Saturday, April 28, 2012

Quote of the Day (Goethe, on Sicily)


Caltanissetta, 28 April [1787]. At last we can say we have seen with our own eyes the reason why Sicily earned the title of ‘The Granary of Italy.’ Soon after Girgenti, the fertility began. There are no great level areas, but the gently rolling uplands were completely covered with wheat and barley in one great unbroken mass. Wherever the soil is suitable to their growth, it is so well tended and exploited that not a tree is to be seen. Even the small hamlets and other dwellings are confined to the ridges, where the limestone rocks make the ground untillable. The women live in these hamlets all the year round, spinning and weaving, but during the season of field labour, the men spend only Saturdays and Sundays with them; the rest of the week they spend in the valleys and sleep at night in reed huts."—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Italian Journey, in Selected Works (Everyman’s Library, 1999)

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