Sicily

Although scholars tend to draw a line of confrontation between the conquerors Normans and the conquered Muslims and Greeks in the kingdom of Sicily, the actual relationship among these people was not so simple. In the kingdom there was a relatively developed bureaucracy staffed by officials with varied cultural backgrounds.  The kings and these bureaucrats took a stand against the aristocrats, who had solely Latin Christian backgrounds.  In fact, the keynote of the political history of the kingdom was a process in which the kings together with bureaucrats held down the aristocrats and cities of the peninsula.  The kings and bureaucrats, who had different cultural backgrounds but were highly educated and cultured, took a stand against aristocrats who were not well cultured but trained as warriors.  However, this line of confrontation was visible only during the peacetime.  During the wartime, a line of confrontation was drawn within aristocrats and cities that had military power.  Aristocrats and cities were divided into a pro-king group and an anti-king one, and fought amongst each other, while bureaucrats were usually on the side of the kings.  This suggests that even the mighty Norman kings supported by the bureaucrats were by no means absolute.  The strong Norman kingship of Sicily was in fact only made possible by a delicate balance of power among aristocrats, cities, and bureaucrats.

¿Cuánto puede contribuir el estudio de las imágenes y representaciones, ya sea como arte, ritos o simulacros, a comprender relaciones de poder y de agencia? Ésta es la pregunta que replantea el conjunto de estudios etnográficos en Calabria y Lombardía seguidos durante décadas por Francesco Faeta. Su prolija descripción etnográfica se potencia, una y otra vez, con revisiones de la antropología religiosa de Ernesto de Martino y sus herederos, y en diálogo con Arjun Appadurai, Georges Didi-Huberman y Alfred Gell, entre otros. Genera, así, una mirada de densidad histórica y novedosa reinterpretación contemporánea de lo sagrado y lo local, en intercambio con lo nacional y global, que va más allá de la iluminación rigurosa de las culturas del sur de Europa. Una obra que sitúa en el siglo XXI el significativo aporte crítico del pensamiento postgramsciano en el trabajo científico latinoamericano.

During this ancient period of external influences, numerous Greek and Sicilian townships were named Megara, due to a strong following of the earth deity Megara (i.e. Demeter – Gaia’s underground mysteries). (T: 417-418.) “The women to this day perform rites that are analogous to the story told (T: 418).” But given the extensive number of villages named Megara, it continues to be confusing. As discussed by Pausanias (5.23.6), numerous Sicilian villages named Megara Hyblaea (Hyblafa) has resulted in difficulties distinguishing between various sites and districts. Given extensive research, the Cathedra Kourotrophos Goddess comes from the Sanctuary of Hyblaea of the Hyblaean Megarians at Catana.

Il contributo affronta, tramite l'utilizzo di fonti archivistiche, il ruolo svolto dagli ebrei di Messina nel commercio degli schiavi in Sicilia tra tardomedioevo e prima età moderna. L'obiettivo è una prima ricostruzione dell'inserimento di alcuni componenti della comunità giudaica peloritana nel lucroso traffico di questa preziosa "merce umana" e dell'atteggiamento dell'aljama nei confronti di importanti problematiche come la redenzione degli ebrei ridotti in schiavitù.

Il vento del Sud-Est. Regionalismo, neosicilianismo e politiche del patrimonio nella Sicilia di inizio millennio Il fatto che la polemica continui accanita ed aspra significa dunque che sono in gioco "interessi attuali" e non interessi storici, significa (...) che lo strato sociale unitario in Sicilia è molto sottile e che esso padroneggia a stento forze latenti "demoniache" che potrebbero anche essere separatiste, se questa soluzione, in determinate occasioni, si presentasse come utile per certi interessi.

The Italian nineteenth-century ethnographic fascination with regional folklore was a phenomenon linked, in part, to the country's unification. As Italians sought to define their new kingdom, popular and scholarly studies emerged on the peninsula's indigenous regional traditions. Although valuable for cultural preservation, such investigations reinforced stereotypes regarding the ‘backwards’ or ‘barbaric’ nature of Italy's poorer areas, many of them in the Meridione. This article investigates late-nineteenth-century constructions of ‘primitive’ social fictions about Sicily – that positioned the region as the ‘other’ Africa – through an exploration of the ethno-anthropological work of Giuseppe Pitrè (1841–1916), and, in particular, his Mostra Etnografica Siciliana at Palermo's 1891–2 Esposizione Nazionale. Sicily's historical engagement with Arab culture and its geographical and cultural proximity to Africa are a backdrop for this study. The related, often derogatory, analogy between Sicily and Africa are also considered in the context of Italy's vainglorious colonial ventures in east Africa.

