On Persephone's Island

by Mary Taylor Simeti

  San Nicola rescued us by introducing Francesco to the market economy: the idea that someone would buy the tooth from him reconciled Francesco to his impending loss, and I realized for the first time the importance of this ubiquitous figure (who it is said appeared to the children of ancient Rome in the form of a ladybug) in whatever form he or she may assume. And San Nicola turned out to be a good guy, willing to credit a letter explaining that Francesco’s first tooth had been swallowed with a mouthful of spaghetti, and with five shiny 100-lira pieces under his pillow Francesco thought he owned the world. (The innocence of the firstborn is never repeated: when Natalia’s time came I was low on change and put a 500-lira bill under her pillow. She took one look and came raging into our room: “You didn’t give me enough!”)

  Two days after San Nicola comes the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Immune to the government’s efficiency campaign, the Virgin brings us the gift of a holiday, which we choose to spend in town, sleeping late in the morning and wandering about the old city in the afternoon to watch Palermo celebrate.

  Sicily is a fun-house mirror in which Italy can behold her national traits and faults distorted and exaggerated. The urban landscape of Palermo reflects the sack of Rome, but here the old “historic center,” with its four mandamenti that date from before the Arab occupation in the ninth century (the area was inhabited in the Paleolithic period and colonized by the Phoenicians at least as early as the seventh century B.C.), has been left more tragically to its own devices, and such restoring and renovating as have transformed the popular neighborhoods of Trastevere in Rome or Santa Croce in Florence into high-priced and fashionable residential areas are in Palermo only just beginning.

  The Palermo mandamenti are hodgepodge warrens of tiny streets and crumbling baroque palaces, balconies dripping with plants and intersections blocked by heaps of uncollected garbage, sculptured portals giving onto stately courtyards filled with motor scooters and piles of old crates and cardboard cartons, blacksmiths’ shops and tinmongers, carpenters and upholsterers, street markets spilling over with fish and vegetables of all imaginable colors, great sides of beef, entrails and heads of slaughtered animals hanging on iron meat hooks and oozing blood and flies. The darkest, most malodorous alleyway has some small treasure, a portal, a window, a flowering shrine, to reveal, and the somberness of the rotting gray facades is mitigated by the fluttering wash stretched out across the narrow streets or slung from balcony to balcony, by the lengths of colored canvas threaded through the ironwork of the balcony railings to protect the ankles of the ladies sitting there from indiscreet glances and to give a modicum of privacy to this much-used, much-loved extension of the cramped quarters within, and by the swarming, swooping, chittering, and shrieking flocks of children that are to be found here at all hours and in all weather.

  The money to rebuild the old city has been appropriated for years, plans and counterplans have been drawn up, but the pie is too big and the task of dividing it among parties, factions, and Mafia has so far stymied the local government. Every so often a house falls down in the middle of the night, burying alive the inhabitants as they sleep, or the police evacuate at gunpoint a building that threatens to crumble, obliging the families to sleep in trucks or camp out on the steps of the town hall for weeks until the mayor manages to find them some place to go. Newspaper articles and public indignation flare up briefly, until some new scandal diverts them—there is no lack of fuel here—and each year a little more of the area disintegrates beyond any hope of restoration. But the neighborhood is colorful and cruel and courageous in the sheer obstinacy of its endurance and in the imagination and inventiveness with which it manages to survive, and it is here that one must go, keeping a very firm grip on one’s purse, to discover the charm and the fascination of Palermo.

  For the Palermitani the Feast of the Immaculate Conception has had great importance ever since 1624, when the city government vowed to pay an annual tribute of 100 ounces of silver coins to the Virgin Mary in thanksgiving for her help in liberating the city from plague. This vow has been honored through the centuries with a solemn procession, in which all the municipal authorities participate, headed by the viceroy or the regent or by whoever represented whatever foreign power was presiding over Sicily at the moment. Nowadays it is the archbishop and the mayor and the prefect who follow the silver statue of the Madonna as it is carried through the streets.

