Paul Mellon Lecture - Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History, February 2016

Paul Mellon Lecture - Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History, February 2016
For the 2016 Paul Mellon Lecture, the Right Honorable John Julius Norwich shared stories from his book, Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History.
The stepping stone between Europe and Africa, the gateway between the East and the West, at once a stronghold, clearinghouse, and observation post, Sicily has been invaded and fought over by Phoenicians and Greeks, Carthaginians and Romans, Goths and Byzantines, Arabs and Normans, Germans, Spaniards, and French for thousands of years. It has belonged to them all- and yet has properly been part of none.
John Julius Norwich was inspired to become a writer by his first visit, in 1961, and his recent book, upon which this lecture was based, traces the history of the island. The lecture covered everything from erupting volcanoes to the assassination of Byzantine emperors, from Lord Nelson’s affair with Emma Hamilton to Garibaldi and the rise of the Mafia. It took in the key buildings and towns, and was packed with unforgettable stories and characters.
Lord Norwich’s relationship with WMF traces back to our early work in Venice, following the catastrophic floods of 1966.
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[@Zomrem]

Just terrific. Leaving for Sicily in about a month and so glad that I saw this first.

[@willsteel1631]

I love the history of Sicily, thank you Paul Mellon.

[@Joe-ju4cj]

John Julius Norwich is awesome! The best works on the Normans in Sicily and loved his books on Byzantium. He in my opinion writes history as it should be written.

[@redberries8039]

Absolutely agree. My copy of Byzantium has been thumbed ragged.

[@friendlyfire7861]

Definitely. One of the most enjoyable historians to read, and he is very deep.

[@YouMeandSicily]

Very true!

[@paulabennett4788]

Loved this so much and what a brilliant lecture. Will go to Sicily A.S.A.P. and try to remember this amazing.information. Fascinating. Thank you 😅😅.

[@lisalanza8365]

We are the descendants of Giovanna Lanza DiPaterno of Trabia ,Sicily. My cousin met her in the 1970s on a trip with her Grandfather, Vincent Lanza. A servant answered the door and had us sit in the parlor. She observed the family crest carved into an archway. She saw a picture of Princess Giovanna wearing a gown a crown and holding a scepter. She entered the room and family conversation ensued in Sicilian,which she did not speak or understand. My Grandfather always said we were descendants from Royalty but this was the proof. We are descendants of the Duke of Bavaria from over 1000 years ago. The family mansion is now a museum

[@charleswhite758]

OK glad you got that off your chest.

[@joslynaarons6885]

Congratulations for being able to find and touched your roots. This must have been quite an experience.

[@s1lentsound]

​took the words out of my mouth 😂

[@nickprohoroff3720]

Pure Class.What a treat.

[@woody020354]

Excellent content and presentation.

[@annascott3542]

Delightful lecture & lecturer, thank you!

[@Ginzaloon]

Very knowledgeable lecture, thanks for posting this and best piece on Siciliy I can find on KZbin

[@bwoutchannel6356]

Sicily as I know it and Sicilians as I know them well are not content as the word itself implies. Proud, weathered, resourceful in their minimalistic needs they suffer non the less with a ruling North that gives little benefit to that greater part of the Italian dynamic. I once heard it said, by someone I deeply respected, that the Northern part of all countries cause their Southern parts to languish inevitably.

[@decem_sagittae]

Rest in peace, Lord Norwich.

[@jamesjefferson9228]

Love this kind of posh, erudite, witty, British rhetoric

[@charleswhite758]

It got a bit too witty, there seemed to be a punchline at the end of every sentence. But no doubt the Viscount tailors his speeches to the level of every audience. I think he was speaking to Americans here.

[@gregorythomas2674]

Wonderful and insightful presentation! Grazie!!! 😊🇮🇹

[@rubenjames7345]

Very well done. Full marks.

[@MrElliotc02]

We won't see his like again...

[@ThePerradox]

R.I.P. John Julius Norwich.

