entry Aug
2015, revised Dec 2017 and Aug. 2021
The Islands of Sicily
—or the Island of the
Sirens? & The
King of Lampedusa
(WW II 'capture of the island)
The only
official Island of the Sirens that I know of is
a 1943 20th Century Fox musical by that name —but only
in Italian. The original English is Coney Island,
starring Betty Grable and probably some other people. I
mention this because as I was looking for ways to spend
my enormous wealth, I came across an article on a new
wet wrinkle for the “discerning” (super-rich)—namely,
portable islands:
Want to own your own island but can't find one in your desired location? The world's first portable islands will let the super-rich create eco-friendly getaways anywhere on Earth. Each island home will adhere to the customer's every need - with the renderings including options such as swimming pools, boat docks and greenery.
I was undecided —towing fees would be enormous. "Middle of the Pacific Ocean, please, and step on it." What else have they got? Ah...
If you're more interested in a traditional private island, then take a look at these stunning and remote properties.
There
were some in the Caribbean, Maine, and, lo and behold,
Italy; those were listed, strangely, as the Island of
Sirens, Italy.
Even in Naples, when we say
“Sirens” we think of “Siren
Alley” (as it is known to the less discerning of
us), the length of coastline that makes up the eastern
side of the Sorrentine peninsula, that stretch known as
the Amalfi coast. They have Li Galli islands,
for example, but nothing called Island of the Sirens. I
think the only place that calls itself the Anything of
the Siren(s) besides all the restaurants (even some in
the Alps) —the only piece of land that could remotely be
compared to an island— appears to be Lo Scoglio
delle Sirene [The Rock of the Sirens] just off the
island of Vulcano in the Aeolian archipelago north of
Sicily. Nice rock, but no swimming pool, boat dock or
greenery. It's in this photo somewhere, a shot of the
rest of the Aeolians taken from Vulcano.
The Italian
constitution specifies that “Sicily, with the
Aeolian islands, the Aegadian islands, the Pelagie
Islands, Ustica and Pantelleria, constitutes an
autonomous region.” (Sicily, of course, is the Big
Island, but for the rest of this discussion, I am not
counting it as an island. It's the mainland. This is
about the islands around Sicily.) The above-mentioned
islands and archipelagoes are part of the Italian region
of Sicily. There are big and small islands, all in all
over 100. None of the small ones are inhabited; 18 of
the larger ones are. Taken together, the islands around
Sicily make up a bit more than 1% of the total land area
of the region of Sicily. That is, about 285 km² out of
26,000 km² for all of the region of Sicily. About 33,00
persons live on the islands around the Big Island of
Sicily.
The main groups of islands or archipelagoes
around Sicily (see map at top) are the Aeolians, the
Aegadies, and the Pelagie islands; smaller groups are
the islands of the Stagnone and the Cyclopean Isles, to
the west and east, respectively, of the main body of
Sicily. Individual islands are Ustica to the north in
the Tyrrhenian sea and Pantelleria in the Sicily channel
to the south. From a geologic and historical point of
view, even the Maltese islands (south of Sicily, shaded
light-grey on the map) that now make up the Republic of
Malta, are part of the so-called "Sicilian archipelago".
On the other hand, the Pelagie islands, particularly
Lampedusa and Lampione, are really a peripheral part of
Italy, politically; geologically and geographically,
they are part of the continent of Africa, meaning that
they rest on the African tectonic plate.
Specifically:
the Aeolians (named for the Greek god
of the wind) - Group of seven main islands: Lipari (the
largest; thus, the Aeolians may also be called the
Lipari islands), Vulcano, Salina, Stromboli, Filicudi,
Alicudi and Panarea. Strombol (pictured) and Vulcano are
both active volcanoes and erupt frequently.
Scientifically, the archipelago is part of a "volcanic arc" that
includes the nearby island of Ustica (mentioned below)
and a series of submerged volcanoes to the north named
Magnani, Vavilov, Marsili and Palinuro, as well as two
that are unnamed. The Aeolian islands are on the UNESCO
World Heritage List because of their scientific
importance (from the UNESCO description):
The Aeolian Islands provide an outstanding record of volcanic island-building and destruction, and ongoing volcanic phenomena. Studied since at least the 18th century, the islands have provided the science of vulcanology with examples of two types of eruption (Vulcanian and Strombolian) and thus have featured prominently in the education of geologists for more than 200 years. The site continues to enrich the field of vulcanology.
