Diversions in Sicily

by Henry Festing Jones

I asked several people what St. Luke had to do with Alexandria, and was always told that St. Mark’s body was brought from there to Venice in 828, why then should not

another of the Evangelists have been there also? Why not indeed? But this reply was as little satisfying as those with which pre-occupied age endeavours to silence inquisitive childhood, and produced much the same sort of result, spurring me on to further investigations.

A musician who desires to compose a tune that shall become popular must contrive something apparently original and yet not so original as to demand study; it must also contain echoes of other tunes previously popular, and yet they must be so indefinite that no one can tell for certain where they come from, which is what we mean when we say it is a wise tune that knows its own father. Similarly, the framers of the foregoing legend had to compose an entirely Christian story, as original as was compatible with the use of the forms of Christian legend, and yet they could not neglect all the pagan traditions with which their public had been impregnated for generations. In the first place the picture must come over the sea—everything that arrives in an island does so; one of the most effective of the common forms in legend is the arrival of a boat with a precious cargo from a distant land, often

bringing corn to stay a famine, and every one is now familiar with the opening of Lohengrin. Tunis would not do for the point of departure, not only because it is where pagan Astarte came from when she arrived in Sicily, but also because it had been Moslem since the seventh century and could not have been accepted by the people as a Christian seaport. It is quite likely that the popularity of the St. Mark legend determined the selection of Alexandria, which had the advantage also of being on the coast of the same continent as Tunis. The storm, the vow and the oxen are as much common form in legend as the ship; and the next thing that strikes one is the curious similarity between the alternate domiciles of the Madonna on the mountain and at Custonaci, and the flittings of Venus Erycina to and fro between the mountain and Carthage. If we look upon the arrival of the picture at Custonaci as involving the transplanting of a piece of Africa into Sicily, much as an ambassador’s house is regarded as being part of his own country transplanted into a foreign land, we may then consider that the Madonna, to all intents and purposes, still travels between the Mountain and Africa, only she now has an easier journey and avoids

actually dwelling among heretics. In this view the transporting of her picture backwards and forwards should be looked upon as the modern version of the feasts of Anagogia and Catagogia.

It is admitted that the picture has, more than once, been placed in the hands of skilful modern painters whose services have been called in merely to repair any damage it may have sustained in its journeyings—they have had nothing to do therefore with the miraculous preservation of the colouring. What these experts thought about the date of the original painting is known only to themselves. We need not suppose that they agreed—that would have been indeed a miracle and quite a fresh departure for a picture with a reputation earned in a different branch of thaumaturgy. It does not much matter, however, what they thought, for experts in matters of art are the victims of such cast-iron prejudices that if once they fancy they see the influence of Leonardo da Vinci in a picture and take it into their heads that it comes from Piedmont, it will be found the most difficult thing in the world to persuade them that it really was painted in Egypt more than 1000 years before Giotto.

We shall probably not be far wrong if we assume that something like the processions of the Personaggi, involving the display of the most beautiful men and women that could be found, took place on the mountain in heathen times as part of the cult of the goddess and that, as a compromise, they were not abolished but accommodated to Christian usages.

Giuseppe Pitrè, in his Feste Patronali in Sicilia, gives an account of the procession on the mountain held in 1752. We are to suppose that the wickedness of the good people of Eryx had attained to such monstrous proportions that the whole universe, incited thereto by observing the anger of God against them, took up arms in the cause of justice. The Madonna di Custonaci, however, intervened and saved her chosen people. It began with the Wrath of God, personified by a warrior armed with thunderbolts and lightning and setting forth to destroy the mountain. Then came the Angry Heavens, the Benignant Moon, Mars and Mercury ready to avenge the outrages done to God; Jove grasping a thunderbolt and about to hurl it against the comune, Venus anxious to overthrow the city, and

Saturn whetting his golden scythe. The Sun is obscured, the Four Winds blow terribly, the Four Elements assist in the work of desolation, the Four Seasons threaten misery and affliction. Mount Eryx being convinced by this display that it is in a great danger, the Genius of the city appears next, bearing in his hand a figure of the Madonna di Custonaci. He calls to his assistance Divine Counsel, Devotion, Beneficence and Piety, and the procession closes with the Guardian Angel.

It must have been a magnificent spectacle. Many clouds have rested on Mount Eryx since 1752 and we do not now expose our bedrock of paganism quite so openly. This, indeed, but for the slight veneer of Christianity, might have passed for a downright pagan procession.