C a t a n i a C u l t u r a . c o m
Articles in English.
THE STONES OF THE GIANTS: THE ASTRONOMICAL GUIDELINES OF THE MEGALITHS OF MONTALBANO ELICONA (ITALY)The mysterious rock formations that show themselves in all their impressiveness near the town of Montalbano Elicona (Messina, Italy), have been interpreted by some as a mere work of nature, by others as the work of neolithic men in Sicily in ancient times. So the charming shapes of the Virgin in prayer, of the male face and of the Aquila are considered whether as a bizarre freak of nature, or as the work of a mysterious civilization that left similar examples not only in Italy but worldwide. Curiously, however, the most striking megaliths of this "Italian Stonehenge," as defined by someone, have clear guidelines to the equinoxes and the solstices ...
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FREDERIK II OF SWEVIA AND THE ENIGMATIC SYMBOLS OF THE MAIN DOOR OF THE CHURCH OF SAINT AGATHA'S PRISON IN CATANIA, by Giancarlo Burgio. The thirteenth-century portal of the Church of St. Agatha's prison in Catania ordered by Emperor Frederick II in memory of the quelled revolt of this city, shows sculptures and symbols whose meanings are still shrouded in mystery despite in the more recent centuries many scholars have tried to interpret them. With the help of photographic enlargements, moreover, you can notice some details that tend to disprove what has been proposed in the past.
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THE FATE OF THE ANCIENT SUBMERGED TOWN OF ATLIT-YAM: TSUNAMI TRIGGERED BY ETNA OR SIMPLY RISING OF THE SEA ?. At the end of 2007 the discoverers of the tsunami triggered by Mount Etna all over the East Mediterranean around 8000 years ago (Maria Teresa Pareschi, Enzo Boschi, and Massimiliano Favalli, of the INGV of Pisa), suggested that the submerged ancient town of Atlit-Yam off the Israeli coast was devastated by that disaster. But a few months later the director of Israel Antiquities Authority, Dr. Ehud Galili together with other colleagues, published an official document in which challenged point by point the arguments of Pisans researchers and their motivations. Who among them is right?
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TEMPLAR, CYSTERCENSES AND ARAB INFLUENCES IN THE CASTLES OF FREDERIC II: THE EXAMPLES OF URSINO CASTLE IN CATANIA AND CASTEL DEL MONTE IN PUGLIA, ITALY. The Sicilian castles built by Frederic II of Svevia, like the castle of Catania, show many similarity with the classical Arab forts. Nevertheless blend in their architecture typical Gotic features, because their builders were the same Cistercenses workmen that in the continental Europe built the magnificent French cathedrals. A different style have the contemporary sveve castles arose in the Southern Italy and more connected to the Romanesque tradition although they show in the same way Arab and Gotic elements. The military forts of Frederic II, in short, show themselves witnesses of that blending of artistic and cultural currents that along the Middle Age crossed the Southern Italy and the Sicily with the most varied results.
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TO TELL IN “BLACK AND WHITE”: THE PHOTOGRAPHER GIOVANNI VERGA AND HIS REALISTIC LITERARY STILE.
Every time that in the historic panorama of a certain age come on stage a new medium, that is a technology connected to the mass-media, even the language, the stylistic forms and the artistic expressions are stimulated to change and to take new features and new attributes. This was the case of the realistic literature of Giovanni Verga that conditioned by his passion for the photography wrote tales and novels without colors, in “black and white” .
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A “CINECITTA'” UNDER THE ETNA: THE CINEMA IN CATANIA DURING THE FIRST DECADES OF THE XX CENTURY.
Between 1913 and 1916 in Catania not only were shot "kolossals" of the silent film that did much effect at the time, but also arose different film houses, like the Etna Film, the Katana Film, the Sicula Film, and the Jonio Film. Even the playwright Nino Martoglio with his own production house, the Morgana Film, along with the great actor Giovanni Grasso, produced films that became milestones in the history of the cinema. But that short golden season suddenly ended ...
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"THE FURY OF THE SEA'S GOD": THE TSUNAMI PROVOKED BY THE MOUNT ETNA 8000 YEARS AGO AND THE SUBMERGED TOWN OF ATLIT-YAM.
As show the studies of the INGV of Pisa, about the 6000 B. C. the east side of the Etna fell into the sea and provoked a tsunami so powerful that devastated not only Sicily and South-Italy, but the entire East Mediterranean. The researchers think that it was responsible for the abandon of the early settlements along the Near-Eastern coasts, like the town of Atlit-Yam in Israel, the underwater ruins of which lie at some hundred meters from the coast. But according to the studies of the geophysics and volcanologists, the catastrophe of 8000 years ago could repeat again, as shows the slow sliding towards the Ionian Sea of the east side of the volcano, pushed by the Pernicana Fault.
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"WITH EYES TO THE SKY”: THE SUBMERGED TOWN OF ATLIT-YAM, THE ENIGMA OF EUROPEAN MEGALITHS AND THE BIRTH OF CELESTIAL RELIGIONS
The prehistoric megaliths that arise throughout Western Europe, between Portugal and the North Sea, have always caused the curiosity and the questions of all those who have studied them. In recent decades, however, the archeologiests with his latest discoveries has even more entangled the mystery by finding megaliths similar to those Europeans also in the south of Egypt, in the Sahara, and on the seabed in front of the Israeli coast, in the submerged town of Atlit-Yam. But what discovered among this ruins could perhaps do a little more light about the origin and the function of the ancient megaliths.
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THE ANGELIC TABLET, of Sandro Torrisi.
The acts of martyrdom of the triumphant Amazon Agata narrate a singular episode occurred during his burial: a youngman accompanied by one hundred beautiful children, dressed in white, laid inside the sarcophagus a marble tablet with the following inscription: "Mentem Sanctam Spontaneam Honorem Deo et Patriae Liberationem" (The Holy Mind, Spontaneous the Honour to God and the Liberation of her Homeland). The inscription reduced to only eight letters (MSSHDEPL) had, over the centuries, a considerable spread... click here.
THE JEWELS OF THE DEVOTION, of Sandro Torrisi.
The fourteenth-century bust-shrine of Saint Agatha adorned with magnificent jewels, it appears us as a perfect silloge of the Word of God, according to the medieval language of the gems, gems set in the gold, the noble metal symbol of the eternity and the triumph...
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