Layers of Sicily

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Independent Global Study: Layers of Sicily

Throughout my life, Sicily has always held a unique fascination for me. It is not just as a place of extraordinary historical significance, but the homeland of my ancestors and birthplace of my mother. As I approach my final semester at Northeastern, I find myself drawn to connect academic experiences with personal meaning. This website is the culmination of that journey, a journal where immersive travel, independent research, and personal reflection comes together. It represents my effort to explore Sicily’s layered cultural history while deepening my understanding of my own identity and heritage.

What began as an academic project has evolved into something much more meaningful. It served as a way to follow my passion of history and trace the imprints of Greek, Roman, Arab, and Norman civilizations across the island, while also walking in the footsteps of my own family. Through site visits, architectural analysis, and cultural observation, I aimed to examine and share how Sicily's past continues to shape its present. Outlined below is the project overview, a brief outline of how I have engaged with Sicily not only as a student and researcher, but as a descendant returning to the landscapes, stories, and structures that shaped generations before me.

Project Overview

This project explores the cultural and historical layering of Sicily through visits to significant sites shaped by Greek, Roman, Arab, and Norman civilizations. Sicily’s unique geographic and political position at the heart of the Mediterranean has long made it a crossroads of culture, conquest, and exchange. Through travel and study guided by Professor Robert Cross, I investigated the ways in which Sicily’s rich and layered past continues to shape its present cultural identity.

I focused on the remnants of history embedded in religious, military, and political architecture across the island. These physical markers of the past revealed how conquest, migration, and cultural blending transformed Sicilian society over time. Through site visits to temples, cathedrals, castles, and historic urban centers, I traced how different civilizations contributed to the region’s identity and how this heritage is preserved in different parts of the island. This project took the form of a comparative case study, exploring how certain historical legacies are more visible or celebrated depending on location. I examined how cultural memory is constructed through preservation, tourism, and urban design, and asked whether some narratives have been prioritized over others, and what that reveals about Sicilian identity today.

As I traveled across the island, I kept several guiding questions and hypotheses in mind. Listed below, these questions helped structure my observations and engage with the sites I visited.

• In what ways do regional differences within Sicily, such as those between east and west or urban and rural areas, manifest in the expression of cultural identity? How are historical narratives preserved, emphasized, or overlooked in various regions?

• How has Sicily’s layered history of conquest and cultural exchange manifested in its architectural monuments? Were these stylistic integrations deliberate acts of cultural fusion or pragmatic adaptations over time?

• How do the imprints left by different cultural groups coexist, or clash, in Sicily’s modern landscape?

• To what extent can Sicilian Baroque architecture be understood as a synthesis of the island’s earlier Greek, Roman, Norman, and Arab influences?