Sicily, the largest, most fertile, and most populous island in the Mediterranean Sea, lies in 36° 38'—38° 18' N. lat. and 12° 19'—15° 42' E. long., and is separated from the mainland of Italy by the narrow Strait (faro) of Messina (2 miles wide). Its shape roughly resembles a triangle (whence the early Greek navigators gave it the name of Trinacria, the 'Three-cornered')—the eastern coast, from Capo di Faro in the north to Capo Passaro in the south, forming the base, and the northern and south-western coasts the sides, which gradually approach each other towards the north-west. Area, 9328 sq. m. (one-third that of Scotland); of the compartimento (including adjacent islands), 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 Bon on the African coast. The Strait of Messina is nearly everywhere over 150 fathoms deep; but its narrowness and the conformity of the geological structure on both shores bear 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 protection of Messina and the straits most were finished by 1895.
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 mountains. 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.). Beginning 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, is called the Peloritan range, which in Monte Dinnamari 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 receives 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 respectively; 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 detached 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 tablelands, 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 5299 feet. Tertiary limestones occupy most of the island; the Nebrodian rocks are mainly of Oligocene date. The lower mountain-slopes are in general covered with 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 vineyards), 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 Belici. The largest lake is the Laglio di Lentini, near the east coast, which has an area of less than sq. m.
The climate of Sicily is warm and equable, especially on the north and east coasts. The mean temperature in the years 1871-86 ranged from 45° F. in winter to 79° in summer; during the same period the extremes recorded were 25° (Caltanissetta) and 118° (Palermo); but only for brief periods does the dry parching Sirocco (q.v.), chiefly in the spring and early autumn, drive the thermometer 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 temperature in winter in the wretched mountain towns is often bitterly cold. The reckless destruction of the forests, for which the whole island anciently was famed, has wrought serious injury to both the climate and the soil. This process is still going on, and little is done in the way of reafforesting; yet magnificent relics of the primeval forests of oak and ilex are left on the Madonie and elsewhere, and in some districts beeches clothe the mountains to their very summits, and chestnuts, pines, and enormous holly-trees flourish; on the other hand, wide tracts have been reduced to absolute sterility by the destruction of the woodlands. Malaria is endemic in many parts—sometimes more so in the uplands than upon the coast. Nearly all the rain falls in the winter months, when the rivers are swollen to destructive torrents; in the long summer there are usually three months of drought, most of the streams dry up, and the hill-sides and plains are turned to brown, sunburnt deserts. Nevertheless the soil is naturally so fertile that even these causes and the ignorance and primitive methods of the people have not yet destroyed its marvellous productive power. Vegetation is everywhere luxuriant. Dwarf-palms abound, in the south-west especially, and dates, Indian figs, agaves, prickly pears, oranges, lemons, olives, almonds, pomegranates, mulberries, and grapes are all largely grown. Sicily's wheat still represents a seventh of that of all Italy; and of the kingdom's barley, though the figures are much smaller, it raises one-half. Formerly corn was grown and exported at a profit; but of late years this can no longer be done, and to-day the island's chief agricultural products are grapes, oranges and lemons, and sumach. It sends out two-thirds of Italy's wine, which till the rupture of the commercial treaty with France (see ITALY, Vol. VI. p. 244) was mainly exported thither for mixing purposes; of 'green fruit' it yields nearly nine-tenths of all the Italian crop, and sends large quantities to the United States and to Britain; and sumach, for tanning, is exported to the value of nearly a million sterling. But the Sicilians will change neither the methods nor the implements of their fathers. In many districts the soil is enfeebled by being perpetually cropped with wheat, and only the rich supply of sunshine saves it from exhaustion; artificial manures are unknown, and good systems of irrigation and of rotation of crops are even more needed than the introduction of agricultural machinery. At present ploughs of rough-hevn branches, the wooden share thinly shod with iron, are in use, and the corn is usually threshed on the smoothest spot in or near the field—trampled by oxen and horses, who drag heavy stones after them—and winnowed by being thrown into the air. Cattle-rearing, in the usual sense of that term, is not attempted. Oxen and cows are bred for purposes of labour, not for the market or the dairy, and are sent old from the cart or plough to the butcher. But indeed in the interior little meat is eaten at all. Sicilian mutton is as tough as the beef, and has besides a very rank, woolly flavour. Goats are much more common than sheep, and pigs are reared in great numbers in the mountainous tracts, and in the small towns overrun the streets and act as scavengers. There is no regular pasturage for flocks and herds, which live entirely in the open air, and usually gather a subsistence as they can; when straw and cactus-leaves fail they are in some parts fed on the rinds of oranges and lemons. Butter, mostly imported in tins, is known only in the large towns, and the cheeses of the island, chiefly made from goats' and ewes' milk, are hard and bitter.
