Paladini contro Saraceni a Palermo

The Opera of the Puppets has made the joy of the people since 1700, when the puppeteer and his traveling theater were expected in the squares of the villages of Sicily. It narrates the deeds of the paladins  Charlemagne. The main characters are Orlando, Rinaldo and the beautiful Angelica. To the cry of “Death to the Saracens” the paladins fight the Moors. To this day it remains a really exciting and fun moment to watch the exploits of these wooden puppets to which the puppeteers give life and character by acting and, at the same time, moving them from behind the scenes, while often a piano is the soundtrack to the whole thing. It should be noted that when the puppet theater withdrew from a village, the elders continued to tell the exploits of the paladins, sometimes even adding more to the story, around the conca (brazier for heating) or in the square, with friends and relatives.

There is not a Palermo inhabitant who, at least once in his life, has not climbed on foot to the top of Monte Pellegrino, the most beautiful promontory in the world according to the German poet Goethe when he arrived in Sicily in 1787 during the Grand Tour (XVII-XVIII century), one of those aristocratic popular trips in 1700 to discover the treasures of antiquity which had southern Italy as a privileged destination. The climb to Mount Pellegrino starts from the center of Palermo and reaches the top of the mountain where the sanctuary (17th century) built around the cave that was the home of the “Santuzza” Rosalia, patron saint of Palermo. From the mountain you can enjoy a spectacular view of the city of Palermo, surrounded by mountains and embraced by the sea. In this stretch traveled by the little girl with her mother and little brother, you have an exciting cross-section of Sicily: the lush and varied vegetation with prickly pears that cling everywhere, the white stone, the blue sky. At the top you can see the imposing neo-Gothic structure of Castello Utveggio (1928), once a luxury hotel.

(photo) Palermo, Royal Palace view from the countryside, Monte Pellegrino on the background, 1841