Vistas in Sicily

by Arthur Stanley Riggs

And then we come to Cefalù, a town whose reputation depends on its dirt, its beggars, and its Cathedral. And there is no excuse for either dirt or mendicants, since it is a thriving commercial and manufacturing city with ample resources to keep itself clean, and purged of begging pests. The name tells its location—Kephalé, in Greek, meant head; that is, promontory in this case, and the old Sikel city occupied the crest of the big jutting headland thrusting straight out into the sea and rising over 1,200 feet in height. On this elevation—seventy minutes now of stiff climbing it takes to reach it, over boulders and the detritus of centuries—the Sikels built them a safe city, and swept it about with massive battlemented walls, carried clear down to the sea. Parts of them are still in very good condition; no doubt through the centuries they have been restored again and again.

The “Head” is bald now—a snowy pate with only a sprinkling of grass—and but one building of uncertain age remains to testify to the different races that have ruled upon this lofty spot. After its acquisition by the Greeks it was important as their western outpost on the northern shore of the island. The one small ruin still standing seems to be that of a Sikel building, of unique structure and great interest. The huge irregular stones in part of it indicate its original appearance, while all about them the decently cut and shaped blocks show an Hellenic restoration. From this height the view is all-embracing—Pellegrino towering above Palermo forty miles to the west; the gaunt black fire peaks of most of the Lipari Islands—once the windy isles of Æolus—straight out to sea in the northeast; and behind us fertile stretches of rolling country checkered with farms and vineyards; town after town set upon impossible rugged peaks, mountains whose tops tear ragged holes in the mist clouds.

In the near distance is the Punto della Caldara, where the shrewd and wily sons of Tyre and Sidon, full of the instinct of commerce, not combat, beached their frail craft and sat down at the feet of the Sikel natives for barter, within easy eyeshot of this eyrie. No doubt from the battlements the natives peered down with less of an eye for the splendid view than for the marketplace of the swarthy, black-bearded Canaanites; and thither they were lured by tempting displays of the royal purple of Tyre, the gold of distant Tarshish far to the west, and the glass and ornaments and statuettes that the Phœnician tempters knew how to make and to market so much better than their uncouth selves.

As we came down from the desolate heights, it began to rain. Within a few hundred yards of the town we passed the house of an old contadino who sat calmly inside his jute-walled goatpen meditating. In the kitchen door stood his brawny wife, feeding the unkempt, shrewish looking old goat with soup full of green onions from her husband’s bowl, and diverting herself betimes by lashing the gentle philosopher vigorously, after the fashion of Mrs. Caudle.

In 1129 King Roger was returning from the Italian mainland—whither he had gone to whip into docility sundry recalcitrants among his unruly barons—when his vessel was overtaken by a violent storm of the sort that so often lashes the Mediterranean into fury. The King, greatly alarmed, vowed a fine church in honor of the Christ and the Twelve Apostles if he and all his company were permitted to land unharmed. The ship made Cefalù head, and everyone came ashore safely. Two years later King Roger fulfilled his vow, by establishing a town at the foot of the cliff, and beginning to rear the most magnificent sanctuary that had been built in Sicily since the Greeks constructed their massive Doric temples.

Tremendous and massive are the only words that fit this building, and the enormous hewn stones upon which the façade rests seem to indicate that here must once have stood some ancient fortification which offered the Norman architects a permanent base upon which to build their shrine. The twin spires, the play of the interlacing arches, the round-headed portal—it is especially worthy of notice, by the way—all spell the cool and coherent genius of the northern French architect. Indeed, it is, like King Roger himself, of the Norman brood, but thoroughly adapted to its Sicilian environment.

Within, one realizes how royally Roger fulfilled his vow. What miracles were wrought by these hard-living, hard-fighting, hard-worshiping souls who took their religion with such mighty seriousness that it became an integral part of themselves and their daily lives! The main body of the Cathedral is plain white and generally barren. But no pen can describe in detail the blazing mosaics in the tribune without heaping color upon color, design upon design. The colors of the pictures were executed by artists who were almost tone impressionists, so delicate are the soft shades they used to set off the more primitive hues of the borders.

From the floor of the chancel the flying ribs of the roof seem sections of delicate enameled work. The farther away one stands the more perfect the illusion becomes, to the point where the designs lose their identity. Indeed, no master jeweler could produce a more harmonious effect with his intricate interweaving of colors and blending of tones. But the crowning wonder of the Cathedral—as in the Cathedral of Monreale and the Cappella Palatina—is the enormous mosaic bust of the Christ which fills the vault of the tribune. Built up like its fellows of the brilliant bits of colored glass that adorn the rest of the apse, it seems a portrait of encrusted gems, a human conception of the Godhead that flashes inspiration from myriad delicate facets.

Nevertheless, Cefalù Cathedral fails to impress the beholder as do the other two in which there is not a jarring or inconsistent note from pave to rooftree. Here in Cefalù the bare and dingy plaster walls of the main body—adorned with dubious figures of saints of both sexes, covered with dirt and cobwebs and minus certain of their limbs—make a contrast so glaring as to strike dismay to the most appreciative spirit.