Catania, or the quiet splendour of unrushed enchantment

Fontana di Proserpina

Catania is not love at first sight. It takes, in fact, several looks, or better say gazes, for her to strike your heart with the first spark of enchantment. I say enchantment, because Catania is not a city of moderate feelings. She is not a city that you can simply like. At least, I can’t.

The entrance to Catania is a messy Mediterranean cocktail, memories of African warmth, highways and railways that help assure you are not in the above-Rome Italian regions. One travelling to Catania with the well-established mental image of Italy as “il bel paese” may need some time (and yards into the inner city) for this image to materialise itself. With the shining Ionian on the left and the fearful Etna on the right, the city promises amazement, which is not to be seen as of yet.

Further in, a huge monument of Persephone’s abduction by Hades, surrounded by mesmerising fountains, introduces one to the first clue on Catania being a toast between earth and sea. Everything else was a later addition. In Greek mythology, Persephone, daughter of Demeter, Greek goddess of plants and harvests – symbolising the earth – is abducted by Hades, the god of death and the underworld. The monument is surrounded by Poseidon’s aquatic presence. This memorial of a myth narrating how the earth’s heritage is forcefully taken away by death is, surprisingly, the best welcoming to a city overflowing with Catholicism at every turn. The city will soon reveal itself for the great hopeful mass she is, able to produce anything, in abundance and beauty. All this under the beat of an untamed volcanic heart… all burdened by a bleak shadow of downfall.

Let’s go through the elements one by one, shall we? Earth is Catania’s seal ring. It looks like anything could grow here, in quantities and qualities like nowhere else. I have never seen 10-13-feet-high cacti like they grow here – and to me cacti are joy! Of all the things growing in this city, I cannot think of a better plant as a symbol of Catania than these giant cacti, these plants that stay wild whether one grows them in greenhouses or farms – as they do here for the harvesting of prickly pears, this peculiar fruit. The taste and smell of the fruit reminds once again reminds one of the earth-sea toast.

One can feel the earth in Catanian cuisine too. The dish they swear by – the pasta alla Norma – is an ultra-high-calorie bomb complete with dough, aubergines, tomatoes and herbs. Arancini – a rice mass filled with all kinds of products like meat, mozzarella and spices – is one strange thing that, the same as with Catania, one either loves or doesn’t. Upon giving it a due second chance, I decided I did not love it. It was not so easy with Catania herself.

The true call of the earth in Catania is found some miles to her west. Etna has never quieted down or retreat to oblivion for the city. Her majesty – as Catanians playfully call their patroness – makes her presence known time and again, whenever she deems it right to explode into the surface some of Catania’s hidden heart. Etna is a strong presence, but not an evil one. She is not the Vesuvius – unlike him, her presence has never meant the destruction of the city. On the contrary, she has turned it in a fertile vineyard of aromas not to be found elsewhere in Italy. Respect for her is, nevertheless, mandatory – and Catania never denies her it.

The sea surrounds Catania, this particle of a larger island, approaching her in its two faces – relaxing and calming sand on the one hand, and adventurous and exotic rocky shores on the other – that complement the city in all her traits. I cannot think of many other cities where you can swim in the sea while a volcano dominates the background – the best possible view one could possibly think of for resting by the seaside. This again reminds one of the symbolism of the monument at the city entrance: the maid Persephone abducted, imprisoned at the heart of the earth, time and again explodes into the surface, forever surrounded by water.

The heavy shadow of ruin is seen all over what is probably the pearl of Catania – the hand of man, Catania’s architecture. Baroque villas and other buildings seem to echo a time long forgotten, but not as old as shown by a city that has left herself go. The centre of Catania is an oasis for those of us who abide by what Cogsworth from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast says: “If it’s not baroque, don’t fix it.” In its square, relatively modest, stone-dominated, staunch shapes, which are rather pure of fanfare decorations, baroque is the best packaging to such an earth-sea city. At dusk, the lights chosen for the surrounding buildings give the main square a glow that does not embarrass the lights and shadows ratio that suit baroque so well. If one happens to be in the city in a summer evening with a soft breeze, chances are the harmonious beauty of the elements will checkmate them as a few teardrops of longing for beauty betray them, if untamed beauty is one’s soft spot.

All this beauty, wrapped in small treasures of various eras and characters dispersed through the city, suffers from a lack of maintenance that surprises, revolts and saddens one, a senseless incompleteness added to it all. Vilas from once upon a time are endangered by ugliness in their facades no one knows when they were last painted or plastered. Characteristic allays smell, not only of garlic-spiced dishes. Somewhere else, a villa is restores in either an exaggerated or ill-fitting manner, or maybe it looks like this due to being out of tune in the midst of a multitude of similar badly-maintained buildings. At the city centre, the main cathedral lacks a ceiling fresco, making incomplete an otherwise grandiose structure. The urban Catanian panorama is seen from the dome of another cathedral – it is all grey and brown, like earth itself. One cannot help themselves from loving this view in one’s heart. One cannot explain to one’s mind though what there is to like in the view. Maybe “like” is too moderate a word for Catania.

Desolation does however make people think, maybe even more than splendour, especially when one sees it is the chosen dress code of a city that should be lacking nothing. Earth, sea, air and fire, all elements found in abundance in Catania, should have dressed her in prosperity. She, nevertheless, indulges in suffering. Her villas seem to both rejoice and suffer in the past, all the while postponing the present for later. Catania’s cathedrals and monuments are only one step away from completeness, as if she did not dare go there. Maybe she fears fullness, as she is already familiar to the intermediate and the partial – those she can handle. Fullness would place her into unknown territory, into unexplored vulnerability. What if her best efforts were not enough? What if she was met with ridicule or, even worse, indifference? Maybe no one would notice anything anyway.

Thus, Persephone is satisfied with occasional explosions from her state of incomplete being, never daring to become fully free. Desolation, misery and captivity, know how to make themselves irreplaceable once you wander in them long enough. Catania’s economy and well-being might not miraculously improve with a little splendour and restoration, but this is bound to happen with even the smallest strife for beauty. It has been about time long ago for Catania to make a few changes towards beauty. After all, a little beauty for the sake of beauty never hurt anyone. Fullness may soon follow.

One leaves Catania to be forever amazed… or abandoning her forever. Abandonment, being the lazy emotion it is, may be the easiest choice. In the case of a city presenting herself the way Catania does, one can easily understand why many people would fail to be amazed by her earth, sea and Etna. A minority though will feel amazed and will desire to return again and again, with the (semi-realistic) hope that, after who knows how many views, their amazement will meet a brave beauty and fullness. After all, love at first sight can excite, but observant love can amaze, little by little, for the long run. I choose to leave Catania amazed.