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Festivals for patron saints once offered the only chance for a holiday, socializing and entertainment. Celebrated in spring giving farmers a chance to rest after the planting and to pray for a successful harvest, the festa was the one day everyone came in from the fields for religious processions, games, horse races, music and fireworks. Even the gelato salesman and puppet theatre came to town. The same festivals are still celebrated as a chance to dress up and get together (see Festivals).

Sicily’s now famous fishing techniques were adapted from Arabic methods. Tuna fishermen still practise the matanza in the channel between Levanzo and Favignana, encouraging tuna through a system of nets until the final so-called “chamber of death” where they are brought close to the surface to be slaughtered. Fishermen work together chanting rhythmically to haul them aboard and to shore. Near Messina, swordfish are hunted from boats called feluche . The swordfish are spotted from the tall mast and harpooned from a long plank extending from the prow.

The mythical Arethusa was turned into a spring and bubbles up on the shores of lower Ortygia. Along the Lungomare Alfeo a little terrace looks down on the spring that now feeds into a pond, with ducks and tall papyrus.

The Spanish protected Sicily’s coastline with more than 100 defensive towers. Messages were passed from one to the other by fire signals.

The 13th-century Palazzo Bellomo houses the fine arts museum. The star features are Caravaggio’s Burial of St Lucy and Antonello da Messina’s Annunciation .

The Palermo-born artist (1656–1732) decorated Baroque interiors, creating an aesthetic transition between architecture and paintings by covering all available space with figures and scenes modelled in stucco.

As the first Greek colony on Sicily and the site of the altar of Apollo Archegetes, protector god of all Greek settlements on the island, Naxos shouldn’t be missed. Although the city was quickly surpassed by other colonies in wealth and power, it retained religious importance until it was destroyed by Syracuse in 403 BC. Its remaining inhabitants settled in nearby Taormina. The excavations of the ancient ruins can be seen on the headland (see Giardini-Naxos).

A 1968 Mafia murder thriller adapted from Sciascia’s novel The Day of the Owl .

Centuries of foreign domination, misrule and the feudal system meant wealth, power and land fell into the hands of the few. Popular revolts began in 1820, reached a head in 1848, and in May 1860 opened the way for the Italian socialist Garibaldi. With the aid of Sicilian Redshirts, Garibaldi took the island and convinced the peasant class to vote for Italian Unification.

Lampedusa (1896–1957) is the author of Il Gattopardo (The Leopard) , the classic portrait of Sicilian aristocracy pre- and post-Unification. It was based on the life of his great-grandfather and published posthumously.