  We leave the car on the outskirts of the old city and wander up through the narrow streets until we reach the wide Via Roma just as the procession is passing, the big statue preceded by the town band, by groups of children and members of the various confraternities carrying candles. The Madonna herself, banked with flowers and standing on a wheeled wooden cart pushed by some of her more hefty devotees, is followed by the officials and then by a big group of the faithful and the curious.

  There is no doubt that a somber business suit, no matter how well cut, makes for a dreary procession. I would much rather have watched the procession described by Arthur John Strutt, an English gentleman who in the 1830s made and then wrote A Pedestrian Tour in Calabria and Sicily (what other kind of tour could he have made with such a name!):

  At four o’clock I went to the palace of the Duke, situated in the Strada di Cassaro, the whole length of which the Immacolata performs, on her way from the church of St. Francesco, her habitual residence, to the Matrice or cathedral, whither she goes to spend a week; at the end of which period, should her peculiar servants, the monks of St. Francesco, fail to come and fetch her back again, with all due pomp, she will infallibly be claimed and detained by the monks of the Matrice. There is, however, I should apprehend, but little fear of their being forgetful on so important an occasion.

  The first symptoms of the procession were torches, fifteen or twenty feet high, made of dried reeds, which were carried flaring up the street, and followed by peasants playing on bagpipes, tambourines and castagnets. The bagpipes are very large, the great pipe being three or four feet long; some of them are of handsome black wood, with silver keys. The tambourines, on the contrary, are very small, and made entirely without parchment, being merely hoops with jangles; they are grasped in the right hand, and played by being rapped, in time, upon the left wrist and forearm. After these rustic musicians came a confraternity of Penitents, bareheaded and barefooted, with cords around their necks, and crowns of thorns on their heads; accompanied and enlivened, nevertheless, by bagpipes, tambourines and castagnets. Next came a confraternity of Gentlemen Sweepers, dressed in black, and bareheaded; their hair nicely curled and their tucked up trousers displaying bare legs and feet. These gentlemen had new brooms in their hands, with which they swept and prepared the street for the coming of the Immacolata; a precaution by no means unnecessary here, if she wishes to walk without soiling her feet. Then another confraternity, furnished with baskets of herbs and flowers, strewed the street thus newly swept, and were followed by a body of white Penitentiaries, with white shoes and white-hooded masks. Then came a band of black monks; then a band of bourgeois, with silver bannerets; then different confraternities and congregations; and then the city volunteers with their band, and a most curious cavalry corps they were. A very handsome panoply of gold brocade followed, under which walked the church dignitaries, with their archbishop carrying the host; and immediately after, with her altar and wax lights complete, came the Immaculate Statue, carried bodily along, by sixty supporters, and accompanied by sixty more in the same uniform, to relieve guard. Directly following the statue, a candle in one hand, his cocked hat in the other, walked his Excellency General Tschudy, Governor-general of Sicily, and actually performing the office of Viceroy of the kingdom. Behind him walked, uncovered, the Prefect or Provost, the nobles, counsellors, senators, and other public personages; followed by a regiment of guards and dragoons; while the state carriages of the governors, senators, and other grand people brought up the rear. The grated balconies belonging to the nuns were crowded, and the thought of the contrast which the
gay world below afforded to their own dull cloisters, would have been enough to make me quite melancholy had I had time to indulge in it.

  The Duke having regaled his company with those delicious pistacchio ices, for which Palermo is justly famous, and which in spite of its being December are a real luxury, nay almost a necessary article in this climate, we took our leave.