[@wilsontheconqueror8101]

His knowledge of the reign of Roger of Sicily and his heirs is outstanding!

[@eugeniobb]

beautifully summed up

[@ROBBANKS666666]

Wow 🤩

[@bobbyshull123]

Keep it up dude!

[@nurlatifahmohdnor8939]

Page v Foreword December 1980. Copyright (C) 1964 Corine Jacker. Translated by A. Majid Latiff 1st print, 1981.

[@corra7]

Sicilian first then Italian.

[@TommyTheWalker]

I'm Sicilian, believe we're not happy

[@TeoOfficial_1]

My mother land for the universe to know

[@bramsonneveld1898]

Vicount is pronounced as vaikownt and not as veekownt, as Joshua David does.

[@faerie5926]

I'm learning about Sicily for a really stupid reason

[@maxsavage3998]

Theres no stupid reason

[@bobbyshull123]

Yo sick vid

[@charleswhite758]

Italy like Cyprus is an island just too small to defend itself, thus it is always the prey of foreign invaders. Better stay united with Italy this time!

[@mbc4240]

Sicily never produced "corn" for Imperial Rome, simply because corn was introduced when Rome Empire was long gone (14xx).

[@irenegilodi7180]

That would be true in American English, but in British English corn refers in general to any type of grain and cereal crops (such as wheat, largely cultivated in Sicily)

[@YouMeandSicily]

@@irenegilodi7180 Good point!

[@charleswhite758]

Before accusing such an erudite man of such a basic error, always think twice, else you might end up looking like the bigger fool. Have you ever heard of the Corn Laws? I'm not trying to insult you (on that point at least), but those were almost as important a part of British history as was tea to the Americans. Do you think those laws were about maize?🤣

[@mbc4240]

@@charleswhite758 On which point do you wish to insult me? I was naively, as @kenegilodi points out, using the American English meaning of "corn". No I don't know the nifty details of British Laws and History for that matter. Does that make me less Erudite than individuals of your pompous breed?

[@timothysoar1321]

Largest island in Mediterranean apart from Australia

[@sandrodimarco2228]

I had read and enjoyed tremendously Norwich’s book ‘The Kingdom in the Sun’ and found this lecture astonishingly superficial and randomly put together. Granted that it is very hard to summarize 2,500 of history in 50 minutes Norwich seems to take a bizarre number of “creative” liberties in recounting the history of the island. His entire retelling of the years of the Bourbon kingdom and the invasion of the Piedmontese are almost laughable. Very unfortunate and disappointing! Among the many surreal imprecisions, Sicily was not a Spanish “colony” but rather a joined kingdom, which granted the island several significant privileges. These privileges are visible in the rich Baroque heritage that has been left from those years (which Norwich surprisingly defines as full of nothing). The entire southern section of the island is full of fantastic jewels of Baroque architecture dating from that time, which have been recognized as UNESCO heritage sites……so much for a heritage of nothing!!!

[@decem_sagittae]

You're a first class asshole my dude. Talking dirt on Lord Norwich right after his death. That's very low and beyond despicable. This wasn't even an academic lecture, it was meant for a more general audience, hence why it's "superficial", ie lighter and of a more introductive nature. Again my dude, you're a fucking asshole.

[@fulippuannaghiti1965]

I don't know if you're Sicilian or even Italian, but I'm telling you as a Sicilian that Lord Norwich did a fantastic job in transforming a complicated and twisted historical period into a comprehensible story about one of the most controversial island in the world. I read the Norman in the south and the Kingdom in the sun, I was amazed how a foreigner had at some point even a patriotic feeling for a land that Sicilians don't deserve because they can't even be bothered to study its history. P.S Here he was promoting his book and he could not obviously cover every single page of Sicilian history, otherwise he would have needed one week. You can't compare the period started from the Greek colonization until the Norman Kingdom which is considered as the golden age of the island. The Spaniards treated Sicily as a colony, Palermo was not the capital of an independent kingdom as it was during the Norman rule. Barocco is an artistic way of conceiving art in all its forms, mainly in architectural designs as we see in Sicily. But some baroque churches don't certainly mean any financial or cultural splendor. If you studied and compared the Sicilian golden age and the Spaniard colonization you will realise what abyss divides these two periods. RIP lord Norwich.

