Catania

“ Here spring the mighty fountains pure and strong,
That bear sweet change of breath to city throng,
Who, had the sea no breeze, would soon have died.
So though the sun shines not in such a blue,
Nor have the stars the meaning youth deviced,
The heavens are nigher, and a light shines through
The brightness that nor sun nor stars sufficed;
And on this lonely waste we find it true
Lost youth and love, not lost, are hid with Christ.
[Pg 10]
The Streets of Catania
(The streets of Catania are paved with blocks of the lava of Aetna.) ”

“ It was Sunday, and we were greeted with the familiar sounds, the ringing of cracked bells, the screaming of harsh, hoarse voices, a military band and detached musical performances. The classical facade of the Marina, through whose nineteen archways and upper parallelograms you catch a vista of dark narrow wynd, contrasts curiously with Catania: the former is a 'dicky,' a front hiding something unclean; while the latter is laid out in Eastern style, where, for the best of reasons, the marble palace hides behind a wall of mud. ”

“ Why did you not take a pleasure trip to Naples? you would have seen wealthier nobles there and a more opulent government, made so by the taxes which are causing us to die of starvation; a more tranquil people, who worry but little over the fate of their neighbors. 'What do we care for Sicily? it is a conquered country and its people are not our brothers.'—That is what they say at Naples. Go to Palermo, where they will tell you that Catania is not to be pitied and can save itself unassisted, with its silk worms. ”

“ But while Syracuse and Girgenti and Selinus were our proper fields for study, Taormina was for pleasure. From this eyrie, Ætna, which from Catania is in some degree disappointing, as is even Mont Blanc when seen from Chamonix, rises as grandly as does Mont Blanc when seen from the heights across the valley, Flégère or Brévent; and when the sun, rising over Calabria, gives a rosy color to the slope up to the snow-line, one gazes, forgetting the theatre in the glory of the mountain. ”

“ At Syracuse I shall meet with a hearty welcome from Mr. Lecky, the Consul, and I hope to be able to have a letter from Lord Nelson to the Convent of Benedictines at Catania to receive and lodge me for such time as I may choose to stay. Catania is a pleasant town, with pleasant, hospitable inhabitants, at the foot of Etna, though fifteen miles, alas! from the woody region. Greenough [11] has read me an admirable, because most minute, journal of his Sights, Doings, and Done-untos in Sicily. ”

“ Travels, Adventures, and Experiences of Thomas Trotter. CHAPTER VIII. Catania.—​Description of the city.—​Danger of its situation.—​Beauty of the country.—​Journey up Mount Ætna.—​Great abundance of lava.—​Nicolosi.—​Visit to the crater of Monti Rossi.—​Grand prospect of the mountain.—​Continuation of the journey.—​A hut in the woods.—​A night on the mountain.
Catania is a highly interesting city. I was struck with the beauty of its situation, on the sea-shore at the foot of Mount Ætna, and with the regularity of its handsome streets, which are all straight, like those of Philadelphia. ”

“ 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 theatre ”

“ Then all the clientage of the Palmarosas, among the people of Catania, and especially in the suburb where we live, will be able to breathe freely. There are no more males in the family, and all the vast property, of which the cardinal still has the income of a large part, will fall into the hands of a single heiress, Princess Agatha. She is as good as her relations have been bad, and her heart is in the right place. She is Sicilian to the marrow and detests the Neapolitans! She will have great influence when she is entirely in control of her property and her acts. ”

“ By degrees, the lava thickens into a black and rustling semi-liquid, rather pushed along than flowing; though its heat has been found lingering after a lapse of eight years. When the survivors of all these horrors gather breath, and look back upon time and place, they find houses and families abolished, and have to begin, as it were, their stunned existence anew.
Yet they build again over these earthquakes. They inhabit and delight in this mountain. Catania, the city at its foot, which has been several times demolished, is one of the gayest in Italy. ”

“ Naples, Tuesday, 30th.
Found Catania well worth a visit; had pleasant Easter Sunday, and superb view of Etna, and of its various former doings, sending its lavas down to the sea in a tremendous way. Getting back to Messina, the steamer, a little one, was off Monday afternoon; good parting views of Etna toward evening; an uncomfortable night; we entered the bay at daybreak, and Naples soon after sunrise, and are now domiciled in full view of Vesuvius.
TO A. DE CANDOLLE.
Rome, April 22, 1869. ”

“ Naples and Catania alike, the men are hugely fat, with great macaroni paunches, they are expansive and in a perfect drip of casual affection and love. But the Sicilians are even more wildly exuberant and fat and all over one another than the Neapolitans. They never leave off being amorously friendly with almost everybody, emitting a relentless physical familiarity that is quite bewildering to one not brought up near a volcano. ”

“ After all, it is neither history, modern character, nor amber that makes Catania, but Ætna. The finest view of him to be had from the city is from the suppressed Benedictine monastery of San Niccolò, or San Benedetto, on the western edge of the town. Its church, the largest in Sicily and interesting in itself, contains one of the finest pipe organs on the island, an immense instrument with five keyboards. When we asked how soon the next service would be held—I consulted my watch as I spoke—the custodian smiled. “Gia! You will have a long time to wait for the next service. ”

“ AGATHA, SAINT, the patron saint of Catania, Sicily, where her festival is celebrated on the 5th of February. The legend is that she was a native of Sicily (probably of Catania, though Palermo also claims her) , of noble birth and great beauty. She repelled the advances of the Roman prefect sent by the emperor Decius to govern Sicily, and was by his orders brutally tortured and finally sent to the stake. As soon as the fire was lighted, an earthquake occurred, and the people insisted on her release. ”