  I console myself with the thought that Mr. Strutt didn’t get to see what is now the high point of the afternoon, when the procession reaches Piazza San Domenico, at the center of which stands a tall column surmounted by a statue of the Madonna. The gates of the railing that encircles the base of the column have been opened for the occasion, and the marble steps are carpeted with little bouquets of flowers, mostly simple offerings of wild iris, the small purple ones, once sacred to the Eumenides, that bloom throughout Sicily in December, wrapped in tinfoil and placed on the stone or tucked into the ironwork. Just outside the railing the Fire Department has parked its biggest and shiniest hook and ladder, with the ladder raised up to reach the top of the column. The procession drifts into the piazza, squeezing up against the crowd, which is jostling for a good view and arguing with the policemen who are trying to clear a space for the statue and for the dignitaries. When all have elbowed their way in, a handsome and sportivo officer in the elegant dress uniform of the carabinieri climbs briskly up the ladder, bearing an enormous wreath from which flutters a tricolor ribbon of red, white, and green. It is a gusty day and the ladder sways back and forth against the column. A hush falls over the piazza as we all watch open-mouthed while the carabiniere hangs the wreath at the foot of the statue. There is a protracted moment of suspense as a big gust of wind sways him backward before he has the wreath exactly in place, and then as he waits until the wind dies down enough to allow him to click his heels and salute the Virgin in proper military style—Look, Ma, no hands! Our hero finally descends to the cheering of the crowd, and the procession resumes its march.

  Ready, like the Duke’s guests, for a snack, we decide not to follow for the moment, but to cut across to Piazza Venezia, to the Benedictine convent, where the nuns make the best cannoli in Sicily. Cannoli are the best known of Sicilian sweets, tubes of fried pastry filled with ricotta cheese that has been mixed with sugar and bits of chocolate and candied citrus peel. They require a light hand: filled too soon or with too much sugar, they become soggy and cloying. The ones made by the Benedictine sisters are crisp and delicious, filled while you wait.

  The convent is a dreary building much like the one described by Mr. Strutt, with iron grills on all the windows. The door giving on to Piazza Venezia opens onto a narrow room crowded with people queuing up at the far end, in front of a small grilled window through which one shouts one’s orders to the lay workers, who deal with the public so that the sisters need not break their vow of silence. Under the window is a revolving tray in which one places one’s money, and which is then wheeled around to offer the pastry in exchange. We line up to wait our turn and I watch with amusement the strange mixture of people who fill the room: a clutch of bearded students, a family whose carefully pressed but threadbare clothes belie the sacrifice that buying this holiday treat involves, an elderly couple well but inconspicuously dressed, a slatternly woman in felt slippers and a shapeless long-sleeved jersey dress on which is almost visible the outline of the apron she took off before popping around the corner to the convent. It is a sampling of the neighborhood. The same jumble of architectural classes—hovels cheek by jowl with palaces—is reflected in the inhabitants. The desperately poor may share a courtyard with well-to-do middle-class couples who are reluctant to leave the neighborhood where their families have lived for generations, while students and New Left ménages have tunneled into the rabbit warren of apartments, attracted by the combination of charm and cheap rents. And occasionally an open window in a baroque facade will permit a glimpse of aristocratic splendor, albeit somewhat moth-eaten, that has managed to survive into the twentieth century.

  Our turn comes finally, and gripping our cannoli we push out into the street, to continue our walk through the twilight and nibble on the crisp crust, savoring the sweet ricotta and brushing off the powdered sugar that the wind is blowing down onto our coats. From the Via Venezia we turn on to the Via Maqueda and pass the Quattro Canti di Città, the four corners of the city, each corner decorated with a fountain in which a pagan lady representing one of the four seasons is chaperoned by one of the four virgin saints who are the patronesses of the four mandamenti of old Palermo.

  This intersection marks the very heart of the city, the meeting point of the two main roads of the Roman camp, the center of the Arab town where the Corso (Càssaro in Sicilian dialect, from the Arabic Al-Qasr, “the fortress”) led up from the fortified port to the castle that later became the Royal Palace. This division of the city into four quarters that meet at the Quattro Canti is still very much felt by the residents: until recently there was little intermarriage among them, and the differences in dialect and accent are significant enough to reveal to the discerning ear which mandamento the speaker was born in.

  To the southeast lies the Kalsa, with Saint Agatha as its patroness. Site of the old Arab citadel, El-Halisah (“the Elect”), and traditionally inhabited by sailors and fishermen, this neighborhood was badly damaged by American bombing in World War II, and much of it is truly squalid, although some of Palermo’s loveliest treasures are hidden in its winding alleys and garbage-littered squares.

