“All of Sicily is a dimension of the imagination,” wrote the novelist Leonardo Sciascia. Indeed, the island has always emanated a slightly mythical air, neither quite real, nor quite imaginary, like a kind of Mediterranean Shangri-La. Its complex, multi-faceted history fascinated travellers from Plato to DH Lawrence. Many books about Sicily are less about the island itself than about one’s perception of it, whether as the romanticised image of the noble brigand or a guttural tale of corruption and violence. Like an anamorphic painting, the island seems to change form depending on which way you look at it.
‘The Invention of Sicily’, by Italy-based, British writer Jamie Mackay, does ground us in reality. Yes, this is a real place. But there is something special here, too. The early chapters are a rundown of the island’s history. Sicily was first colonised by the Greeks, then the Romans, then the Arabs, whose influence was so great that by the time the Normans took over in 1072, most of the island’s population was Muslim. Afterwards, Sicily was ruled intermittently by various Spanish monarchs until 1860, when Garibaldi’s heroics saw it incorporated into the new Kingdom of Italy.
The overarching image is that of Sicily as a kind of hunter’s stew, with each newcomer peppering the pot with their own unique ingredients. Far from supplanting each other, each new ruler sought – for their own particular reasons – to augment what had come previously. Some of the best early chapters concern the rule of the Normans, whose kaleidoscopic tastes led to the fusion of Norman, Arabic and Byzantine culture – an epiphany of pre-nation state cosmopolitanism that manifested itself in the island’s politics, folklore, religion and architecture.