Il ruolo del colore nella rappresentazione delle eruzioni si
inserisce nella più generale e vasta problematica della definizione
di un codice cromatico per rappresentare in modo univoco le
unità geologiche. Sebbene già nel XVII secolo l’inglese Martin
Lister (1638-1712) avesse auspicato l’uso del colore proprio per
la traduzione delle informazioni di natura geologica, ancora alla
fine del Settecento la sua idea stentava a concretizzarsi visto che le
carte incise su rame continuavano ad essere in bianco e nero. Lo
stesso può dirsi anche per le cartografia dell’Etna che negli stessi
anni passava lentamente da una raffigurazione pittorica ad una più
esatta resa topografica, in cui sistemi di rappresentazione ancora
di tipo mimetico lasciavano intravedere le asperità e i declivi.
Nel 1838, Elie de Beaumont (1798-1874), pubblica la prima carta
topografica e geologica dell’Etna, in scala 1:111:111, introducendo
tre campionature di colore per indicare la distribuzione delle
rocce vulcaniche di differente età. Per la prima volta in una carta
dell’Etna compare una legenda che evidenzia la distinzione dei
terreni in base al colore. Il problema tecnico dell’incisione in bianco
e nero viene risolto mediante una stesura del colore manualmente
ad acquarello. In questi anni cruciali per la definizione dell’uso
del colore nelle carte geologiche, la Teoria dei Colori di Goethe
influisce notevolmente sulla scelta di colorazione fatta da Christian
Keferstein nella General Charte von Teutschland (1821). Con questo
lavoro si vuole dimostrare come anche la prima carta geologica
dell’Etna, alla scala 1:50.000, realizzata tra il 1848 e il 1861 da
Sartorius von Waltershausen (1809-1876) abbia subito l’influenza
del noto poeta tedesco, tra l’altro suo padrino di battesimo.
Sartorius infatti sceglie diverse gradazioni di verde per definire
l’età e la natura del terreno sedimentario vulcanico, creando
nell’osservatore una sensazione di armonia. Questo metodo di
colorazione rimase un caso isolato in quanto non fu apprezzato
dalla comunità scientifica internazionale contemporanea, ancora
fortemente divisa per quanto riguarda il codice cromatico delle
carte geologiche. Non è un caso se il Capitano di Stato Maggiore F.
Pistoja realizzerà il plastico topografico dell’Etna per l’Esposizione
Universale di Parigi (1878) utilizzando la cartografia di Sartorius
ma variandone i colori. La scelta di presentare proprio quest’opera
era stata dettata dalla necessità, dichiarata dagli organizzatori
dell’Esposizione, di definire una classificazione dei colori tale da
rappresentare in modo univoco le diverse unità geologiche. Nel
1881, durante il II Congresso Geologico Internazionale tenutosi a
Bologna, sarà scelto definitivamente il colore rosso nelle sue varie
sfumature per la rappresentazione delle rocce vulcaniche. Questa
convenzione sarà applicata per la prima volta, per quanto riguarda
l’Etna, tra il 1884 e il 1885 con la pubblicazione della Carta
Geologica d’Italia in scala 1:100.000.

We report two novel mutations, c.230T>C (p.F77S) and c.64_69del (p.V22_D23del) within the HSR domain of the AIRE protein in two patients of Italian descent affected by APECED. Both mutations were found in the compound heterozygous state respectively with c.994+5G>T and c.232T>A (p.W78R). With the two-hybrid assay in the yeast system we found that constructs containing the two mutations fail to interact with the wild-type protein. These findings indicate that both mutations negatively affected the homodimerization properties of the AIRE protein, thereby leading to a defective function. © 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

As a result of recent collecting efforts and older unpublished data of one of us (AA), 32 ant species (including 2 morphospecies) new to the island of Sicily (Italy) were discovered. Seven of these taxa represent unequivocally exotic entities, whose discovery marks a decisive increase of this component in the local fauna. Among these, two forms of Nylanderia EMERY, 1906 are treated as morphospecies because of the problematic taxonomy of the genus. Six taxa among the discovered species are entirely new to the myrmecofauna of Italy. Finally, Tetramorium indocile SANTSCHI, 1927 is reported for the first time as a host for the social parasite Strongylognathus testaceus (SCHENCK, 1852). The state of the art of the Sicilian myrmecofauna, now counting about 150 species, is commented on.

