprisingly interesting sites, especially spooky finds and creepy stuff if you know where to look for!
"Did you know that in Cathedral of Agrigento you can find the Devil's letter?", our blonde-haired host lady asked us one morning while Paolo and I were eating a delicious Sicilian "minni di virgini" pastry (literally, "the Virgin's breast cakes": no explanation needed!). The small nipple-like candy which sat on the top of the pastry got stuck on Paolo's lips.
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| Minne di Sant'Agata - Photo by Stefano Mortellaro via Flickr |
Paolo and I stared at each other as if we had seen a ghost. The round-faced landlady smiled slyly. "Sorry? The devil's letter in Agrigento?," I marked the words "devil" and "letter". I already wanted to hear more of that story. "Yes. It was all over the news last year," she added. "They have deciphered the letter," she concluded.
I don't know why but my mind went back to another frightening letter: the flaming scarlet letter "A" that stuck out on Heather's clothes in the American drama film, "The Scarlet Letter". I remembered only that the poor girl in the film had been accused of adultery, and that the film had been adapted from the book by American novelist, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
"What's the Devil's letter about?," I asked pressing the lady. "Go and see for yourself," she concluded smiling mischeviously.
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| "The Scarlet Letter. A Romance" - Photo by Boston Public Library via Flick |
Four hundred years later since the Devil's letter was written, upper Medieval Agrigento is full of hurrying tourists, and scaffoldings that seem to choke the Cathedral of Saint Gerland where the mysterious letter has been stored.
I would not say that the mixed-style church building before us was attractive, quite the opposite: the huge flight of steps leading to the red tufa church facade was sealed off by metal fences for ongoing restoration works . Our landlady had told us that in 2017 thousands of people gathered there to turn attention to the collapse of the Cathedral caused by underground landslide.
The church looked abandoned on the outside: the left portal was walled and the main door had been locked since God only knows when. The stillness of the place was halted just by one or two occasional passers-by.
"Strange," I thought. "It is almost noon". The tower bells struck the hour and a flock of pigeons flew away. The rattling and clanking noise like spanners hitting on metal drew my attention to a side door where some construction workers were taking their lunch break with a panino.
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| Agrigento Cathedral being refurbished - Photo by José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro |
"We are lucky", said Paolo. "After all, we haven't come all the way up here for nothing. Let's go inside". He was right: reaching the top of the hill by car hadn't been an easy task, especially winding through the parked cars of the intricate maze of Agrigento. Yes, indeed we were lucky, or maybe it was the holy intercession of Saint Gerland. The 10,000 square-metre church dedicated to the French Saint who came to Agrigento with the Normans was strangely open.
The cavernous climb up the narrow spiral staircase which took us to the upper floor of the church increased the "wow" effect once we moved from the church vestry to the actual church nave.
What stroke us was the light that filtered through and hit the shining marble altar, Baldassare Peruzzi's golden organ pipes, the Catalan-style golden leaves on the columns and hundreds of Baroque angels carved all over the place. A celestial view animated by the constant fluttering of little puttos on the white walls. It was one of the most breathtaking celestial vision I have seen!
"Good morning", said a lanky church attendant accompanied by a young boy who was a volunteer guide (we found out later). The oldest man's voice had an unusual high-pitch, and resembled a ferret. We thought the Cathedral was empty. From where did they pop out? The smell in the church was a penetrating mix of incense (but no incensor was on sight) and flowers (but there were none on the altar).
"Are you here for the devil's letter?", asked the tall attendant. How did he know?, I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "The Devil's letter", he stressed again by looking up towards the Cathedral tower.
"Here we have just a copy of the letter which was written by Suor Maria Crocefissa della Concezione, a Benedictine nun who lived in Palma di Montichiaro monastery", he explained eagerly. His eyes started to sparkle. "Why would a nun write that letter?", I asked with curiosity.
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| The Devil's Letter by Suor Maria Crocefissa della Concezione |
"She didn't write it herself, in fact", the man added, leaning against the altar. He had stressed the words "in fact". " He wrote it for her. The devil, I mean", continued he seriously. "She was found dead in her nun cell holding the evil letter in her hands", he concluded.
