Where Sicily Sits

At the toe of the boot

Italy is the boot in the middle of the Mediterranean, and Sicily is the stone the boot is forever about to kick. The two are separated only by the Strait of Messina, a channel so narrow, a little over two miles at its tightest, that from the Sicilian shore you can stand and watch cars move on the Calabrian hills across the water. Close enough to touch, and yet an island, which is exactly how Sicilians have always liked it.

The centre of the sea

Look at the wider map and Sicily is not off in a corner. It sits almost dead centre of the Mediterranean, the hinge between Europe and Africa. Tunis lies closer to it than Venice does. That single fact explains most of the island's history: whoever wanted to command the middle sea had to hold Sicily first, and so the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, the Normans, and the Spanish each took their turn. You can read how that went on the history page.

Bigger than it looks

On a map of Europe the island reads as a small triangle below the boot, which undersells it. Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean, a little smaller than Massachusetts, with a proper interior of mountains and wheat plains, not just a coastline. Palermo sits on the north shore, the Greek temples and the honey coloured baroque towns run along the south, the far west point looks toward Africa, and the whole east side is dominated by Etna, the tallest active volcano in Europe, whose black soil feeds the vineyards below it.

The Sicily of the Leopard

This is the country behind the title. When Don Fabrizio, the Prince of Salina in Il Gattopardo, retreats to his estate at Donnafugata to watch a new Italy arrive, he is somewhere in that sun stunned interior you can see on the map. A grand old island, worn smooth by three thousand years of everyone who ever wanted it, and still, unmistakably, only itself.