Aujeszky's disease (AD), Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) and Swine influenza (SI) are among the principal agents of respiratory diseases of pigs. The aim of the study was to determine the prevalence of antibodies to SHV-1, PRRSV and SIV in pigs reared in Sicily. An Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay for the glicoprotein gE of pseudorabies virus, for PRRSV and for SIV was performed. Antibodies against gE of SHV-1 were detected in 171 serum samples (14.6%), whereas PRRSV antibodies occurred at a higher frequency than SHV-1 with 289 (31.1%) samples being positive. The seroprevalence of SIV was found to be 33.3%. This study demonstrated the circulation of ADV, PRRSV and SIV viruses in Sicilian swine population. This is the first report on this topics in Sicily.

Libri, biblioteche e librerie sono degli ottimi specchi attraverso i quali cogliere l'evoluzione di una società e dei suoi cambiamenti. Le raccolte librarie permettono di leggere i mutamenti che caratterizzano il ruolo dei ceti dirigenti e del complesso mondo dei professionisti sui quali si regge il governo non solo di un regno, ma anche di una città, di un convento o di un feudo.
Books, libraries and bookstores are good mirrors through which to grasp the evolution of a society and its changes. The library collections allow you to read the changes that characterize the role of the ruling classes and the complex world of professionals on which governs not only a kingdom, but also a city, a convent or a feud.

In the last few decades, tourism has become one of the fastest growing economic sectors in the world, with an increasing economic, social and environmental role. It has been recognised as a strategic driver, able not only to heighten economic growth, employment, and enhancement of cultural values, diversity and heritage, but also to help countries transition towards more inclusive and resilient economies. In this framework, slow tourism has been playing an important role, compliant with the universal 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Its different forms - i.e. ecotourism, rural and village tourism, as well as religious routes - can improve social inclusiveness, poverty reduction, and environmental protection while empowering host communities, generating trade opportunities, and fostering peace and intercultural understanding.
The pilgrimage on religious routes is an ancient practice, largely rooted in many confessions as an expression of a mainly religious experience. Nevertheless, more recently, this kind of religious tourism has gained new values for both people and territories hosting destinations: its target groups of travellers have enlarged to those looking for spiritual holidays (individuals and groups) as well as well-being and integrated experiences combining religious sites, cultural heritage, landscape and nature, traditions and crafts, food, wine,and local events (shared with local people to feel part of the local community). Such experiences respond to the sustainability challenge as an opportunity for local development in depopulated areas but yet rich in history, nature, art and traditions.
On this basis, this paper tries to evaluate the recent experiences of some religious tourist routes in Sicily (South Italy), focusing on: a) their relevance in relation to emerging strategies and policies (i.e. cultural ecclesial parks, regional development plans, etc.); b) and their aptitude to generate sustainable and innovative local development. In particular it addresses the recent experiences in progress on the Itinerarium Rosaliae in Sicily as opportunities for sustainable and local development.

The Master of every infrastructure, a monument to the waste of resources and land consumption, dream of omnipotence of an inept and parasitical political class. This is the bridge over the Strait of Messina, the "ecological monsters" whose construction should start by the end of next year, and has already broken all the records: It is in fact the most expensive project in the history of public infrastructures, the slowest ever to be conceived, the one requiring the biggest quantity of cement and concrete; finally, it will have the longest single span in the world: 3,360 meters, that is, 1,400 more than the technological Japanese "jewel" Akashi Kaikyo. In the enchanting scenery of Scylla and Charybdis, the mythological monsters praised by Homer, two towers made of concrete and steel, 398 meters high, each formed by two piers over 50 feet in diameter, supported by four steel rods for a total weight of 166,600 tons, should be built. The volume of the foundations will be, in Sicily, of 86,000 cubic meters, while in Calabria of 72,000. In addition to the bridge itself, 40 km of road links and railways (a 2 km viaduct and a 20.6 km tunnel), mega-landfills, quarries, and connecting structures will be built. The project will involve vast territorial areas in the provinces of Messina and Reggio Calabria: The extension of the areas touched by the project amounts to 514,000 square meters, to which should be added the landfill sites, placed up to 50 km from the infrastructure, for a total of 764,500 square meters.

L'articolo affronta lo studio degli argenti della cattedrale di Caltanissetta, soffermandosi in particolare sulla commissione all'argentiere messinese Pietro Paparcuri, di un basamento argenteo, andato perduto, per il simulacro di San Michele Arcangelo.