I imagined Suor Maria Crocefissa della Concezione lying on the cold floor of the secluded convent: her long robe with black buttons on the hemline. Suor Maria Crocefissa was lifeless. The pitch black of her manly tunic contrasted with the whiteness of her scapular garnment, and the deadly colour of her blood-washed face.
Her fingers relaxed, no longer clenching onto the letter. She was 31: she had entered the convent when she was minor of age like many other aristocratic women. Many times she had reported to her fellow nuns that the Devil wanted to turn her away from her religious faith.
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| The Benedictine Palma di Montechiaro monastery |
"Can we see the copy of the letter?", I hoped. "No, I'm afraid not. The tower is closed for restoration works. You have to come back", replied he with what seemed to me a grin, taking his leave from us. He disapperared behind a door, never to be seen again. The young volunteer offered to guide us through the church, providing us with interesting stories and information about the cathedral.
Not a word was mentioned on the Devil's letter, and we did not dare to ask more.
Upon exiting the church, we looked up towards the tower where the copy of the Devil's letter was stored: like the unfinished letter story, the mutilate tower looked incomplete, though charming.
"Don't you want to know the content of the Devil's letter?", I asked Paolo with disappointment while pulling our car door. "We will find out soon", he smiled at me cunningly.
We did found out more about the Devil's letter on the same day: the nun was a weirdo. She spoke and wrote several ancient languages, but she was quite obessed about the devil taking possession of her. She was scaring her Benedictine sisters by screaming, raving mad and fainting all the time. She possibly had been suffering from mental disorders.
Until 2017 no one had managed to decipher the mysterious letter: the letter was full of ancient symbols, and apparently meaningless graphics. According to Suor Crocefissa, the letter had been handed over to her by the Devil on 11th August 1676.
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| The Devil's Letter has been deciphered |
A group of researchers, military experts and scientists from the Ludum Science Museum in Sicily managed to crack the mysterious letter code by using a military encryption software.
More information about Agrigento Cathedral.
2 - THE BLOODY CASE OF SCIACCA
"Sciacca is a special case", told me Giuseppe, a born and bread local. Sciacca looked like a sleepy coastal town in southern Sicily, and saccensi, the people living in Sciacca, did not seem rattled by blood trails in the least.
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| Sciacca harbour |
Life in Sciacca revolves around its busy harbour filled with boats that come and go in one of the richest sea ports of Sicily. When you stroll along Sciacca's sea promenade, the only really scary thing that one can experience is the cries of seagulls that hover over the quays, and the nose of the boat rigging tugged by the waves.
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| Sciacca harbour view |
Sciacca is the sea, and the view of the horizon is also a quiet place to rest the eyes, away from the port. But that's about it. However, we soon found out that the sea in Sciacca is the only place where you can breathe this sense of traquillity. The rest of the town is imbued with a sense of old despair and a feeling that there is something not quite right there.
If you look at Sciacca from a distance, at first you are fascinated by the Lego-like colourful houses, but when get a closer look, they seem crooked. Even the scenic Piazza Scandaliato, an amazing lookout on the sea is like a mirage with its shining marble floor in the hottest time of the day.
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| Sciacca at sunset - Photo by Mboesch |
And what about the ornate buildings along the main promenade, Corso Vittorio Emanuele? Indeed behind the beauty of the convoluted decorations of the front facades, the palaces are hiding secrets and dreadful stories. Well, actually, not just behind, in front too!
Along Corso Vittorio Emanuele there's Palazzo Perollo, an alluring XV century palace with three Gothic windows. You'd be surprised to know that for two days his owner, Giacomo Perollo, lay still in front of the main front door: dead.
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| Balcony of Sciacca - Photo by Gino Roncaglia via Flicker |
Giacomo Perollo was killed by the supporters of Sigismondo Luna, his sworn enemy during the so-called "the case of Sciacca", a bloody feud betweren rival families. Sigismondo Luna was so vengeful and bloodthirsty that he tied his rival's dead body onto a horse and dragged him along Sciacca's streets. A sort of historical splatter film set between 1459 and 1529.
"We really should hike uphill and see the Luna's Castle", I declared to Paolo enthusiastically after having read about the Sciacca's horror story of the two feuding families. He looked at me with resignation. Then he smiled. He wasn't thrilled at the idea of climbing up all the steps to the Luna's castle, but he knows that being a bit of a history buff, I would not give in.
