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Sicily Agriculture
Photograph by William Albert Allard
Haunted by its reputation as poor, rural, and beholden to the Mafia, Sicily insists that change has arrived. True, one Sicilian in five is out of work. And true, the island remains Italy's most agricultural region, where pastori still graze their flocks. But the torch of law has singed the Mafia's empire … Sicily looks toward the resolution of a bitter drama generations in the making.
—From "Italy Apart—Sicily," August 1995, National Geographic magazine
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Sicilian Actress
Photograph by William Albert Allard
A veiled Sicilian actress awaits her cue in a classical Greek tragedy … Large, fertile, and at the center of the Mediterranean, Sicily has invariably been someone else's prize … The Greeks arrived in the eighth century B.C., establishing important colonies whose ruined temples and theaters remain some of the island's great tourist attractions.
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Palermo Neighborhood
Photograph by William Albert Allard
Like startled doves, linens and underwear flap in the Mediterranean sun baking old Palermo's rugged Albergheria neighborhood. "We get angry when it rains," says a native Palermitan. "It's an insult, and we take it personally."
—From "Italy Apart—Sicily," August 1995, National Geographic magazine
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Alcara li Fusi
Photograph by Albert Allard
The late afternoon sun speaks warmly to Giuseppe Vicario at a café in the village of Alcara li Fusi, where men gather to talk politics and soccer while their wives cook and clean house. In the cities women are emerging from the shadows. "I'm not sure men have changed," says Valeria Ajovalasit, founder of a feminist group, "but women have."
—From "Italy Apart—Sicily," August 1995, National Geographic magazine
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Sciacca Wedding
Photograph by William Albert Allard
Little man in a big world, eight-year-old Calogero Amoroso shows off his double-breasted best for a wedding in Sciacca. Once known for its large families, Italy now has the industrialized world's lowest birthrate. Sicily's rate, though higher than that of the nation as a whole, has fallen by almost half since 1950. Sicilian women today have an average of 1.7 children.
—From "Italy Apart—Sicily," August 1995, National Geographic magazine
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Catania
Photograph by William Albert Allard
Young fans thrill to Italy’s World Cup soccer team. Seven people live in matriarch Maria Anastasi’s three-room apartment in a poor Catania neighborhood. Says 16-year-old Marilena Pecoraro, at far left: "I don’t like being Sicilian. Work is too scarce here."
—From "Italy Apart—Sicily," August 1995, National Geographic magazine
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Vucciria Marketplace
Photograph by William Albert Allard
A mirror makes two stalls out of one in the Vucciria, Palermo's partly covered marketplace, where locals gather to shop and exchange the latest news. Palermo is hardworking, despite its distractions: "We wake up in the morning," says a businessman fondly, "it's warm, and we can see the ocean and smell the flowers."
—From "Italy Apart—Sicily," August 1995, National Geographic magazine
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Greek Temple of Hera
Photograph by William Albert Allard
Stately ruins of the Greek Temple of Hera keep company with the wildflowers at Selinus more than two millennia after its dedication. At least seven temples once stood here, the westernmost outpost of Greece's presence in Sicily. Attacked in warfare and toppled by earthquakes, two of the temples were partly reconstructed earlier this century.
—From "Italy Apart—Sicily," August 1995, National Geographic magazine