[@manitheman0806]

But of course, they weren't relevant in those years under the Bourbons....This is their achievements...A few achievements in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies relative to the other Italian states, particularly during the nineteenth century: • First pension system in what became Italy (2% deduction from salaries) • Most printing presses of any Italian city (Naples with 113) • Lowest taxes in Italy • Largest naval yards based on number of employees (1900 in Castellammare di Stabia) • Largest iron and steel engineering/manufacturing plant in Italy (at Pietrarsa) • Largest iron casting foundry in Italy (Ferdinandea in Calabria) • Oldest continuously-active opera house in Europe, the San Carlo in Naples (1737, rebuilt in 1816) • First university chair and department in economics (Antonio Genovesi, Naples, 1754) • Dwarf planet Ceres first observed (Giuseppe Piazzi, Palermo 1801) • First constitution in Italy (Sicily in 1812, later suspended) • First steamship in the Mediterranean, the Ferdinando I (1818) • First glass recycling program (1832) • First steel suspension bridge in Italy (Gagliano River in 1832, components from Mongiana Works) • First gas-fuelled public lighting system (1839) • First railroad in Italy (1839) • First seismic observatory in the world (Vesuvius 1841) • First steamboat with screw propulsion in the Mediterranean (the Giglio delle Onde 1847) • First functioning electric telegraph in Italy (1852) • Ranked 3rd country in the world for industrial development (1st in Italy) at Paris International Exhibition (1856) • First submarine telegraph in Europe • First military steamship in Italy (the Ercole) • First maritime code in Italy • First public housing complex/estate in Italy (San Leucio near Caserta) • Highest per capita number of physicians in Italy • First botanical gardens in Italy (Naples and then Palermo) • First school for the deaf in Italy • Lowest infant mortality rate in Italy (1850-1860)

[@yaylah7314]

Just because there were a couple of, indeed beautifully designed, churches doesn't mean that the rest of the population wasn't left to poverty whilst scraping through the day.

[@sandrodimarco2228]

@@fulippuannaghiti1965 >>The Spaniards treated Sicily as a colony. I don’t think this is an accurate depiction of the state of things in Sicily during the association with the Spanish kingdom for multiple reasons that would take a book to illustrate. This is a classic interpretation of the history of Sicily (the world) provided by the British historians who have the tendency to put down anything associated with Spain through the 15th/16th and 17th century. Have you ever seen/studied a Spanish colony? How does it compare to Sicily? The wealth of the island through the 16th and 17th century, the amount of construction that went on (just one example.....the entire reconstruction of the Val Di Noto in less than half a century with sumptuous buildings) give the idea of how Spain treated Sicily (not as a colony). You will not find similar examples of wealth neither in Spain nor in any of the real colonies. The truth is Sicily was associated to the Spanish throne, paid taxes, sure, but enjoyed a significant level of autonomy and wealth. Take a look at what happened after the “unification” with Italy....now, if you see the repercussions on the economy, on the demographics, on the state of the island, THAT was a period when Sicily became a colony!

[@KittyComoMeow]

Corn? Corn wasn’t introduced to Europe until Columbus brought it back.

[@nicolasgentile3177]

I love the British historians, they're always funny and enjoyable. However, one must always put the correctness first. To assert that nothing happened during the Spanish vicerealm in Sicily is enormously incorrect. Sicily knew a great demographic growth during the XVIth century and the first half of the XVIIth century. Many monuments in Palermo show this economic and cultural growth. But most is lost after the destruction of Messina, probability the richest city in Sicily during that time, because its rebellion against the Spanish and the numerous earthquake. The extraordinary the reconstruction of the eastern Sicily after the 1693 earthquake could not be possible without the cultural and economic premises developed in the previous decades. I mean, this is well known, but I suppose the English scholars are still anti Spanish 😂 since the Armada... Also, the mosaics are not the only thing left in piazza Armerina Roman villa. There are almost intact rooms and even 2/3m high walls... Has he ever visited the villa?