After agriculture the production of sulphur is the most important occupation. This is the only mineral product obtained on a large scale, and forms the essential resource of Sicily; but it too is separated from the ore by a very primitive process. There are some 300 mines in the island, and 350,000 tons have been exported in a year; in 1888, however, when the lowest record was touched, the export fell to about half this amount. The rich deposits of rock-salt are scarcely worked at all, though bay-salt is largely made in the salt-pans on the east and west coasts. Fishing, especially for the sardine and tunny, occupies a large number of the people; the coral-fishery has greatly declined. Amber is found and worked in Catania. Manufactures are few and of little consequence—some machinery, cement, crockery, gloves, macaroni, and soap nearly exhaust the list. Commerce is mainly in the hands of English, Germans, and Swiss. Over 30,000 vessels yearly enter the sixty ports, and trade as a whole has developed rapidly since 1860. It is, however, much hampered in the interior by the scarcity of good roads—the whole island in 1889 boasted only 3200 miles; 611 miles of railway were built between 1863 and 1890.
As a consequence of the successive foreign settlements on the island the population is rather a conglomerate one; in the east the Greek element prevails, and the people are superior to those in the west, where Arab blood is strongest. In some places in the interior the dialect of the Lombards survives in their descendants, and near Palermo (Piana dei Greci, &c.) both Greek usages and Greek costumes are to be found. The general dialect of the island differs markedly from that of the mainland, as does also the appearance of the country. Most of the farms are small; but in any case the traveller cannot but be struck with the absence of farm-buildings and houses. The labourers as a rule herd in the small towns, walking wherever possible to their work every morning, and otherwise, in spring and harvest, sleeping during the week in temporary conical huts of straw. The crops are guarded, and the losses of tenants from predatory animals, &c. certified, by mounted guards in the pay and uniform of the chief proprietors. Wages range from 1s. to 2s. per day, without food; the peasant seldom tastes even goat's flesh, and lives on black bread, onions, beans, herbs, prickly pears, bitter cheese, and weak wine; the boy swineherds receive only bread, and find water for themselves. The houses of these labourers consist usually of one room in a town perched on the top of a hill or mountain, shared with such poultry and pigs as they may have; the place is dirty, cold, with a tiled roof through which the smoke escapes and the rain enters, the bed being, when possible, sheltered by a strip of matting. The roadway in front commonly serves for latrine and dressing-room. The houses of the craftsmen are no cleaner, but possess tiled floors and more decent furniture. As for the better classes, they are confined to the cities: there are proprietors in Sicily, but no country gentlemen, nor any houses for them; country life there is absolutely none. Even market-towns are unknown; only sometimes fairs are held in the interior. But in spite of his wretched life, labouring from sunrise to sunset all through the year, and steeped in poverty to the lips, the Sicilian is manly and independent, good-humoured and obliging, prudent and steady in his habits. Under proper direction he will work hard and cheerfully, and his patience and resignation to his lot are truly Oriental: 'come Dio vuole' is but the 'kismet' spirit localised. He is also, however, deceitful, taking pride in his cunning, is heartlessly cruel to animals ('they are not baptised,' he explains), and can be sullen and treacherous and vindictive. In homicides, which occur almost daily, Sicily leads the rest of Italy; and robberies and thefts are very frequent. Brigandage on the grand scale has been put down, but cases of less note do occur still from time to time, and bands of highwaymen occasionally attack even carriages escorted by carabinieri. The Mafia (q.v.) is not dead yet, and the vendetta (worn down by affectionate familiarity to 'vinnitta') is preferred to more legal methods of punishment. This state of things is largely to be traced to the low rate of wages and the excessive taxes, and to the deficient administration of justice; the two former causes certainly are responsible for the emigration of thousands of Sicilians every year to America. In religion the people are devout, and superstitions to a degree. They are very illiterate; three in every four can neither read nor write. Education is free and compulsory, but the law is not very strictly enforced. In 1895 there were 3500 elementary schools in the island, 13 normal schools, 67 'licei,' &c., 46 technical schools, besides government technical institutes, industrial schools, schools of mercantile marine, a military college at Palermo, a government conservatoire at Palermo, schools of agriculture and universities at Catania, Messina, and Palermo. The island is divided into seven provinces (see ITALY), and its chief towns are Palermo (pop. in 1897, 283,700), Messina (150,800), and Catania (127,100).
