In this essav, Kundera states that every author's narration is nothing other than the attempt to describe the sound of that laughter. A specific detail in the picture
"L'Etna visto da Taormina" painted in 1777 by Jackob Philipp Hackert, evokes the image of the artist in search of that echoing laugh. At the bottom of the painting are two men meditating on a knoll. One is seated while the other one, who is standing next to him leans on a cane: both seem to be enthralled by the sight that unfolds before them or, according to Kundera, by the energy of that laughter that rises from the bowels of the volcano towering over the bay of Naxos.
"Etna as seen from Taormina is an immense chimney or an enormous column", points out the geographer Antonio Federico Busching. In 1833, Cardinal John Henry Newman defines that same view as "the closest way to contemplate Eden"; a few decades later Guy de Maupassant talks about "a landscape where everything seems to
have been created on the Earth to seduce the eyes, the
mind and the imagination". Scenery that Gustav Klimt
uses to decorate the largest theatre in Vienna. For Bernard Berenson,
Taormina is the holy city that appears in
the canvases by Mantegna.The image of the Taormina settlement is depicted in the distance, in relation to the picturesque view from Mount Tauro. A group of small fishermen and farmer dwellings among which rise a line of fortifications, two entrance gates, outlines of feudal palaces, crenellated towers, ancient churches as well as monasteries. How did a Sicilian village that was almost forgotten at the margins of a never-ending Middle Ages, starting from the end of the Eighteenth century, become a mythical place, venerated as the "ideal veduta" in the Art Academies of all European capitals and, later, be come a "laboratory" for testing the international invention of tourism?
To answer this question we can retrace the vestiges left by historians, painters and literary scholars who have offered their own interpretation of Taormina and have helped to create the image that is the foundation of the myth, as evidenced by the number of panoramas cherished by museums and collections scattered around the world, by the enormous bibliography in many different languages and by
the international photograph and film-exhibition.
Taormina was first discovered and then invented.
In the beginning, those who first discovered Taormina
were erudite travellers and foreign artists,
who were able, as indicated by Leonardo Sciascia,
to highlight that which the Sicilians couldn't see be
cause, looking at it every day, it became too obvious
and therefore invisible. In addition to Etna, what else
is there in Taormina that is so obvious that it becomes
invisible to the eyes of the Taorminians ? There is the
theatre, an impressive "Roman" complex (or better still Vitruvian), for
what is left for us to see, but which everyone calls
"Greek" or "ancient" because in the VII century B.C.,
when the first Greek colonists came ashore on the cape of
Schiso', there already was a theatre or a public prayer and
sacrifice altar inserted among the rocks on the rise. The
theatre layout is certainly of Hellenic origin. Who knows
who was so ingenious and imaginative to conceive of
such a scene, locating it in that marvelous site.Over the centuries, the only road to reach the site went through the village. The Tauromenion of the Greeks, the Tauromerium of the Latins, the Tabermin of the Arabs, the Taurominium of the Normans, the Taurominia of the Aragonese, the Tavormine of the French and the Tavormina of the Bourbons, though different from each other, have based their origins in a single urban settlement, a stronghold that encompasses that theatre-symbol. When Federick II met Syrian and Egyptian allies, he received them in that theatre which was transformed into an imperial palace.
Mount Tauro interrupts the never-ending coastline between Messina and Catania and appears as a natural terrace protected from behind by the rock of Castelmola, jutting out over the sea. The urban structure of Taor mina has been shaped by sieges and by destruction. But each new invader rebuilt each building that was de stroyed even better than before, adding something new. The historical monuments emerge one after the other along the present Corso Umberto which joins the historical centre from Porta Messina in the north towards Porta Catania in the south. The architect Armando Dil lon, who in 1947 had an active role in the reconstruction of the damage caused by bombing, talks about the "alchemy of the placated contrast": the force behind the urban scenery of Taormina is the combination of different aesthetic and architectural elements. Palazzo Corvaja dominates the road that leads to the theatre and includes a Fifteenth century courtyard with mullioned windows with two lights and crenellated towers. A few steps away is the church of St. Catherine from the 1500s. Largo IX Aprile, the large square high above the sea, includes the former Gothic church of St. Augustine, today the public library, St. Joseph's church, as well as the clock Tower. David Herbert Lawrence, in a letter written to a friend in 1922, describes the square as "a continental tea of the Mad Hatter where you ask your self who will end up in the teapot".
A short distance away, the inlays of the facades of Palazzo
Ciampoli and Palazzo De Spuches bear witness to
the fortune of the Fifteenth century city. The church of
Our Lady of Sorrows lies hidden in the side streets close
to Palazzo Vecchio which lead to via lsazzello passing
through the Varo square; the Fourteenth century Old
Abbey dominates from above. Thell, down towards the
Cathedral and the fountain in front of the Jewish district.
Farther down, the narrow streets lead to the public gardens:
the Victoria Dollies emerge from the greenery, exotic
structures built at the end of the 1800s to allow one
self to become fully immersed in nature and in reading.
The slow transformation of Taormina into a myth began
when the theatre became the subject of studies by
the Dutchman Jakob Philipp d'Orville (1727) and by the
German Joseph Hermann Von Riedesel (1767). In just
twenty years, from 1770 to 1790, the pilgrimage be
comes more and more intense with the arrival of "special"
travelers who could appreciate art, such as the Englishmen Hamilton, Brydone, Hackert,
Knight and Swinburne and the Frenchmen Houel, Denon, Despres
and Dolomicu. In 1787, Taormina and the theatre gave
inspiration to Goethe to create the Nausicaa, an opera
considered as the modern adaptation of the Odyssey
and never completed.
Studies, drawings, etchings, paintings and descriptions focus attention
on the theatre-panorama which brings other artists to Taormina. Even though Henry
Swinburne was sorry about the fact that the panorama of
the theatre would have been an ideal location for masters
such as Salvator Rosa and Nicolas Poussin, in slightly
more than half a century and up to the middle of the
Nineteenth century, the best European panorama painters
set up their easels on Mount Tauro. In Italy, travellers search
for the picturesque: the road that leads to
Taormina is defined as extremely romantic by Patrick
Brydone and the image of the theatre is proposed as the
culmination of the thousands of years of Sicilian charm
in the eyes of foreigners.Taormina is a place for landscape artists, declares Edward Lear in his diary, which he paints from the theatre in 1847. The Germans are the first to demonstrate it, who do not expect the construction of the railway and the Giardini station. And they arrive no longer only to admire the theatre and then leave, but to stay. The German Count Ottone Von Geleng first encountered the panorama of the Taormina theatre in 1860 in Berlin, where he attended the Royal Academy. Thus, the person who is given credit for having discovered Taormina, saw the image of the place where he will live his entire life, even before arriving there in February 1863. He settled in the Timeo Inn: the only one that existed, semi-hidden and without any com forts in a narrow alley of the historic center.
A few months later, in Paris, Ottone von Geleng presents his Taormina canvases and doles out a unique chal lenge to the French critics who do not believe that a place exists where the almond trees bloom amidst the ruins of theatres and perennially active snow-covered volcanoes. "Too much imagination, my dear Count", they say. And Von Geleng challenges them: "Come to Sicily next February and if the reality is not as it is depicted in my paintings, I will pay for your travel expenses and you will be my guests". Three arrived and a few days later the French newspapers were talking about the new corner of heaven discovered in Sicily.
INDIETRO____