Between the Luna's Castle and the Palazzo Perollo there is a 20 minutes walk uphill, but the two buildings are worlds apart.
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| Castle Luna - Photo by Mboesch |
"If you had lived at that time, would you have sided for the Perollo's or the Luna's?", asked Paolo surprisingly. "It doesn't really matter: it was a fight for the political leadership started by a silly wedding debacle", I replied bitterly. "8,000 people in Sciacca died!", he raised his voice. I would have never thought that Paolo got excited about a Sicilian story of feudal hatred.
It's hard to imagine anything bloodier than the Luna's and Perollo's rivalry. If you read about this dreadful feud, you would perceive the two families' long-standing rivalry every step that takes you up to the Castle.
The rought steps taking you to the hilltop make you feel tired and thirsty under the hot sun. Every step gets steeper and steeper, and now and then amongst the blocks of flats built alongside the uphill street there is a desolate courtyard where washclothes hang almost forgotten.
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| Sciacca old town streets - Photo by Sicilianmama via Flicker |
The higher we climbed, the worse looked the area surrounding us: garbage bags on the pavement, and stray dogs bumming around looking for something to sniff or eat. Then the drilling of a pneumatic hammer from a nearby building works site seemed to announce our arrival to the castle.
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| Uphill streets in Sciacca |
"Is that it?", I was shocked at the disappointing sight. "What did you expect to see?", Paolo looked at the poorly maintained castle ruins. "Hatred is corrosive of people's souls and homes", he said wisely.
We did not get into the Luna's Castle, not because it had been the castle of Hate, more simply because it was locked behind a rusty gate: the turrents and bastions had collapsed almost completely, giving the impression of a disheveled place. The skeleton of the castle was still there, but inside it was empty.
"So the noble woman Margherita Peralta was forced to get married to one of the Luna's nobleman, rather than the man whom she loved, Giovanni Perollo. Sciacca got into all this bloodshed for a wedding?", Paolo summed up quite simply the gist of the story. "That's right. All the Luna's and Perollo's family members who came after kept on killing each other for 200 years", I confirmed looking at the tall weeds covering the castle ground.
Another traveller with his camera was crouching to get the best view in focus for a close-up of the Castle ruins. I wondered whether he was aware of the bloody story. Lizards scattered through the cracks on the castle walls, competing for space with wild violets. Paolo and I found a chipped stone on which we sat down to eat our tasty "tabisca saccense": a traditional Sciacca-style pizza with onions, anchovies and pecorino cheese which we had bought before climbing up. To me even food tastes differently if you eat it in a place which is special for you. This was definitely a special place.
While taking a bite into my tasty tabisca, I wondered whether on the stone where I was sitting something momentuous had happened at the time of the feud. What I knew for sure was that one of Perrollo's members had stabbed one of the Luna's nobleman, and trampled him on the face. He thought the rival had died; in fact, he had not. And that's where we go back to the murder at the beginning of our tragic love story: the resurrected Luna's noble man slaughtered his enemy in front of Palazzo Perollo.
"I know exactly how it all ended", declared my other half. "They all died in the end, including the last member of the Luna's: he asked the Pope to be forgiven for the vicious actions of his family. However, the Pope did not answer and he threw himself into Rome's Tiber river".
We came to Sciacca's Castle to find some factual clues on the bloody case of Sciacca. In the end we found nothing: no blood, no bones, just the madness of men.
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| Bloody sunset in Sciacca - Photo by Ignazio Gallo via Flickr |
For more information Sciacca's attractions: Luna's Castle website.
3 - MAZARA DEL VALLO: THE DANGEROUS DANCING SATYR
In the thriller film by Italian film maker Dario Argento's Stendhal Sindrome, the terrified young police woman, Anna Manni, is walking in Florence's Uffizi corridor when after looking at a painting by Pieter Brughel she is suddenly overcome by a sense of dizziness, and in the end she faints.
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| Dario Argento's Stendhal Syndrome film |
I felt the same dizziness and increased heartbeat when I stood in front of the dangerous bronze statue, the Dancing Satyr. It is on display in the former Church of San Egidio in Mazara del Vallo, another lovely Sicilian town located in the South west of Sicily that you can't really miss.
