ART and CULTURE

Sicily is an island of incomparable nature beauties, and it's also island of art and culture.

In Sicily, men from all the mediterranean sea had chosen, during the centuries, to establish their residance trasforming it in a caskat of achitectural treasures.

A Stage where parade the most different stiles and the lenguages, in surprasing combinations like the Sorpetta's stuccos in Palermo, the greatest sculptor of the XVIII century in Italy, the "Annunciata" of Antonello da Messina and his "portrait of the unknown sailor", the big painting of Caravaggio in Messina and Siracusa, the statues of Gagini and the busts of Laurana. The architectural inventions of Vaccarini and Gagliardi, the builders that rebuilted the South-east of Sicily in forms that combine the ideal cities upright of Reinassance and the baroque's immagination, anticipating centuries of urbanistic solutions like the large streets and the radial plan that will be ispiration also for Paris in the 19th century. in these cities - big and small, inner or in the coast - were born the champions of the sicilian culture like Consolo, Sciascia and Bufalino. It's necessary to remember the place of Sicily in the Italian culture in the last century? from Giovanni Verga to Federico De Roberto, from Luigi Capuana to Giuseppe Antonio Borghese, from Luigi Pirandello to GiuseppeTomasi di Lampedusa, from Elio Vitttorini to Vitaliano Brancati and Elsa Morante, and also the poets Salvatore Quasimodo, Lucio Piccolo, Angelo Maria Ripellino, Giuseppe Bonaviri, Andrea Cammilleri, Maria Attanasio, Iolanda Insana, Emanuele Schembari, Giovanni Occhipinti, Aldo Gerbino,più more than half new has been written in Italy come from Sicily. Goethe, telling his Italian trip wrote that “without to know Sicily, you can't have idea about Italy. Is in Sicily that you find the key of everything”.

The sicilian history don't live only in the monuments and in the museums: a specila occasion to know It are the popular holidays, collective rising moment where the sicilians spirit, their tradition is wonderful expressed. In the past rural economy, the saint's cult rappresented the unique point of contact between poor and rich people, nobles and artisan. Still now, in the center of every holiday there isn't the supernatural, but the human, in a faboulouse mixture of daily feelings. Baroque is the perfect exampe of the sicilian religios character, defined by its emblems, mascarons, architectural form, within it the church's englobe in its cults, myth and leggend antecedent the Christianity, deleting the bad aspects of the ancient traditions . But interpret the popular holidays like superstition it's misunderstand the essence. The Sicilian have a special connection with the saints, they recognize with them more than God, looking for a their sincere help. Who partecipate to the saint week rituals in Ibla, Caltagirone, Ispica, to the "A Maronna Vasa Vasa" holiday in the Easter's sunday, to the Saint Agata's Holiday in Catania in February the 5th, to the commemoration of the Saint George martyrdom in Ragusa the last May's Sunday, to "U fistinu" of Saint Rosalia in Palermo in July, will never forget this faith's experience and folklore. Who never have had this experience, can contact us so Sicily is ever a Holiday! Wonderful Sicily will accompany you in this wonderful adventure!!!!!