See Franchetti and Sonnino, La Sicilia nel 1876 (1877); German works by Hoffweiler (1870), Th. Fischer (1877), Von Adrian (1878), Von Lasaulx (1879), Gregorovius (7th ed. 1895), Schneegans (1889), and Gsell Fels (1889); Mrs F. Elliott, Diary of an Idle Woman in Sicily (1881); G. Chiesi, La Sicilia Illustrata (1892); René Bazin, Sicile (1892); W. A. Paton, Picturesque Sicily (1898); besides the Annuario Statistico Italiano and the Consular Reports.
History.—The earliest inhabitants of Sicily of whom we know anything were the Sicani, who may have been an aboriginal pre-Aryan people like the Ligurians, Iberians, or the still surviving Basques. Somewhere about the 11th century B.C. the Siculi, most probably an Aryan race, were believed to have crossed the strait from Italy; and we hear of yet another early stock mainly in the north-eastern corner, the Elymoi, whose towns of Segesta and Eryx showed a considerable progress in civilisation. The Phoenicians from an early period began to make settlements—Motya and Panormus—mostly on the north and north-west coasts, for the purposes of commerce; but the real civilisers of Sicily were the colonies of immigrant Greeks, both Dorian and Ionian, who founded a number of flourishing cities on the east and south coasts, such as Naxos (735 B.C.), Syracuse (734), Leontini and Catana (730), Megara Hyblæa (726), Gela (690), Himera (648), Zancle or Messana (date uncertain), Selinus (c. 628), Agrigentum (579). These Greek settlers became known as Sikeliots, in distinction to the native Siculi, with whom, however, they gradually became assimilated. Their cities were long independent, and flourished first under oligarchical constitutions, then under the short-lived rule of a succession of more or less enlightened tyrants like Phalaris and Theron of Agrigentum, and Gelon, who in 485 transferred the seat of his power from Gela to Syracuse, thereafter the first city of the island. The inevitable struggle with Carthage soon began, and its first stage was closed for seventy years by the great victory of Himera (480), won over Hamilcar on the same day as Salamis, by the united power of Gelon and Theron. The long Peloponnesian war and the intrigues of the mother-cities in Greece drew Sicily into the current of Greek history, but the fatal Athenian expedition to Syracuse (415–413) under Nicias (q.v.) ended for ever the Athenian dream of a wider empire in the west. Next followed a Phoenician invasion under Hannibal, grandson of the Hamilcar who perished at Himera. His course of conquest was facilitated by internal jealousies, and he took in turn Selinus, Himera, and Agrigentum, leaving behind him nothing but smoking ruins. Their strong fortress of Lilybæum was founded about 397. But the vigorous reign of Dionysius the Tyrant at Syracuse (405–367) put a check to Carthaginian conquest. He fought Carthage in four wars, and carried his conquests into Southern Italy. After the tyranny of Dionysius and his son followed Dion and Timoleon, next the splendid but fatal reign of Agathocles (317–289). The Sicilian war of Pyrrhus of Epirus (278–276) was but the prelude to the long struggle between Rome and Carthage, the first stage of which was the war for Sicily. First Carthaginian Sicily in 246, then the whole island in 210 passed into a Roman province, on the death of Hieron, for fifty years a steadfast ally of Rome. The chief events in Sicily's Roman history were the two insurrections of slaves (135–132 and 102–99), the infamous pro-prætorship of Verres (73–71), its occupation by Sextus Pompeius (42), the conquest by the Vandal Genserich (440 A.D.), his cession of the island to Theodoric, and its recovery to the eastern empire by Belisarius (535). So it remained till 827, the date of the beginning of the Saracen occupation. Syracuse itself was taken in 877; the last stronghold, Rametta, fell in 965. For nearly a hundred years the Moslem rule was not seriously disturbed, but at length George Maniakes was sent by the eastern empire to win back the island (1038). His army included many Normans, who saw with eager eyes the goodliness of the land. Town after town was taken—Messana, Syracuse, all save Panormus. The recall of Maniakes brought back a return wave of