I remember standing there in the darkness of the Satyr's room (though it was midday, and outside it was a gorgeous day). The moss green statue seemed almost floating in the air. I was waiting for the statue to sit straight from his unnatural backward reclining bent, and walk out of the Museum.
He didn't move.
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| The devilish Dancing Satyr in Mazara del Vallo |
I had felt the same mix of wonder, fascination and confusion on another occasion: many years ago I had been lucky to witness the restorers' work on the muscular bronze statues of the Riace Warriors, just before they were displayed to the public in 2011 in Reggio Calabria.
While I was lost in my thoughts, Paolo had taken seat in the tiny museum video room which was crammed with people watching a video about the Satyr, and the recovery operations from the depth of the Mediterranean sea.
I saw Paolo waving at me, indicating that he had grabbed a seat for me. I didn't want to disappoint him, so I sat next to him. However, out of the corner of my eye, I managed to catch the statue's dangerous gaze under the soft lights.
The Dancing Satyr's face expression under the Dyonisian orgiastic passion impulses that he had been feeling since ages were showing his unbriddled lust. He was experiencing a trance-like state caused by his whirling dance, and by a drunken stupor: his abandoned head and parted lips showed that the joys of the flesh had taken over.
I could not really see his face in full as he was sitting on a tall metal pole, and he looked up attracted by something that I was not able to figure out. I caught a glimpse of his rather hellish look through his white alabaster eyes.
His desperate eyes without pupils pointed to a danger, up in the air. It was a corrupt beauty which I could spot in the curves of his muscular body, in his unwrinkled face, and in his free-flowing hair curls.
His cruel grin etched on his ephebe's face must have scared to death even Capitan Ciccio's fishermen who pull him out of water on 4th March 1998 at 500 metre sea depth, 50 miles out to sea.
As the museum video kept on illustrating the story of the statue, Paolo whispered: "Are you not watching the video?". For minutes and minutes I had been staring at the statue absent-mindedly. I had lost track of the world around me.
"Yes... no...yes. Is the video over?", I babbled under my breath to disguise being distracted, and to avoid the inquisitive look of a lady sitting to my right. "What did the video say?", Paolo liked to test me for fun as a school teacher would do with a rebellious student. I had no idea of what the video had reported, but I smiled at him and said cheekily: "It was boring".
"I am going out, and waiting for you outside", he told me. He was clearly tired of sitting down. Paolo sounded like a sailor longing to a seafaring life after a time of forced rest on dry land. "I won't be long", I replied knowing that I was lying. I wanted to stay there more with the dangerous Satyr. The Greek statue had definitely cast an evil spell on me.
I thought that the Dancing Satyr must have felt the same need that had just struck Paolo when the fishermen from Captain Ciccio boat rescued him from the sea: he wanted to be saved by the fishermen.
Captain Ciccio from Mazara del Vallo had been fishing on the Sicily Strait for 40 years looking for local white shrimps, when in 1998 the Sicilian sailors recovered the 4th century BC Satyr. Captain Ciccio - the owner of the boat- reported that when his fishermen pulled the statue out of the deep sea, the Satyr was full of mud, and they had to drag him out. He was heavy.
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| Fishing boat in Mazara - Photo by Charles Roffey |
"Do you know that Captain Ciccio said that he would never forget the Satyr's face emerging from the dark water?", Paolo had patted me on my shoulders, just before leaving. Paolo had obviously watched the report carefully. Even though Captain Ciccio was used to coming across ancient amphorae on his fishing trips out to sea, he declared that the discovery of this Greek sculpture had been different.
The fisherman said that the statue seemed to beg for his help to be taken out of the sea: his last chance to stay alive. The captain declared that he had sat on the boat deck all night to watch him: he couldn't take his eyes off him.
I looked around me: a couple of museum attendands wearing a bright red lipstick were looking at me to see what I was actually up to. A sudden thought struck me: my soul was the emotional translator of this dark art work that has been intriguing humankind. His evil smile, his venous eyes, and his dirty beauty all boiled down to me: subconscious fantasies, passions and forbidden joys have been keeping on fascinating and frightening me like other spectators for ages. I cast a last glance on him. Ultimately it was a majestic piece of bronze, but still a piece of bronze.
