Sicily Region - Sicily for Tourists - Arts and tradition itinerary

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Arts and traditions itinerary



Palermo marionette Museum

Ethnographic Museum (Modica)

Palazzolo Acreide Museum

Buscemi Museum

The Salt Road

Source of the river Ciane (SR)

Favignana Tuna fishery (TP)

Scopello Tuna fishery (TP)

Portopalo Tuna fishery (SR)

Castles Literary parks Traditions

Palermo Marionette Museum

The Opera dei pupi ("Puppet Opera") in Sicily has two matrices: that of the oral tale that story-tellers would recite every day in public squares and that of gestures, dancing, and swordplay, an ancient representation of the struggle between good and evil, something that in peasant culture was related to fertility rites. We must be grateful to the initiative of Antonio Pasqualino, a veritable archaeologist of the fanciful world of puppets, for the creation of an extraordinary museum that contains a splendidly rich collection of marionettes, figures from the Oriental shadow theatre, and scenarios and panels from all over the world. Located in the Kalsa, the old Arab quarter, the eight hundred square metres of the Museum present on two floors over 3,500 examples of puppets and marionettes operated by strings and rods, as well as glove puppets. The building also contains a library with some 3,000 volumes on puppets and popular traditions, and a video library with recordings of performances from a wide variety of countries; there are also live shows workshops, and visiting exhibitions. The first rooms are devoted to Sicilian puppets in the Palermo and Catania tradition; particularly to be admired are the delicately-featured faces in the theatre of Gaspare Canino (19th cent.). The second section is dedicated to European tradition (such as the British Punch and Judy) and to non-European tradition, with a vast selection of Oriental items: Chinese puppets and Indian, Burmese, Vietnamese, Thai, and African marionettes, presented in a picturesque penumbra that evokes distant exotic atmospheres. This is a round-the-world tour in the company of marionettes and the tales they tell.