“ Why so admirable an institution has never been introduced into Europe (except in the Bains Chinois of Paris) is more than I can tell, From the pavement of these baths, which is nearly twenty feet below the surface of the earth, the lava of later eruptions has burst up, in places, in hard black jets. The most wonderful token of that flood which whelmed Catania two hundred years ago, is to be seen at the Grand Benedictine Convent of San Nicola, in the upper part of the city. ”

“ He praised our prudence in giving up the thought of visiting the summit, but urgently recommended for the next day a walk by the sea to the rocks of Jaci,—it was the most delightful pleasure-trip that could be made from Catania; but it would be well to take something to eat and drink with us, and also utensils for warming our viands. ”

“ Arriving before dawn, we are glad to get a little loaf of bread for breakfast, and find it well worthy of the lovely island of Ceres, moist and wholesome, so that we can comfortably swallow it without the coffee we cannot get. We next come to Catania, famous for its sulphur and nitre mines, the starting point for the ascent of Etna ”

“ At four P.M. this afternoon we were off by rail with small luggage needful, on the Catania railroad; an hour and a half along a coast more picturesque than the finest parts of the Corniche road, though not so grand, brought us to Giardini; whence an ascent of an hour up a zigzag road in a one-horse carriage, commanding charming sunset views all the way, old Etna full in view southwest, brought us to this queer perch. It reminds us of Turbia, but is far more striking. We are in a primitive, but very nice auberge ”

“ About half way between Catania and Nicolosi stands the village of Gravina, and a mile beyond it Mascalucia, a small town containing nearly 4000 inhabitants. Near this is the ruined church of St. Antonio, founded in 1300. Nine miles from Catania the village of Torre di Grifo is passed, and the road then enters a nearly barren district covered with the lava and scoriæ of 1527. The only prominent form of vegetation is a peculiar tall broom—Genista Etnensis—which here flourishes. We are now entering the region of minor cones ”

“ The few who have escaped have been brought to Catania naked, without a soldo. We are sleeping in the Municipio, on the floor, with a rug, a piece of bread and cheese and a glass of wine which the Municipio gives us. They have made me a present of a shirt because, as the earthquake was at five in the morning, everyone was asleep and they escaped just as they were. You may imagine in what a condition I find myself, in what misery, it is such that you will excuse my posting this letter without a stamp, but I have not a centesimo to send you the news of the disaster of Messina. ”

“ Conditions at Palermo were only less desperate than at Catania. The refugees numbered about 11,000, of whom about 900 were in the hospitals. Nearly all of the remainder were in refuges, very few having been taken into private houses. All the barracks, the prison, half the schools, several convents, several theaters, and even a number of churches had been turned into refuges, of which the largest held as many as a thousand inmates. The city is larger than Catania, with more wealthy [40] residents ”

“ SANTA MARIA DI LICODIA, a village of Sicily, in the province of Catania, 18 m. N.W. of Catania by rail, on the S.W. slopes of Mount Etna. Pop. (1901) 4101. It is believed to occupy the site of the ancient Aetna, a settlement founded by the colonists whom Hiero I. had placed at Catania after their expulsion by the original inhabitants in 461 B.C., which absorbed or incorporated an already existing Sicel town named Inessa. ”

“ The miracles effected by the saint are numberless, and her power is especially efficacious in preventing earthquakes and eruptions of Mount Etna. Nevertheless, Catania has suffered more from these causes than any other town in Sicily. But I would that all saints had as good a claim to canonization as St. Agatha. The honors of such a festival as this are not out of place, when paid to such youth, beauty, and “heavenly chastity," as she typifies. ”

“ Giovanni della Punta, the road is constantly over the lava, and the country on either side is delicious. Trecastagne, nine miles from Catania, is seated on the acclivity of a high volcanic mountain. The scene here is beautiful and picturesque. Near the principal church the view is most extensive. Towards the east the mountains of Calabria, the sea stretching from Taormina to Catania, bathing the sides of Etna, covered with vineyards, woods and villages: northward rises the mountain itself, surrounded by its progeny of pigmy mountains ”

“ The finer sort is exceedingly hard, and takes a fine polish. In one of the squares of Catania is a lava statue of an elephant with an obelisk on his back.
After going some miles up the mountain, the trees and other vegetation became scarce, and presently the road passed over nothing but rugged, barren lava rocks. At the end of about a dozen miles we came to a village called Nicolosi. Here we left our mules, and proceeded on foot to visit the crater of Monti Rossi, from which the eruption issued that destroyed Catania in 1669. ”

“ Ætna would, in that case, have been a conspicuous object. As it was I only obscurely traced his base, and the summit was always hid in the clouds.
Catania has lately suffered from an earthquake, which did not absolutely throw down many houses, but it injured them so much that numbers are incapable of being repaired; others less damaged, are propped up till the owners can restore them, and the principal street exhibits almost a continued range of these temporary supports. Nothing can look more forlorn, and even the width of the street contributes to its desolate appearance. ”

“ Though the clouds hung low, and I was rather out of humour from being cheated at Catania, and from finding myself mounted on a bad horse, yet I found the scenery along the base of Ætna very delightful. The country is inhabited and cultivated, with abundance of olives and other trees, and beautiful little eminences rise gently between the road and the shore; and though this richness and fertility is occasionally interrupted by beds of lava, yet these are but slight blemishes, and perhaps 330contributed by contrast to enhance the pleasure. On approaching Taormina it became still finer. ”

“ He remembered you personally, having himself visited Slough.
Naples, Aug. 20th, 1824.—I take the first moment of leisure to proceed with this. I made the ascent of Etna without particular difficulty, though with excessive fatigue. The ascent from Catania is through the village of Nicolosi, about ten miles from Catania, almost every step of which is covered with the tremendous stream of lava which, in 1669, burst from the flanks of the mountain, near Nicolosi, and overwhelmed the city. ”