430 



SICILIAN VESPEUS 



SICILY 



404 and 408. Many spurious Sibylline prophecies 

 in private hands were taken bv Augustus and 

 burned. Quite distinct are the fourteen books of 

 so-called Sibylline Uraclet in Greek hexameters 

 (over 4000 lines), a series of pretended prophecies 

 written by Alexandrine Jews and Christians, 

 in the interest of their faiths, and supposed to 

 date from the 2d century B.C. down to the 3d cen- 

 tury A.D., or, according to Ewald, even the (iili. 

 The origin and signification of iniiny pa-ssages have 

 caused fierce discussion, but beyond doubt many 

 are plainly Jewish and pre-Christian, others aa 

 ]il;iinly Christian. One passage in the eighth book 

 ( -' 17-250) touched powerfully the imagination of that 

 Christian world which found no difficulty in read- 

 in;: Messianic prophecy into the vague spirituality 

 of the fourth eclogue of Virgil. ThU passage, 

 alone in the whole series, is written acrostically, 

 like all the Sibylline verses of Home, the initials 

 forming the Greek words for Jesus Christ, Son of 

 (MM!, Saviour, Cross. It is alluded to in the /' 

 Ciritiitr of Augustine, and we lind it again in the 

 solemn Sequence of Thomas of Celano : ' Dies ir:c, 

 dies ilia Solvet saeclum in favilla, Teste David 

 cum Sibylla.' And it was the same sense of 

 mysterious continuity between the ancient order 

 and the new that gave so rich a motive to mediaeval 

 art in masterpieces by Giotto, Michelangelo, and 

 Raphael. 



Editions of these so-called Sibyllina are by Alexandra 

 (Paris, 1841-56), a monument of erudition, the aecond 

 volume with an exhaustive commentary ; Friedlieb ( Leip. 

 1852 ); A. Rzach ( Vienna, 1891 ) ; and H. Diels ( Berl. 1891 ). 

 See works devoted to discussion of the question by Ewald 

 . 1888 . I'. !! nt [JMMfcr. ''" KfrelMVMh, l*7si. H.-i.lt 

 ( 1869 and 1878, the latter an edition of book iv.), Maas 

 (1879), and Bang (trans, by Poeation, 1880); also an 

 admirable article in the Edin. Rerific for July 1877. 



Sicilian Vespers, the name given to the 

 massacre of the French in Sicily on Easter Monday 

 (March 30) 1282, the signal for the commence- 

 ment of which was the first stroke of the 

 vc-per-bell. Charles of Anjou, brother of Louis 

 IX. of France, had deprived the Hohenstaufen 

 dynasty of Naples and Sicily ; but his cruelty and 

 tyranny, his oppressive taxation, and the brutality 

 of his 'followers excited among the Sicilians the 

 deadliest animosity. So on that evening the 

 inhabitants of Palermo, enraged (according to 

 the common story) at a gross outrage offered by 

 a French soldier to a young Sicilian bride, sud- 

 denly rose against their oppressors, and put to 

 the sword every man, woman, and child to the 

 numlier of 8000. This example was followed by 

 Messina and the other towns, and the massacre 

 became general throughout the island : the French 

 were hunted like wild beasts, and dragged even 

 from the churches. The 600th anniversary of the 

 Sicilian Ves|>ers was celebrated with much enthn- 

 siasni in 1H82, Carilwvldi (shortly before his dcaih i 

 having come to Palermo on purpose to lie present, 

 though he was too feeble to take part in the 

 ceremonies. See Amari, La (luerra del Vetnro 

 Xi'-iliauo (Eng. trans, by Earl of Ellesmere, 1850). 



Sirily, the largest, must fertile, ami most popu- 

 lous island in the Mediterranean Sea, lies in 36 

 :ts -38 18' N. lat. anil 12 19'- Iff 1 42' K. long., 

 and is separated from the mainland of Italy by the 

 narrow Strait (//) of Messina (2 miles wide). 

