The little fish in love

Moor’s heads are a classic representation of artistic Sicily. They tell of a legend in which a beautiful Sicilian fell in love with an Arab at the time that he reigned in Sicily (IX-XI century), being betrayed by the Moor, she beheaded him in his sleep and hung his head, as if it were a vase, on the balcony, also adorning it with a fragrant basil plant that aroused the admiration of unsuspecting  bystanders. In this painting the head of the young lady is adorned with some classic Sicilian fruits (prickly pears, citrus fruits, pomegranate, grapes), chilli peppers and jasmine flowers, one of the most characteristic scents of Sicily. All around other characteristic elements of the Mare Nostrum (as the Romans called the Mediterranean): starfish, seahorses and colonies of red coral, very precious among the coral of the island

(photo) Tabula Rogeriana, drawn by the Arab geographer al-Idrisi in 1154, for Roger II of Sicily: Sicily is surrounded by the Mare Nostrum