Ratso's Europhile

2004: We're All Russo's on This Bus

by Carl Russo

4

Benito Mussolini's name is visible on the clock tower at Enna's city hall, one of numerous neoclassic-deco fascist buildings still serving Italian municipalities. The letters were chipped away after the regime's fall, but the dark spaces have never been painted over. Perhaps he's still popular there because he gave the city its name back (originally Henna from ancient times). For 500 years until 1927, it was called Castrogiovanni. The Duce didn't like it, presumably, because it sounded like a gay cologne.

I have a hard time believing he ever made the buses run on time in this region. After a long delay I was finally riding in one--the usual Italian Top 40 blasting from the speakers--hoping the bus driver would remember to tell me when we reached Leonforte. He didn't, and after we were a few miles past the town he spotted me sitting there oblivious to everything but the yellow fields rolling by. Suddenly our eyes met in his rear-view mirror. With instant rage he yelled back that I blew it, but luckily a small school bus was coming at us in the opposite direction. The second driver was generous to let me ride back with the kids, but I slipped him a euro before he asked for ten.

Leonforte's entanglement with fascism was more colorful than Enna's. Fierce allied fighting between the Canadian army and the Nazis ended in defeat for the latter in 1943. Today the pensioners, wizened old men who perch on benches in packs, prefer light blue shirts to brown ones, and probably never really sympathized with their German occupiers. That was my conclusion after meeting the grandfatherly proprietor of a bar. I parted the beads of his dark establishment to escape the afternoon heat and ordered a gelato and mineral water. When my eyes adjusted I noticed a faded poster of the Manhattan skyline tacked to the wall. I pointed to the picture and told the man I was visiting from America. He pointed, too, and commented that the Twin Towers are, sadly, no more. We agreed on that simple fact and after I'd finished hydrating he refused to take payment. I protested, but he wouldn't take a single centesimo.

Leonforte is stacked up and down a hill, buttressed by the palazzo of Nicolò Branciforte, the prince who built the town in the seventeenth century. Besides building the Cappuccini monks a lovely church, he installed a long baroque fountain adorned with graceful arches and the family coat of arms, along with two dozen spigots for his thirsty subjects. It's still there today, the gift that keeps on giving. Large community fountains flow continuously on the outskirts of many hill towns, with locals carting away their heavy plastic jugs in cars, scooters and sometimes donkeys.

I followed a path behind the fountain which led to a locked gate with a strange inscription (photo above). The words were an intrigue to me for a over a year, something about a Greek myth and the ancient Siculi who roamed the area in the Bronze Age--wow! I found the answer at Leonforte's own web site. The gate opens on to the garden of a nineteenth-century villa in ruins. The full text is "CHRYSEIS VINDIS SICVLA TEMPE," or, "From the waves of the river Crisa a Sicilian temple," a poetic reference to Apollo's sacred valley.

NEXT PAGE

Return to EUROPHILE

[ Italy: Sicily 1 | Spain, Portugal, Morocco | France | Greece | Italy: Rome | Italy: Sicily 2 | Italy: Mezzogiorno | Italy: Sicily 3 ]