The
Aeolians together have a total stable population of about
14,000 persons, but, as an increasingly popular summer
vacation destination, are swarmed with at least 200,000
visitors during that period.
the Aegadies - are
the three islands of Favignana, Marettimo, Levanzo and a
few smaller rocks in the sea, 7 km off the western coast
of Sicily between Trapani and Marsala. It is interesting
anthropologically as there are traces of early human
habitation from the Stone Age. Historically, the islands
were in the hands of the Phoenicians and were the site
of the last naval battle of the First Punic War in
which the Romans defeated the Carthaginian fleet and
definitively annexed all of Sicily. The stable
population of the three islands is a few hundred
persons, but the summer tourist trade adds to that
number considerable. The islands are the site the
Protected Marine Reserve of the Aegadies Island,
instituted in 1991 and the largest of its kind in
Europe.
this section revised Dec
2017
the Pelagies - The Pelagie Islands are the
three small islands of Lampedusa, Linosa, and Lampione,
located in the Mediterranean Sea between Malta and
Tunisia, south of Sicily. To the northwest lies the island
of Pantelleria (information
below) and the
Strait of Sicily. Lampedusa (image,
right, shows the northeastern cliffs of the island) has a stable resident population
of about 8,000 and is the largest and
best-known of the Pelagies. It houses the much used and
sorely overused Immigration Reception Center (IRC)*.
It works small miracles handling refugee "boat people"
desperate enough to try the notoriously
perilous, often deadly, flight from Libya. The
neighboring "island" just to the west, Lampione, is really
an uninhabited rock with a lighthouse. Lampedusa is
also the site of a marine protected area,
instituted in 2002, concerned with preserving the
Loggerhead Sea Turtle. To the
northeast of Lampedusa, about 40 km away is the island of
Linosa (image below, lef).
Officially, the
name of the town (comune) is Lampedusa &
Linosa. It is the southernmost administrative unit in
Italy, in the province of Agrigento, in the region of
Sicily. Linosa is beyond the aspirations of immigrants and
still has a stable resident population of about 500. It is
recently being touted as not a bad place to settle down if
you don't mind that little lump in the landscape,
imaginatively named —wait for it!—Monte
Vulcano. The island has
a stable population of about 450, got its first
phone in 1968 and now has a water desalinization plant. If
you are a quiz show contestant, you'll want to know that
Linosa is just to the north of the sea-bottom Linosa Trough, a manifestation
of tectonic goings-on much deeper down. Thus, Lampedusa
and Linosa may be parts of the same town,
but they are on two different continents.
*I
note here the death, in August 2021, of one of the
IRC's benefactors, Dr. Gino Strada. See
this link for notes on his work.
|
The Jewish
"King of Lampedusa"
The longest-running Yiddish play featured
the incredible true story of a British Jewish hero of WWII
One of the most popular Yiddish plays of all times was The King of Lampedusa, a musical based on the incredible true story of Sydney Cohen (1919-1943), a Jewish soldier during World War II. Cohen’s real-life adventures were so astonishing they almost seemed like one of the Yiddish plays, full of twists and turns and improbable coincidences, that entertained Jewish audiences who flocked to Yiddish-speaking theaters. |
Sydney Cohen grew up,
like so many British Jews in the 1920s and
1930s, in impoverished circumstances in
Britain’s East End.
His parents died when he was just a child and
he lived with his sister Lily, scraping a
living by working as a tailor’s
apprentice. When World War II broke out,
Sydney joined the Royal Air Force, eventually
becoming a Flight-Sergeant, flying a Swordfish Torpedo Bomber on
sorties against Nazi
Germany. 
On one flight on June 10,
1943, Sgt. Cohen was flying back to his base
on Malta when his navigation system went
haywire. “The plane
had a fit of gremlins so we had to make for
the nearest land,” Sgt. Cohen later explained.
The three-man crew turned
towards a tiny island in the Mediterranean:
the hostile Italian island of Lampedusa
(image). At defended by
4,300 Italian Axis troops. (The top image on
this page shows the precise location.)
“As we came down on a ropey
landing ground we saw a burnt hangar and
burnt aircraft around us,” Sgt. Cohen
recalled. The crew made a bumpy landing,
then exited their bomber with their hands
raised, ready to surrender to the Italian
troops. Instead the Italians were in no mood
to fight. “A crowd of Italians came out to
meet us and we put our hands up to surrender
but then we saw they were all waving white
sheets shouting, ‘No, no. We surrender!’
The whole island was surrendering to us,”
Sgt. Cohen recalled. Sgt.
Cohen asked to see the commandant of the
island but before he could be escorted an
air raid began and the surrendering
Italian troops ran for cover. The island
had been the subject of sustained Allied
air raids and the Italian troops had had
enough. “I concluded that the nerves of my
hosts were a bit jagged,” Sgt. Cohen dryly
recounted later. Eventually, the Italians
signed a formal note of surrender and
allowed Sgt. Cohen to refuel. He took off
and flew to nearby Tunis, bringing news of
Lampedusa’s fall to British forces with
him
Lampedusa’s
capitulation to the British came at a key
moment. In the summer of 1943 Britain was
braced for invasion and was being mercilessly
bombed by German airplanes. It seemed that
Germany might win the war. Yet the mass
surrender of Lampedusa gave Britain and its
allies a glimmer of hope. Strategically,
Lampedusa was the first of what would be a
series of capitulations
of Axis troops to Allied forces.