When working with highly degraded DNA, validating the results of a slightly polymorphic system always complicates the analysis because of the difficulties in recognizing contamination and artifacts. Recognition can be greatly simplified by employing a multiplex reaction that coamplifies the fragments together with several highly polymorphic markers, for instance, short tandem repeats. In this work, we successfully included newly designed oligonucleotide primers for the detection of delta F508, the most frequent mutation causing cystic fibrosis, in the commercial AmpFlSTR Profiler Plus™ PCR Amplification Kit (PE Applied Biosystems). This coamplification enabled us to test the hypothesis of a heterozygote advantage associated with cystic fibrosis-specifically, higher resistance to toxin-mediated diarrheas-in a Sicilian skeletal sample of individuals who died in a cholera epidemic in 1837. The proposed method should also be suitable for the genetic characterization of other slightly polymorphic loci tested on human and animal ancient DNA; it should permit simple authentication of results by comparing the fingerprints obtained from independent amplifications repeated several times.

Recent changes of Sicilian agriculture . Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with a radical transformation of land tenure in Sicily, it was a passing from the concentrations of the middle classes of the eighteenth century, which took advantage of the crumbling of the large feudal estates concentrated in few hands, to the often exasperated fragmentation of peasant property that, to this day, returns an apparent "comminuting" passed unscathed through two centuries and even got worse during the fascist era. The Sicilian territory, especially in its inland areas, and longterm will likely continue to have among its characteristics an entirely agricultural vocation, even in the presence of forms of integration with other sectors such as tourism. On such background, this paper tries to analyze the dynamics of the agriculture starting from the past century to the contemporary period outlining the new recent changes of this economic sector.

The island of Sicily has a long standing tradition in citrus growing. We evaluated the sustainability of orange and lemon orchards, under organic and conventional farming, using an energy, environmental and economic analysis of the whole production cycle by using a life cycle assessment approach. These orchard systems differ only in terms of a few of the inputs used and the duration of the various agricultural operations. The quantity of energy consumption in the production cycle was calculated by multiplying the quantity of inputs used by the energy conversion factors drawn from the literature. The production costs were calculated considering all internal costs, including equipment, materials, wages, and costs of working capital. The performance of the two systems (organic and conventional), was compared over a period of fifty years. The results, based on unit surface area (ha) production, prove the stronger sustainability of the organic over the conventional system, both in terms of energy consumption and environmental impact, especially for lemons. The sustainability of organic systems is mainly due to the use of environmentally friendly crop inputs (fertilizers, not use of synthetic products, etc.). In terms of production costs, the conventional management systems were more expensive, and both systems were heavily influenced by wages. In terms of kg of final product, the organic production system showed better environmental and energy performances.

Sessione pomeridiana, ore 15:00 Vittorio Rizzone L' iscrizione di Iulia Florentina: peculiarità linguistiche ed epigrafiche Martino Ruggieri La morte di Iulia Florentina: ipotesi diagnostiche Elena Commodari Iulia Florentina e la mors acerba: tra rappresentazioni e vissuti. Il punto di vista psicologico

This paper discusses the chiton fauna (Mollusca, Polyplacophora) from some deposits at Altavilla Milicia (NW Sicily) presumably older than the late Upper Pliocene. The study material consists of 550 valves from 5 samples (ORTO1-2 and KYLA1-3a) of the “Sabbie di Altavilla” Formation. This is the first comprehensive account of fossil chitons from the Pliocene of Sicily. We identified 14 species: Leptochiton cancellatus, L. algesirensis, Leptochiton sp., Hanleya hanleyi, Ischnochiton rissoi, I. anserinus, I. martinelli, Stenosemus dolii, Callochiton septemvalvis, Chiton sp., Lepidochitona caprearum, Acanthochitona fascicularis, A. crinita and Craspedochiton altavillensis. Two species (S. dolii and C. altavillensis) represent 77.3 % of the total amount of the valves. The finding of I. anserinus and I. martinelli is particularly important since these rare, scarcely known species were reported only from few Pliocene localities in Italy and Spain. Nine species are still living in the Medit...