Saracen conquest, but at length, after much hard fighting, the Normans conquered the whole island; Panormus (Palermo) fell in 1071; Syracuse in 1085; Rametta (Noto), the last stronghold to hold out, in 1090. Robert Guiscard, son of Tancred of Hauteville, now took the title of Duke of Apulia and Calabria; his brother Roger, that of Count of Sicily. The Norman dominions were united under his son Roger, the great Count of Sicily, who took the title at Palermo in 1130 of 'King of Sicily and Italy.' He was followed by William the Bad (1154–66) and William the Good (1166–89), on whose death childless the Sicilians chose Tancred, an illegitimate grandson of King Roger. But Tancred died in 1194, whereupon the crown fell to the German Emperor Henry VI., who had married Constance, daughter of King Roger I. Henry forced the Sicilians to acknowledge him as king, and died in 1197, leaving the kingdom to his son Frederick, afterwards the famous Emperor Frederick II. On his death in 1250 the succession fell to his son Conrad, next to his grandson Conradin, under whom Frederick's natural son Manfred governed Sicily. The latter declared himself king at Palermo in 1258 on an unfounded report of Conradin's death. But the popes pursued him with rancorous enmity, and on the nominal and shameless fiction of overlordship offered his crown for money to Richard of Cornwall, brother of Henry III. of England, and next to Henry's younger son Edmund. At length Pope Urban IV., a Frenchman, opened up the most unworthy chapter of Sicilian history by granting it (1264) to Charles, Count of Anjou. Manfred fell fighting heroically against the invader at Grandella near Benevento in 1266, and Anjou entered Naples in triumph. But Peter, king of Aragon, who had married Constance, the daughter of Manfred, laid formal claim to Sicily in her right. The government of the French proved intolerable to the Sicilians, and the massacre of the Sicilian Vespers (q.v.) opened up a long struggle, which ended with the crowning of Peter's son Frederick in 1296, and his being acknowledged at the peace of 1302 king of Trinacria for life. But he soon felt strong enough to resume his proper title of King of Sicily, and at his death in 1337 left the crown to his son Peter.
The Angevin House continued to reign in Naples, although they still maintained their nominal claim to Sicily—hence after the union the name Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. They upheld the Guelphic party; the Aragonese in Sicily, set up against the pope, were Ghibellines. Frederick's successors reigned on in Sicily, but in 1409 Mary, queen of Sicily, married Martin, son of Martin of Aragon, and through this the island was again united to the crown of Aragon. Queen Joanna II. of Naples, successor of Ladislas, was childless by both her marriages, and had first adopted as her successor Alfonso V., king of Aragon and Sicily, then revoked this disposition to adopt Louis III. of Anjou. The two parties went to war and divided all Italy: the Duke of Milan and Sforza on the Angevin side, the pope and the Florentines on Alfonso's. On the death of Louis the queen adopted his brother René of Anjou in his place. She died in 1435, and seven years later Alfonso succeeded in taking Naples, and died in 1458 king of Aragon, Naples, and Sicily. He left Aragon and Sicily, which he had inherited, to his legitimate son John II.; Naples, which he had won, to his bastard son Ferdinand I., whose cruelty made the chief citizens invite John of Calabria, son of René, to contest the crown. He was unsuccessful, but Charles VIII. of France revived the claim as the representative of the Angevin House, entered Italy in 1494, and made his progress in triumph to Naples, whence King Alfonso II. fled. Next year Alfonso's son Ferdinand II. returned to Naples to win back his kingdom. He died in 1496, and was succeeded by his uncle Frederick, who was betrayed by his kinsman Ferdinand of Aragon making an alliance with Louis XII. of France, and compelled to retire, giving up his rights to the French king. Next year (1502) the French and Spaniards quarrelled over their ill-gotten spoil, and the war was ended by the Spaniards utterly defeating the French at Mola near Gaeta in 1504.