[@manitheman0806]

Thank you for your reply....Great information

[@emerdigiorgio3594]

@ Nicolas: Good point! Thanks!👏

[@maxsavage3998]

The spaniards and Napoleon were aholes

[@InfoRome]

His point is that the period of Spanish rule is boring compared to what was there before.

[@charleswhite758]

True, all (educated) English people are subliminaly slightly anti-Spanish, we were brought up at school learning about the Spanish Armada. It makes a deep impression on a young mind. They probably don't teach that in Woke schools anymore, more obsessed with all things African slavery. There was never such a threat to our nation, not even later from Napoleon or Hitler. This was a huge fleet actually in the process of invading us, which was stopped by several miracles - a great man in the form of Drake, the weather, and of course God (as every nation likes to believe). Its defeat was the making of our future greatness as it gave us control of the world's oceans and a lot of self-confidence. Spain was our mortal enemy and wanted to turn us back to Catholicism right after we had adopted the Protestant religion amid much turmoil. Queen Mary and her Spanish husband were burning English protestants at the stake. It was a terrifying period and we were rightly terrified of falling to Spanish rule. The Spanish auto-da-fés were possibly as hideous in concept as Hitler's gas chambers, and we didn't want them coming here. The Catholics were still giving us major nightmares when Guy Fawkes tried to blow up our Parliament, when the country was full of Catholic spies and traitors. Of course we celebrate annually the burning alive of Guy Fawkes, and that revives a subliminal memory in the educated mind of the Spanish enemy from those times. To many Brits today it's just "Fireworks Night" and they have no idea what the significance is. Possibly similar to the antipathy every American child feels to some degree towards Great Britain due to what they learn at school about the foundation of the USA and the throwing off of the "British Tyrant" (which we Brits cannot understand as Hanoverian rule was a great period for us). I think you are right about his skimming over of the Spanish period. Clearly there were great things happening, just a question of being interested enough to drill down and find out what they were. No doubt he has done that in one of his books. I assume the wealth originated in South American silver? That wealth created by Spain flooded into most of Europe, so I suppose Spanish Sicily was a principal recipient. Maybe many Sicilians were involved in Spanish South America? I would like to know more about that period, and to learn exactly where the wealth did come from. As for piazza Armerina, in fairness to Lord Norwich, the surviving architecture is nothing compared to the wonders of the mosaics. I've been there and don't remember anything at all about the walls. They were just walls, nothing special. A bit like saying that the Mona Lisa is contained in an amazing picture frame, which would be an absurd thing to mention. Anyone who leaves the Louvre with such an impression has clearly been concentrating on the wrong thing.

[@tomnichols4741]

Napoleon was actually above average height at the time. His "shortness" was always a myth. Lost a little respect at that height comment.

[@schaefer220]

There wasn’t corn in Europe until after Europeans reached the Americas. He stated Sicily sent primarily corn to Rome..

[@petera618]

Not so much anymore, but the term corn used to be used to describe grain by the British. I'm sure he was referring to wheat. Sicily did serve as a granary to Rome.

[@mnz145]

It was wheat not corn.

[@emerdigiorgio3594]

@ schaefer 220...He meant wheat.

[@emerdigiorgio3594]

@@petera618 👍

[@YouMeandSicily]

@@petera618 true!

[@wild8074]

Mafia is just Government😉

[@paulkehoe3425]

sicilian history is a lot longer than 3000 yrs!

[@charlesfenwick6554]

Before 700 BC Sicily was prehistory.

[@seravol1]

Sicily beautiful