I dashed out into Mazara del Vallo's main square, joining Paolo on the seafront promenade full of cheerful people walking and chatting. I took in the sunny air at the top of my lungs as if I had just emerged myself from the dark mysterious sea depths.
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| Mazara del Vallo harbour |
For more information on Mazara del Vallo's Dancing Satyr.
There is an island near Marsala where you can see a kids' cementery. Not a normal burial ground, a gruesome sacrificial one.
To the west of Sicily, there lies a private tiny island which belongs to the Anglo-Sicilian family, the Whitaker. The islet is called Motya, and it is a short boat ride away from the Marsala coast. Giuseppe Whitaker, the most prominent member of this noble family, made a fortune out of the exports of Marsala, the sweet wine produced in Sicily. He was a passionate archeo lover and spent lots of time in excavating around this part of Sicily. Thanks to his valuable work, a small museum and later a Foundation were set up in Motya.
If you are looking for a special archeo site, the Whitaker Foundation on Motya is definitely a must-see: the Motya youth (also called the Motya Charioteer) is the main attraction there, a beautiful enigmatic Greek statue of 5th century BC which Giuseppe Whitaker had found in 1979 . However, my interest on the island was not just for the stunning Motya boy statue: the ghostly "Tophet" kids' cementery was my target.
"What is a Tophet?", asked Paolo before leaving Marsala. I thought the word "Tophet" was sweet sounding. "It means passage through the fire in Hebrew", I replied locking the door of our room. Such a sweet sound would be revealing us horrific secrets.
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| The Motya Charioteer - Photo by Carole Raddato via Flickr |
Upon approaching Motya on a tourist boat sailing between the Stagnone pond and the Sicilian sea salterns, I could not see any "passage through the fire". If you looked at Motya from the sea, it appeared surrounded by the glittering waters: Motya was like a mirror reflecting the sun rays. Maybe that's what the word "passage through fire" stood for.
Motya looked a bit of a run-down place, full of crooked pines, salty weeds and ivy climbing all over the silent rocks and old ruins.
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| Motya's salterns in the Stagnone Pond |
On the island I was overcome by an eerie feeling: apart from the sun-drenched surroundings and emptiness of the place, if you looked over the Motya sea, you would spot boats floating in the sky. It was just my imagination: these Fata Morgana mirages made me feel that there was definitely something not quite right on the island.
We walked on the ground dotted with yellow wildflowers: did the old Phoenicians stepped on the same flowers 3,000 years ago when they settled here? Bamboo canes, calendula flowers, dwarf palms and Aleppo pines are spread in the natural reserve: 2,000 hectars of reserve where the Phoenicians used to extract the sea shells to dye textiles and trade them abroad.
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| Motya archeological area - Photo by Verity Cridland via Flickr |
When I read in books about the sad end of Motya and its Phoenician dwellers, a sense of bereavement had taken over me. After its foundation in 8th century BC and centuries of great trades, Motya was razed to the ground by the Greek tyrant Dyonisius in 400 B.c. and fall into oblivio.
"So is this the Tophet?", inquired Paolo. "Yes", I replied careless, trying not to trip on the pointed stones of the kids' cementery. "Is there evidence of kids being sacrificed by the Phoenicians for some rites?", urged Paolo again. "There are several views on the topic. I think this is quite controvertial. Some studies say that the sacrifice of a child was for the good of the community as it was a kind of offering to the gods.", I answered feeling a pang of pain for the children' murder.
I stopped reflecting on the fact that the ancient people would not have the same feelings as we have today towards a set of beliefs and values, and that they would be horrified by different things. Was this an historical mystery that we can't really grasp?
Today the ghastly void left by history on Motya has been replaced by the cycles of Nature: everything around us was living a second life. The atoms of one thing had become those of another, and the Phoenicians had become the tenacious plants blossoming around us.
The Phoenicians were still there with their kids' cemetery. Nature was telling me silently that I was perceiving the place of the encounter between the dead and the living.
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| Phoenician Mothya - Photo by Claire Cox via Flickr |
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| Sunset on Motya's salterns |