During the II millennium BC (Castelluccio culture, 2200 / 2100-1440-1420 BC), the area where the Greek colony of Megara Hyblaea will be founded, was characterized by several indigenous settlements. Among these, the most important sites are Bernardina, Secchiera, Mostringiano, Vallone della Neve and Cana Barbara, all located in the “cave”, a short distance from the rivers and the coast. They were explored for the  rst time by Paolo Orsi to the end of the nineteenth century. On that occasion, Orsi discovered numerous chamber tombs, mostly with well-preserved grave-goods. Most of the burials date back to the Early and Middle Sicilian Bronze Age, with some traces of later occupation.
As for the Early Bronze, the tombs generally contained a large amount of local pottery and stone tools, along with some metal objects. Although since then many excavations have been carried out by the Soprintendenza (mostly unpublished), the investigations of P. Orsi of the late nineteenth century have not yet been overcome. The same goes for the ceramic productions, the main indicator of the Castelluccio culture and never studied in the “megarese” area.
In this perspective, the analysis of ceramics from the necropolis of Bernardina (Orsi 1891), Secchiera (Orsi 1893), Vallone della Neve (Orsi 1899) and Cana Barbara (Orsi 1902) could provide signi cant data.
In autumn 2013, the Author was authorized by the director of the Archaeological Museum of Siracusa to start a complete study of all the material coming from the archaeological researches carried out by Orsi. Over 260 complete objects have been identi ed, belonging to the Early and Middle Bronze Age (objects in precious stone, basalt,  int, metal, bone and ceramics).
The aim of this work is the study and classi cation of Castelluccio-style pottery from the aforementioned sites in the context of the Bronze Age in Sicily. Paolo Orsi, between 1889 and 1899 published the preliminary re- ports, in which he brie y described the characteristics of some of the tombs and their grave-goods. The publica- tions included a few illustrations and schematic drawings of some objects. There were no further investigations on these sites by P. Orsi and he has never published a  nal report. The materials discovered by Orsi are now kept at the Archaeological Museum of Siracusa and they are largely unknown and almost forgotten.
The 51 ceramic samples from the above mentioned sites make an important contribution to the knowledge of the ceramic horizons of the Early and Middle Bronze Age chronological phases. In particular, 47 specimens belong to the Castelluccio style, 2 to the Rodì-Tindari-Vallelunga style and 2 to the Thapsos culture, that means Early and Middle Bronze Age.
The analysis of the ceramic production took place through an attempt at classi cation, organized according to morphological, dimensional and decorative criteria. Taxonomy is organized into a hierarchical system with  ve different levels of classi cation: Form, Group, Type, Variety and Variation.

Fleas (Insecta: Siphonaptera) are obligate bloodsucking insects, which parasitize birds and mammals, and are distributed throughout the world. Several species have been implicated in pathogen transmission. This study aimed to monitor red foxes and the fleas isolated from them in the Palermo and Ragusa provinces of Sicily, Italy, as these organisms are potential reservoirs and vectors of pathogens. Thirteen foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and 110 fleas were analysed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect DNA of the pathogens Ehrlichia canis, Babesia microti, Rickettsia spp., Anaplasma phagocytophilum, Anaplasma platys, Anaplasma marginale and Anaplasma ovis. In the foxes, A. ovis was detected in only one animal, whereas the prevalence of the E. canis pathogen was 31%. B. microti and Rickettsia spp. were not detected. Of all of the collected fleas, 75 belonged to the species Xenopsylla cheopis, 32 belonged to Ctenocephalides canis, two belonged to Ctenocephalides felis and one belonged to Cediopsylla inaequalis. In the fleas, the following pathogens were found: A. ovis (prevalence 25%), A. marginale (1%), A. phagocytophilum (1%), Rickettsia felis (2%) and E. canis (3%). X. cheopis was the flea species most frequently infected with Anaplasma, in particular A. ovis (33%), A. marginale (1%) and A. phagocytophilum (1%). Both C. felis exemplars were positive for R. felis. E. canis was found in the lone C. inaequalis and also in 3% of the X. cheopis specimens. No fleas were positive for B. microti or A. platys. As foxes often live in proximity to domestic areas, they may constitute potential reservoirs for human and animal parasites. Further studies should be performed on fleas to determine their vectorial capacity.

In November 1928 there was an erupfion of Mounf,Efna, Sicily, which led to lava largely desfroying the fown of Mascali, situated low on the easfern flank of fhe volcano. Destruction of fhe fown took jusf over a day buf there was an orderly evacwfion of its inhabitants and, wifh help from the military, families were able fo remove furniture and fitfings from fheir houses. Evacuees were relocafed fo nearby towns sfaying wifh relatives, friends or in hired aparfmenfs. Rebuilding Mascali provided an opportunify for fhe fascist governmenf of the time to demonstrate efficient cenfralised planning. A completely new fown was built on a grid-iron plan with many of fhe buildings reflecting fhe 'fascist architecfure' of fhe fime. The fown was complete by 1937 and housing condzfzons were very advanced in comparison wifh ofher towns in the region. The 1928 erupfion is importanf as i f was the most desfrucfive on Efna since 1669 when the city of Cafania was overwhelmed. In terms of hazard and risk assessment fhe 1928 eruption demonsfrates fhaf lava can reach fhe lower flanks of the volcano within a shorf period affer fhe onset of an erupfion.