Searching for the Sublime in a City That Refuses To Die

Sicily’s Cyclopean cities: Messina

Art by Caravaggio in Messina. Photo by author.

“The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.” — Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

I couldn’t find the Caravaggios

I didn’t plan to come to Messina. Although it’s the third largest city in Sicily, after the two astonishing beauties of Palermo and Catania, Messina is often best known for the ferry terminal that connects Sicily to mainland Italy. A place to pass through, not to visit for its own sake.

It’s ancient, in the way of Sicilian cities. But it doesn’t necessarily look like it. Almost destroyed by an earthquake in 1908, its reconstructed buildings endured 2800 air raids and naval bombardments in World War II, so now a city with almost three thousand years of history has a modern layout and a relative lack of historic charm.

Then I heard about the Caravaggios.

The dark genius of the Counter-Reformation came to Sicily after escaping prison in Malta, with the Knights of St John in…