 It- shall.- roughly resembles n triangle ( whence the 

 early Creek navigators gave it the name of Trin- 

 acria, the ' Three-cornered ') theeastern coast, from 

 Capo ili Fan> in the north to Capo Passaro in the 

 south, forming the base, and the northern and 

 south-western counts the sides, which gradually 

 approach each other towards the north-west. Area, 

 9828 M|. in. (one third that of Scotland); of the 

 (including adjacent inlands), 9936 



sq. m. Pop. (1881)2,927,901; (1890)3,285,472. 

 Capo Passaro, at the south-eastern extremity, is only 

 56 miles from Malta ; and Capo Boco, near Marsala, 

 at the western, only 80 miles from Cape lion on 

 the African coast. The Strait of Messina i 

 nearly everywhere over 150 fathoms deep : but its 

 narrowness and the conformity of the geological 

 structure on both shores l>ear witness that the 

 island was formerly a part of the mainland with 

 which it has always been so closely connected 

 politically. Of fourteen new forts for the protec- 

 tion of \lessina and the straite the most were fin- 

 ished by 1893. 



Sicily is for the most part a plateau from 500 to 

 1900 feet above the level of the sea, and traversed 

 throughout its northern half by a chain of moun- 

 tains. The north and east coasts are steep and 

 rocky, the south and west generally flat ; the best 

 harbours and the shortest rivers are found in the 

 north. The mountain-chain may be looked upon 

 as a continuation of the Apennines (q.v.). Begin- 

 ning at Capo di Faro on the Strait of Messina, it 

 runs in a south-south-westerly direction as far as 

 Taormina, where it turns off to the west, and 

 stretches across the whole island. The first part 

 of the chain, from Capo di Faro to Taormina, 

 called the Peloritan range, which in Monte Dinna- 

 man attains the height of 3700 feet. The second 

 and much the longer part is called the Nebrodian 

 range ; near the middle of the north coast it re- 

 ceives the local name of Le Madonie, and rises in 

 the Pizzo d'Antenna to 6467 feet ( the highest point 

 in the island except Etna). Immediately to the 

 west of the Madonie there is a notable depression, 

 whose waters are carried off by the rivers Grande 

 and Salso to the north and south coasts respect ivel\ : 

 beyond this point the mountains for some distance 

 maintain the character of a chain, but gradually 

 lose this and break up into irregular and often de- 

 tached masses, ending in the precipitous walls of 

 Monte San Giuliano (ancient Eryx, 2464 feet ), which 

 rises straight from the sea. About the centre of 

 the chain a range branches off through the heart 

 of the island to the south-east at first wild and 

 rugged, but afterwards smoothing down into table- 

 lands, which in turn slope away tamely to the sea. 

 There are innumerable other spurs to the south 

 from the great northern chain, which rise in several 

 peaks to over 5000 feet : Monte Cammarata reaches 

 5177 and Rocca Busambra .V299 feet. Tertiary 

 limestones occupy most of the island ; the Nebrod- 

 ian rocks are mainly of Oligocene date. The lower 

 mountain-slopes are in general covered \\ it h groves 

 of oranges and olives, and most of the plateau with 

 fields of wheat. The only extensive plain of 

 special note is that of Catania (given up to vine- 

 yards), out of which Etna (q.v.) rises to a height 

 of 10,850 feet, with a base 400 sq. m. in extent. 

 Although rivers are numerous, none- are navigable. 

 The principal perennial streams are the Simeto, the 

 Salso, the Platani, and the Itelici. The largest 

 lake is the Lagho di Lentini, near the east en 

 which has an area of less than 4J sq. m. 



The climate of Sicily is warm and equable, espe- 

 cially on the north and east coasts. The mean 

 temperature in the years 1S7I Mi ranged from 

 4. r >" r. in winter to ~'.\ in summer: during the 

 same period the extremes recorded were 25(Cnl- 

 tanisetta) and 118 (Palermo); but only for brief 

 periods does the dry parching Sirocco (q.v.), chiefly 

 in the spring and early autumn, drive the ther- 

 mometer up to over 100. Snow seldom falls in 

 the lowlands ; on the Madonie, however, it lies 

 till June, and on Etna till July ; and the tempera- 

 ture in winter in the wretched mountain towns is 

 often bitterly cold. The reckless destruction of 

 the fon-sts, for which the whole island anciently 

 was famed, has wrought serious injury to both the 