Ferdinand the Catholic had thus again united Naples and Sicily to the Spanish monarchy. Both himself and his successor, the Emperor Charles V., had promised not to exact any new taxes from the kingdom of Naples without consent of nobles and people; but the viceroy of Philip IV. laid on grievous burdens, which at last led to insurrections both in Naples and Palermo, crushed mercilessly by Don John, bastard son of Philip IV. In 1700 Charles II. of Spain died childless, whereupon Louis XIV. claimed the throne for his grandson Philip, Duke of Anjou, and the Archduke Charles of Austria for himself. The long war of the Spanish succession was closed by the peace of Utrecht (1713), which gave to Charles, now the Emperor Charles VI., Milan, Naples, and Sardinia, while the Duke of Savoy received Sicily with the title of king. Philip again plunged into Italian intrigues, and captured Sardinia by a treacherous attack. But the Quadruple Alliance (England, France, the United Provinces, and Charles of Austria) enforced the treaty. Victor Amadeus of Savoy had been on the side of Spain in hopes of gaining Lombardy, and the Powers compelled him in 1720 to give up his new kingdom of Sicily to Charles VI. in exchange for Sardinia. Don Carlos, son of the queen of Spain, after a series of intrigues, made an attack on Sicily, and at length in a readjustment of the map of Italy at the treaty of Vienna (1738) was acknowledged king of the Two Sicilies. As Charles III. was called to be king of Spain in 1759 he left Naples and Sicily to his younger son, Ferdinand IV., whose queen, Caroline, a sister of Marie Antoinette, naturally hated the
French Revolution, and joined the English alliance. Bonaparte took Naples in 1798. King Ferdinand was turned out, allowed to return, but again turned out in 1806, when Bonaparte made his brother Joseph king. When Joseph was made king of Spain in 1808, Joachim Murat succeeded to his crown, Ferdinand being allowed to remain king of Sicily. By the treaty of Paris Italy was restored to her old masters. Victor Emmanuel received Sardinia with Genoa; the kingdom of Naples was restored to King Ferdinand IV. of Sicily, and he formally took the title of Ferdinand I. as king of the Two Sicilies. Ferdinand II. (1830–59) ruled Naples and Sicily with dreadful tyranny, bombarded Messina and Palermo, and flung the best citizens to rot in loathsome dungeons. Francis II. succeeded him; he had been brought up by the Jesuits, and under his rule the country ripened fast for revolution. At length Garibaldi sailed from Genoa with his thousand heroes, landed at Marsala, 11th May 1860, took Palermo, and at Melazzo defeated the king, who in abject terror promised all manner of reforms to Cavour and Victor Emmanuel. They did nothing but wait the issue, while Garibaldi crossed to Spartivento, drove back the king's troops, defeated them at Volturino, and entered Naples in triumph on the 7th September. The people of Sicily and Naples joined themselves by a popular vote of more than a hundred to one to the Sardinian kingdom.
The palmiest age of letters in Sicily was the reign of the first Hiero (478–467), besung by Pindar; the next, that of the elder Dionysius, himself a poet and the friend of Plato. The lyric, the comedy, and the mine were practised by Stesichorus of Himera, Epicharmus, and Sophron of Syracuse; Empedocles of Agrigentum was a famous philosopher, Archimedes of Syracuse the most celebrated of ancient mathematicians; but the rarest flower that grew out of Sicilian soil was the bucolic poem which once for all attained perfection in the idylls of Theocritus and Moschus of Syracuse, and in Bion, who, though a native of Smyrna, was a Syracusan in all his sympathies and in his grave.
The modern Sicilian dialect is of course closely allied to the Neapolitan, but offers grave difficulties both in vocabulary and grammar to the student acquainted only with Tuscan. It has furnished a rich literary material to the popular imagination for six hundred years down to our own day, and yielded a harvest of genuinely popular poetry not equalled elsewhere in the world. But not in their number alone are the Sicilian folk-songs pre-eminent, but in their intrinsic poetic excellence. The love-songs especially are tender, passionate, and sincere, and many have a penetrating pathos that haunts the memory of a reader. They have been collected by S. Salomone-Marino, Dr Pitrè (q.v.), and L. Vigo, whose Raccolta ampliss. di canti popolari Sicil. (1870–74) alone contains 6000 songs, with besides a good bibliography of books in the Sicilian dialect. Dr Pitrè's great Biblioteca della Tradizioni pop. Siciliane (19 vols. 1870–90) is a vast encyclopædia of folk-songs and ballads, folk-tales, legends, proverbs, customs, games, jests, riddles, &c., with grammatical introductions and glossaries. Two other works that must be named are Laura Gonzenbach's Stilianische Märchen (2 vols. Leip. 1877), and S. Salomone-Marino, Storie popolari in Poesia Siciliana (Bolog. 1877). For the Sicilian dialect, see the works by Wentrup (Halle, 1880) and C. Avolio (Moto, 1882); the Sicilian-Italian Dictionaries of G. Biundi (Pal. 1857) and V. Mortillario (new ed. Pal. 1879).
There are histories of Sicily in antiquity by Holm (2 vols. Leip. 1870–74) and W. Watkiss Lloyd (1872); the Moslem period, by Amari (3 vols. Florence, 1853–73); the Norman period, by Bazancourt (2 vols. Paris, 1846) and Graf v. Schack (2 vols. Stuttg. 1889); the Bourbon period, by Amari (Paris, 1849); the Piedmontese period, by Querner (Bern, 1879). See also the works on the history of Naples by Giannone and his continuator, Colletta; Seibert, Reuchlin, Orloff, Rüstow, Romano-Manebrini, La Lumia, E. A. Freeman's unfinished History of Sicily (vols. i.–iv. 1891–94), and his short history ('Story of the Nations' series, 1892).