Ancient Sicily in the Eyes of Polish Travellers
Ostrowski, Janusz A.
Studies in Ancient Art and Civilization, vol. 12, Kraków (2008)
Abstract
The Poles who from the 16th century travelled to Italy more frequently mostly visited its northern cities: Venice, Padua, Bologne, Florence etc., and obviously Rome. They rarely ventured to Naples and only some reached Sicily. In many cases, since 1530, when members of the Knights of st. John settled in Malta (the Knights of Rhodes, since then of Malta) trips to both islands were combined. This journey was most commonly made by ship, sailing from Naples to Messina or Palermo, since a land route through wild Calabria was extremely strenuous. As far as many descriptions of northern and middle italian cities exist in old Polish literature, mentions of trinakria – “triangle” – what the ancient poetic name of the island was, are very rare. We only know who had reached Sicily, but how long he had stayed there or what he had seen remains an unknown matter.
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