Monday, April 17, 2017

A Story of Easter Monday

Annamaria on Monday

By the time you read this, it will be the morning after Easter.  I am posting it on the day before, after putting in an eight-hour day preparing Easter treats for my family.  People of the Italian persuasion, generally speaking, follow family traditions on holidays--whether or not they are particularly religious.  I am a dyed-in-the-wool practitioner of such arts.  My place is redolent right this moment with lovely aromas of fresh-baked pizza rustica and torta di ricotta.  I look forward to sharing them on Easter Sunday with my loved ones.

There was an Easter, however, when the folk of my ancestral Sicily were in no mood to celebrate.  Here's the story of Easter Monday 1282:




My tale begins in 1266, when the French King Charles I took hegemony over Sicily.  By then, the island of my ancestors had been overrun for a couple of millennia by just about any band of marauders with steel blades and sharpening stones: The Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Saracens, Normans, you name it.

How Charlie came to subjugate the Sicilians is a tale in itself.  It all began when the Hohenstaufens, who ruled Germany, started stomping around in the north of the Italian boot.   Between the Germans up north and southern Italy (all of which was called Sicily at the time) lay the Papal States.  Pope Innocent (sic) IV was seriously displeased with the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick II's invasion of the Italian peninsula, and Il Papa said so in 1245 by declaring Freddy deposed.   Frederick failed to step aside on the Pope’s say so, but a higher authority intervened in 1250, and Frederick died.  The Pope might have rejoiced at that, but as it happened he was nearly as ticked off with Conrad, who succeeded when his daddy Big Freddy died.  You might think the Almighty was taking sides, because Conrad only lived another four years.  When Conrad kicked the bucket, turmoil ensued.



Lurking in the background the whole while was Manfred, a son old Frederick fathered without benefit of marriage.  While the political scene was boiling in Germany, Manfred saw his main chance and seized control of the Kingdom of Sicily.

By then, new Popes had taken over, first Urban IV and then Clement IV, neither of whom liked Manfred.  They cast around for help getting rid of the bastard.  The papacy eventually installed Charles of Anjou to rule Sicily.

Charlie was a happy guy.  He had his sights set on becoming the Emperor of Byzantium, and what better geography could he have as a jumping off point than that gorgeous island in the middle of the Mediterranean.



 But the Sicilian noblemen became peeved when their new King Charles left them out of the goodies he had to distribute.  They got no lucrative foreign posts.  Instead he taxed them and all the Sicilian people to the hilt to bankroll his adventures in Byzantium and elsewhere.  The local population tagged him for what he was, a foreign tyrant who was bleeding them dry.  Charles should have known better than to piss off an island full of people who had already endured centuries of ever-escalating oppression.

Charles’s rival, Michael VIII Palaeologus—the current Byzantine Emperor—spotted unrest among the Sicilians and found an opening.  He sent his agents provocateurs into the mix.  Insurrection was their aim.

The Sicilians got out their own whetstones.  The Sicilian Vespers ensued.


At sunset on the eve of Easter Monday 1282, at the Church of the Holy Spirit, just outside Palermo, they began to slit throats and otherwise do away with the French interlopers and their supporters.  Over the next six weeks, they massacred thousands of French inhabitants.

Eventually, the Pope tried to lend the French a hand, but all attempts to retake the island were repulsed.

Michael VIII in his autobiography tried to claim he was God’s instrument in releasing the Sicilian people from tyranny.  But most historians conclude that the Sicilian people freed themselves.





The very best thing to come out of all this, to my way of thinking, is Giuseppe Verdi’s opera I Vespri Siciliani.  Failing to find a way to share my Easter treats with all of you, I leave you with this taste Verdi's masterpiece.


13 comments:

  1. Popes, politics, pizza, and Pinza. What more could one want on Easter Monday morning, sis?

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  2. Your are close enough to share my personal holdbacks. Just say, Bro. Two of my other brothers got their share yesterday.

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  3. And with history like that, we don't have to wonder much about how The Godfather came into being...

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    1. There is certainly a close relationship between the history of oppression in Sicily and the endurance of the Mafia. The populace was pretty much brutalized from 600 BC onward. Th at the uprising I write of today was a rare revolt is a consequence of complicated factors--not the least of which are the fecundity of the land and heat of the sun. I just wish 92.7% of the world would not jump to the conclusion that most, if not all Sicilians were connected to organized crime. It's an anti-defamation fight many of us wage, but fictional Italians, played by highly skilled actors are hard to beat.

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    2. :-) I would never dream of painting with such a broad brush, dear AmA. :-)

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    3. My God, EvKa's maturing. If I'd been forced to bet I'd have assumed his response would have been some one-word comment like, "Fugedaboudit."

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    4. Not you, my dear EvKa. I could you among the 7.3% who think. Not 100% sure about my brother Jeff, but I know I can count on him to take my part 73% of the time.

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    5. I'm an elephant, Jeff, I never fugedaboudit.

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  4. Yet another reason to love this blog - I learn so much about history from parts of the world I know so little. Thank you for another great blog, Annamaria!

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    1. Thank you, Susan. You and are are soul sisters when it comes to this kind of stuff.

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  5. Great history to read about here. I knew nothing of this before I read this post.
    The Sicilian people had enough of oppression.

    I would never paint the people of Sicily with a broad brush. Not when the beautiful city of Siracuse sparkling on the sea and not when I think of people whose relatives came from Sicily.

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  6. Oh, and your Easter feast sounds wonderful.

    It reminds me of what some Greek friends say their families are doing in their country for this holiday.

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    1. Thank you, Kathy. That Island at the toe of boot has been a geopolitical football for so long that its fascinating history intersects with just about all of Western and whole lot of Eastern history. My favorite factoid: The island was pretty much deforested by the Spanish to build their armada. All that timber the British sank? It was Sicilian wood! So glad you enjoyed this piece of it. And I know I could count on you for the fair and human point of view.

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