Sicily and its Aeolian Islands are places of magic where myths and legends were born. The Greek gods made these lands their playground and demonstrated a penchant for “Sicilian real estate,” especially the stunningly beautiful Aeolian Islands, which served as the backdrop to some of the classic stories of antiquity.
On his epic ten-year voyage home from the Trojan War, Odysseus made the treacherous passage through the clutches of Scylla, a man-eating monster that lived in a cliff-side cave across from the mighty whirlpool of Charybdis (thought to be the Straits of Messina.) Then Odysseus journeyed on to the Aeolian Islands to pay his respects to Aeolus, the god of the winds, who resided in a castle on the island of Lipari, the largest of the fertile cluster of seven volcanic islands. The fearsome god Hephaestos, who represents blacksmiths, artisans, metallurgy and fire, lived on the fire-belching island of Vulcano where he forged the arms that protected the gods and heroes of the Trojan War.
While more and more Americans discover the many allures of La Bella Sicila, few have yet to venture to the largely undiscovered Aeolian Islands. As you dream of vacations to come, consider basing a stay on Lipari from which you can explore any of the Aeolian islands including the island of Stromboli which, after Hawaii’s Kilauea, is the world’s most active volcano.
Most of the photographs featured were taken from Lipari with several from Vulcano, Salina and Filicidi.
An elegant gondola with its striped-shirt gondolier plying one of Venice’s 177 canals, silently gliding beneath one of its 450 stone bridges. Extravagant carnival masks … simultaneously concealing their wearers’ identities and projecting fantasies. Blown glass … dizzying bouquets of translucent color magically forged from sand. Or, perhaps that architectural confection that feels more like an imagined Xanadu than an inhabited city. No other place on the planet conjures such images! The novelist Thomas Mann called Venice “the most improbable of cities” … and all on a piece of real estate just two times the size of Central Park.
La Serenissima, long may you float. The world’s prayers are with you.
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With ghosts and goblins everywhere and Halloween just around the corner, I figured it’s a great time to talk about one of my favorite motifs in art: memento mori. Memento mori is Latin for “remember death.” The phrase is believed to have originated from an ancient Roman tradition in which a servant would stand behind a victorious general as he paraded through the streets; as the general basked in the glory of the cheering crowds, the servant would whisper in his ear: “Respice post te! Hominem te esse memento! Memento mori!” . . . “Look behind you! Remember that you are but a man! Remember that you will die!”
We moderns don’t like to think too much about death unless treated more as a camp statement of style, but for those living in antiquity all the way up to the beginning of the 20th century, death was seen as a motivator to live a virtuous life. To help reflect on this, artists created paintings, sculptures and mosaics depicting skulls, skeletons and other symbols of death to encourage contemplation on how you live your life. Romans also used the phrase memento mori to remind one another of the brevity of life, and that death makes us all equal . . . and to remember to live life and each day to its fullest. By honoring death, you thus honor life. The flip of Memento Mori is Carpe Diem … seize the day. Rejoice, and be glad in it!
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