Photo: Hallie Cohen
Pasolini’s Il vangelo secondo Matteo used the smoke emanating from the famous caves of Scicli to
evoke Dante’s purgatory. The caves were used as tombs by the original Sicilian
inhabitants. It was only with waves of Arab and Byzantine invasion that the remains
of the dead (who were buried in fetal positions in mother earth) were removed so that the caves
could be turned into dwellings. In 1693 the town was struck by an earthquake
and the well-to-do inhabitants, who had employed the caves for storage moved
their nearby dwellings to a lower elevation where the Bourbons
replaced the devastation of the earthquake with the ornate Sicilian Baroque
which characterizes both the churches and palazzos which still exist today. The
impoverished lower classes occupied the caves until l959 when the Chiafura, as
they are called, became a source of shame to the post war
government—interested in eradicating the association between Sicilians or
Italians in general with cavemen. Today they have become a designated archeological
site that is near becoming a source of pride and prices for the former caves,
which are undergoing some degree of gentrification, are climbing with a growing
market of vacationers who use them as
summer homes. Whether some Milanese developer turns the Chiafura into condominiums
with time shares remains to be seen.
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Thursday, May 31, 2012
Sicily Journal IV: Scicli's Chiafura
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