Fata Morgana

The Fata Morgana (Morgana fairy) effect is a visual phenomenon that occurs, under very special atmospheric conditions, near the Strait of Messina, that stretch of sea about 5 kilometers long that separates Sicily from Italy. Top left is the logo of Sicily. The Trinacria, a jellyfish with three legs and the head usually with ear of corn but in this case snake-haired (it is likely that this symbol is to be attributed to the Greek domination, VIII-III BC and that later Romans have put the ears of corn in the head of the Medusa with three legs that in turn represent the three vertices of the Sicilian triangle. The drawing is full of island elements: the prickly pears, the clothes hanging, the coppi (Sicilian for tiles of the roof) in the roofs of the houses, the palms, the red domes of the churches of Palermo, and also this female moor, a typical character of Sicilian iconography.

(photo) The Fata Morgana mirage as observed in The Harbour Of Messina, Drawing, 1884