Psychologically, the capture of Lampedusa was
a much-needed shot in the arm for Britons who feared they were
losing the war. 
It's
striking how much staying power Der
kenig fun lampeduse has had.
The University of
Southampton's Parkes Institute for the
Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations
performed it once in June 2019 as a radio play and lecture-recital (they
promise more performances!) That takes a
lot of work: find the original text
(finally located
in New York City!); find the original
musical scores and orchestrate them (copy
the parts for different instruments (behind the cast in
this image); hire some professional
musicians; and hire a cast (who with
proper voice coaching should be able to
make it all sound
Yiddish.) The idea of rediscovering ‘The
King of Lampedusa’, of bringing to life
the legacy of this play through acting and music was
primarily the work of Katie Power and
Abaigh McKee, PhD candidates at the Parkes
Institute. The
project was the culmination of five years
of research.
the Cyclopean
Isles - another microarchipelago,
these isles (pictured) are located in the shadow of
Mt. Etna in the east. The Cyclopean isles are
thought to have been at one time joined to the
mainland. The isles consist of Lachea, the large faraglione
(rock), the small faraglione,
and four other prominent rocks arrayed in the form of
an arc. The name reveals the role they play in Homer's
Odyssey. Indeed, these isles were the abode of
the one-eyed monsters called the Cyclopes. The rocks
in the water are said to be the missiles hurled by the
blinded cyclops Polifemus at the fleeing Ulysses:
Ustica - The single island of Ustica is 67 km/41 miles NW of the city of Palermo on Sicily. It is about 3.5 km long and 2.5 km wide and has a stable population of about 1300. It is not part of the relatively nearby Aeolian group. It is isolated and surrounded by relatively deep water, which makes is attractive for scuba diving, the main tourist draw. It shows evidence of stone-age inhabitants and may have been settled permanently from the Aeolians. It has been more or less constantly inhabited in historic times: Phonecians, Greeks, Carthaginians and Romans; as well, there was a Benedictine monastery built on the island in the 6th century AD. It was the site of battles between Christian and Muslims and the victim of numerous Saracen raids. It was fortified by the Kingdom of Naples in 1759 and in more recent times served as an island of exile for political prisoners under Mussolini in the 1920s and '30s. In spite of the scarcity of water, there is an ongoing attempt to develop tourism.Ripping off the peak of a towering crag, he heaved it
so hard the boulder landed just in front of our dark prow
and a huge swell reared up as the rock went plunging under--
a tidal wave from the open sea. The sudden backwash
drove us landward again, forcing us close inshore...
--Homer, The Odyssey, book IX lines 538-542 (trans. Robert Fagles)
Pantelleria
- [2016,
established as a National Park] is a single island in the Strait of Sicily,
100 km/62 mi southwest of Sicily and 60 km (37 mi)
east of the Tunisian coast, which can seen in the
distance. The island is part of the Sicilian province
of Trapani. It has an area of 83 km2 (32 mi2)
and is the largest volcanic satellite island of
Sicily. The island is the summit of a
largely underwater volcanic complex that
last erupted in 1891 below sea level. The stable
resident population is about 7700. The island is of
enormous anthropological interest because of the
presence of unearthed dwellings and artifacts dated at
35,000 years old. As well, there are ancient tombs
similar to the Nuraghe of
Sicily. In historic times, the island was in hands of
the Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs and then Norman Italy.
Pantelleria was also crucial in WWII to the Allied
invasion of Italy in 1943 since planes could be based within
striking distance of Sicily. Pantelleria has an
airport and is a popular tourist destination,
holding as it does a large nature preserve, a
natural lake (pictured), hot springs, and many
items of archaeological and geological interest.
Additionally, the island inhabitants maintain a
unique method of vineyard cultivation that has
found a place on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural
Heritage list. Details
here.
As far as I know, none of the inhabited islands are up for sale. That wouldn't make sense, anyway, since there are already private property owners on them and they might be standing by to repel boarders. What you want is a small uninhabited island that is owned by the state or, most likely, the region. That is, semi-autonomous regions in Italy such as Sicily and Sardinia have some liberty in what they can sell off, and with the wave of privatization currently going full blast in Italy, you might be able to pick up a few acres to plant your palms and boat harbor. I hear that in Sardinia, Santo Stefano island is for sale, but so far nothing is going in Sicily, again as far as I know. Me, I'm holding out for Coney Island.
image
credits: top - "Isola di Sicilia": Hanhil based on
NordNordWest derivative work: Yiyi -license CC
BY-SA 3.0 at Wikimedia Commons;
- Aeolian photo, mmarkos90
wikipedia; Lampedua, J. Sciberra; Cyclopean Isles,
gnuckx; Pantelleria, Francesca Fabbrica.
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