Strange days, and a strange place in Sicily

Well, if it isn't obvious by now from my previous posts we have returned to Sicily.  Winter has definitely arrived since we left.  On Christmas it was 67 degrees fahrenheit.  It's not been near that since we've returned.  One nice thing. Pascale came into the apartment to turn the heat on so the place would be warm when we got back and the heater/airconditioner in the main room was not just inefficient, it was not working.  A couple days after we returned the contractors came and replaced the unit.  We now have heat in the main room and the master bedroom. It's needed. This has been a cold, wet winter for our friends.  We had expected weather that was normally 10-15 degrees warmer than Seattle winter averages.  Well, Seattle's colder than normal and so is Sicily.   

Snow in the mountains north of Ribera

This is the area that we tried to get through early in our trip after the huge storm but landslides blocked the road

We drove through these mountains on our way back from Calabria, in December, after leaving Bolegnetta

There are photos in one of those blogs w/o snow.  

Snow on the hills just west of Sciacca.  SP37 the road to Caltabellotta runs up there.

So much for strange days.  Now for the strange place.  It was a sunny day, one of only a few since we got back, so we went to see a local site.

In Sciacca you will find Il Castello Incantato.  It is a farm that was owned by Filippo Bentivegna.  He was born in 1888 to a large fisherman's family.  After serving in the navy he emigrated to the US in 1912 and ended up in Chicago.  He was dismayed by the racist anti-Italian attitudes in America.  The Sicilians had been some of the earliest people to push for workers' rights in Europe and the immigrants carried those ideals to the US.  The garment workers unions in New York were made possible by Sicilian workers wanting better conditions.  

Filippo fell in love with an American girl in Chicago but was severely beaten by a love rival.  This may have caused some kind of damage to his cerebral health because he returned to Sciacca, bought a farm, and over the years began carving faces on stones throughout his property.  He used to wander the streets of Sciacca carrying a stick he called his sceptre and declared he was "Lord of the Caves".  There are several underground caves he excavated on the hillside where his property is located.  There are small passageways carved into the rocky ground, all kind of non-directional.  The most amazing things are the quantity of simple stone carvings he has done.  There are more than hundreds.  When he died at 78 in 1967 his property was eventually taken over by a group that decided to preserve his work, thankfully.  His little house on the property has wall drawings, obviously reminiscent of New York and Chicago, the two cities of his American experience.  It's both stunning and sobering to walk through the property and see his work.  You realize that he may have been a really troubled person and I suspect that the beating he took did damage to his physical and mental health.  Today there is a small bar and restaurant on the site and it looks like during the warm months there's evening activities and even some demonstrations of local craftwork, like blacksmithing.  None of that was happening today when we went through. 

Paths have been built through the property with his works mounted on the walls.

He even carved faces on the rock walls excavated on the property

Even little rocks in the walls were carved

Filippo's little house

Cityscapes drawn on his interior walls.  They look like New York or Chicago from the water

It's believed the big fish represents the boat he came to America on and that he's one of the little fish in it's belly.

Some parts of the caves he carved out of the hillside.

The only way through this small opening would be on your belly.

Dead-ends are everywhere

There are some faces carved on rocks in the cave walls, but not many.

I'm not sure of the reason for the caves but they may have been a place he felt safe from the outside world.

Above the house and main cave are more carvings and caves cut in the hillside

You can't go through this place without thinking of his troubled mind and how these carvings represent some aspect of his conscious or unconscious state.  The caves were especially troubling.  They definitely seemed to be somewhere he could hide and evade the world, with the small spaces, low ceilings and dead-ends.  It seems too bad that no one really tried to understand him while he was alive.  In 2015 the state recognized the importance of the work as an example of "Art Brut" and have taken measures to ensure it's continued preservation.  At least with the private investments that have been made it may last for many more years.  Other places, like the Palazzo Marquise near here where Toto attended agricultural school  for 8 years, until the earthquake of 1968 caused the building to be abandoned, have been allowed to degenerate since there's no private investment involved.  

The bureaucracies of Italy are confounding.  A place of such possibilities that are forsaken because of intransigence or lack of initiative.  At least Il Castello Incantato may survive. 

We did meet another refugee from the winter here.  Karen, from Montana.  She's here for the 3 month visa limit as well but she came in mid-December.  This is her first time in winter as well, and her last.  The weather is really cold.  It has to be if she'd rather be in Montana!  We spent a good 30 -45 minutes talking while enjoying the sun, for one of the few nice, relatively warm days since we've been back.  The place she's staying has no central heat and only a real small space heater so she's definitely feeling the effects of this winter.  Stay warm, Karen, as much as possible.   

As usual, Ciao for now.