Discovering the Sicilian villages with Emilio Messina

Emilio Messina has always been a versatile professional: he worked in advertising, television, and video entertainment. Today he defines himself as an explorer. A passion born four years ago when, embracing a camera, decided to go to the discovery of the most hidden places in Sicily: lakes, mountains, archipelagos, villages, archaeological sites, castles. “A journey not experienced as a tourist but as a true pilgrim, acrossing of the island that has become a real mission to bring to the open and to the knowledge of everyone, those places that I visited and photographed”. Being a landscape photographer met soon with the profession of nature guide. Today, as he told us in the course of this interview, he has turned into a book “Borghi di Sicilia”, published by Flaccovio and edited with Fabrizio Ferreri that tells of “atmospheres culture, art, nature of 58 places of extraordinary beauty”.

What will we find in this book?
An authentic Sicily. Both from the literary point of view thanks to its work of coordinating the authors (in each village the text was conceived by a competent representative of the local community). Both from the photographic point of view because, through the many photos enclosed in the book, I tried to tell stories far from clichés and little known of Sicily. Also trying to surprise those who think they know this island very well.

What particular magic does a Sicilian village have?
Every village I visited has its own magic. But there is certainly a magic that unites them almost all: that of taking you by the hand and making you literally travel to another era. Nineteenth-century courtyards, medieval streets, baroque architecture, unspoiled nature, Byzantine or rock churches and dozens of other sites that not only give you the impression of living in another time but also in another dimension.

How long did your journey to discover the villages last?
The journey I took to photograph each place in a comprehensive manner lasted about a year and a half. I admit to having lost myself several times, but this has allowed me to live the streets, the surrounding nature, the architectures, the history and different social moments with the people of the places. I happened to find places and scenarios of a uniqueness that perhaps only in a land like ours can be seen. Ancient necropolis a few hundred meters from the historic center, alleys that still retain their patterns of Arab domination, small villages built inside the caves, magnificent and imposing Norman castles intact, streams that cross the town and feed, even today, water mills for the production of wheat.

A Sicilian village that has particularly struck you?
Making the name of a single village is a bit like asking a music lover what is his favorite song, but surely you can grasp, through the shots in the book, what were the corners and views in which I left gladly a part of me.

What does it mean to travel through Sicily?
Crossing Sicily in this way leaves you with lots of experiences and memories. Traveling through the small urban centers gives you the opportunity to meet people who live in ways and contexts that are completely different from those of the big city. Urban centers where it is natural to see in the square the little brother who teaches his sister to ride a bike, or where you can hear the same smell in the streets of the sauce prepared by your grandmother.

A particular anecdote that happened during your explorations?
I remember the meeting with a cowherd inside the Pantalica reserve. While I was photographing the Byzantine villages near Ferla, the camera battery left me in the same instant when the rain came. In the search for a shelter I found myself surrounded by stout cows that totally obstructed the path. Between obstructed passage and pouring rain, I entered one of the rock dwellings carved into the rock. Once inside I looked up, sitting in front of me an elderly man smiling handed me a piece of freshly cut cheese. I felt like I had jumped in the past. That fortuitous and unexpected meeting made me reflect a lot. Initially I exchanged for a tourist, but when he realized that I was Sicilian, in the dialect he said: “and cu ti ci potta ca?” (who brought you to get here?). We talked for a long time, he told me about his life and I understood the meaning of that question. All his nephews had left Sicily to look for work and he was the last one left to look after the family business. I explained the project of the book and my work and it filled me with compliments. The genuineness, the welcome and the simplicity with which he led his life, for those accustomed to the rhythms of the city, were unsettling. Meetings like that change your life a little bit, they really make you realize how superfluous it is in our everyday life. And as unfortunately certain crafts, arts, traditions, will gradually disappear because there is no longer the generation to which to pass the witness.

The first village that a tourist should visit?
Individually the villages in the book are all to be visited, but there is a small group of them, all close to each other, from which I recommend leaving. I speak of the villages that are located in the Madonie (Gangi, Geraci Siculo, Polizzi Generosa, Pollina, Castelbuono, Petralia, S.Mauro Castelverde). Precise that no other place in the book is less, but being all neighbors you can very well start there and then move and explore all the others, following a spiral that crosses Sicily.

The most locals thing and characteristic of the Sicilian villages?
In a few scattered order the most “locals” that struck me are the incredible dialect of Piana degli Albanesi where they greet you with “Kjavarrisu”, or the strange legend of the Rocca Salvatesta in Novara di Sicilia according to which inside there is hidden a treasure that is revealed only if a woman within a day makes meticulous and very special actions. The very good resin (manna) for confectionery use that extract from the ash only in Pollina and Castelbuono. The great arches that they make and with which they decorate the town in San Biagio Platani for Easter. But in my opinion, absolutely, there is nothing more locals than the typical food of each village. Incredible how each of these places has such a typical culinary peculiarity that it is impossible to find it similar even in the neighboring country.

What about your upcoming projects?
My exploration of Sicily is not absolutely finished. As a nature guide I accompany walkers weekly between Monti Iblei, Etna and Nebrodi. But I’m concentrating all my energies to create itineraries, through my SicilyExplorers startup, to drive photographic excursions that cross the villages and the most beautiful naturalistic sceneries of this island. Finally, in order not to miss anything, I’m following a very interesting photographic project with the archaeoastronomist Andrea Orlando that traces the traces of the first men who inhabited Sicily in the Paleolithic and Neolithic times. And in the future, who knows.