  To the northeast is the quarter we are coming from, now called San Pietro but once known as the Amalfitana after the merchants and traders from the maritime republic who had their offices there. Saint Ninfa is its patroness, while Saint Cristina watches over the southwestern mandamento, the Albergheria, which once belonged to the officials of the Norman court who crowded their residences around the Royal Palace.

  We turn west on the Corso, passing the fountain with the statue of Saint Oliva, headed for her quarter, the Capo. I have suggested that we combine the last bites of cannoli with a look at the apse of the cathedral, whose great neoclassic dome, perched uncomfortably on a Norman base, dominates the city. This massive bastion is a status symbol, a monument to the power of its builder, the archbishop of Palermo, who erected it in 1185, to the greater glory of God and to remind the people of Palermo—and the king in his palace across the piazza—of the strength of the reactionary feudal nobility of whom he was the leader. This archbishop was called Gualtiero Offamiglio, a name that sounds peculiar to the ear of the Italian speaker until one learns that he was an Englishman and that his name is the best the Sicilians could do with “Walter of the Mill.”

  The cathedral has been much altered over the centuries, and only the eastern exterior gives a good idea of what the original Norman construction looked like. Even here a little mental barbering is necessary, lopping off the tops of the towers and plucking away the dome, in order to savor the solid geometric forms of Arabic architecture and the rich Norman decoration of black and white marble inlays that wind their way about the blind arches of yellowish stone.

  It is almost dark now, and we begin to feel cold, but I cannot go near the cathedral without giving a brief greeting to Emperor Frederick II of Swabia and his mother, Constance, who lie buried within. If it was Frederick who brought me to southern Italy and revealed the charms of the Mezzogiorno to me as I searched for college thesis material, passing years and a raised consciousness have shifted my allegiance to Constance, the last Hauteville, heir to the Norman kingdom, who was married off to the German Emperor Henry VI, and after ten years of barrenness became pregnant at forty. Traveling south through Italy, Constance had reached the town of Jesi in the Marche when the labor pains began; she ordered that a tent be set up in the public square, and there she gave birth before witnesses, to show the world that the tiny Frederick was the legitimate heir to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

  There are four tombs, imposing red porphyry caskets borne by crouching lions, somber and elegant, incon
gruous in the pastel neoclassic interior that houses them. There are always a few bunches of flowers and a faded wreath in front of Frederick’s tomb, placed there by German tourists, and even a few blossoms laid before that of Henry VI, the much-hated “flail from the north.” But the Sicilians do not remember their own: no flowers for Roger II, the most brilliant of the Norman kings, or for his daughter Constance. I am, as always, deeply moved by these tombs, and I repeat to myself my old promise to bring some flowers someday for Constance; better still, someday I shall write her story.

  The children are complaining that the wind has whetted their ever-ready appetites and that the cannoli were only a teaser. We must keep to the character of our day: we will go eat pani cu’ la meusa at San Francesco. Pani cu’ la meusa is to Palermo more or less what the hot dog is to America, a much-loved and economical snack or supper. Meusa is milza, beef spleen that is first boiled and then sliced very, very thin and sautéed in rendered lard. It is served in a foccaccia, a roll that looks like a cross between pita bread and a hamburger bun, together with a slab of ricotta and some grated caciocavallo, a sharper, saltier cheese. It is a greasy, messy treat, which is probably part of its charm, and truly delicious to anyone who has a taste for innards.

  The place to go in Palermo for pani cu’ la meusa is the Antica Foccacceria di San Francesco, in the heart of the Kalsa, which has been serving the best in the city since 1834. Its decor was last renovated at the beginning of this century: the storefront still has the same bow windows decorated in beaten tin, now thickened by innumerable coats of red paint; the original marble-topped tables still cluster on their cast-iron legs around the huge wood stove. This magnificent beast, also of cast iron and eight feet wide or more, has been converted to bottled gas, but its brassware gleams, including the rail around the bottom, a footrest for the customers who wait their turn as the cook stirs, drains, and lifts the milza onto the foccaccia with beautiful rolling flicks of the wrist, a constant sinuous motion that recalls the way an experienced pizzaiuolo will maneuver the long-handled pizza shovel in and out of the oven.