La bella Sicilia

The British Museum has an exhibition on right now devoted to Sicily.  The website has the peculiar advertisement: "The largest island in the Mediterranean.  The home of Mount Etna." Two items of absolutely or very little relevance to what finally they get around to mentioning in the third sentence, to wit: "A cultural centre of the ancient and medieval world." And what a centre, as the Brits spell it, that island is!  Of course, the museum will show pieces that relate to the Arab presence on the island, the Norman invasion, and before all that the Greeks who immigrated in the sixth century BCE and the Romans who followed in their traces several centuries later.  The most significant piece in the show to my mind is the so-called Motya Charioteer, found in 1979 on a small island right off the coast where it is normally exhibited, and thus in such an out of the way location generally ignored.  It is a larger than life size marble sculpture of a young man sculpted in a languid pose, hip thrust out slightly, all odd enough, but the truly peculiar feature is the chiton covering his body, in the so called "wet drapery" mode so that the sheer fabric clings to the body, highlighting his testicles, his buttocks in a way that an ancient nude sculpture never does (butch ancient male statuary is always in the nude).  It is astounding as will be immediately apparent to the museum visitors who may compare it with the Elgin Marbles, carved about twenty five or so years later, which are so much more severe, conventionally masculine, restrained.  Alas, that is the only truly exciting piece that can be on offer since otherwise the great remnants of Sicilian cultural history are firmly in place, situated in the ground.  One thinks of the extraordinary procession of archaic Doric temples on the high hill in Agrigento, or the Norman Cathedral in Monreale the interior of which is aflame with wall mosaics, or the Norman rebuilding of an Arab castle in down town Palermo with its Palatine Chapel, again a scene of vibrant mosaics. Or--I can't control myself!--the Roman villa uncovered in Piazza Armerina whose splendid mosaics, room after room, vie in my memory with the extraordinary imperial communal toilet with, I can't remember now, four or five holes.  So gregarious at all times the imperial family!  These are only a few of the architectural treasures that dot the landscape.  I urge everyone to visit the island, and yes, you can walk right up to Aetna, but a decade ago I remember six tourists destroyed in a sudden eruption, minor to be sure, not headline making, but if you are at the rim, a little more serious.  Go in April for the green of the fields, for the red poppies making their splash, for the lonely splendor of the temple at Segesta out in the open away from any other visual distraction.  But go easy on the ancient theaters.  They are everywhere, and, frankly, take it from someone who has led tours on the island, you've seen one of them, you've seen them all.