#to see in sicily

[seasicily]

Transparent water in Sicily

[shutterandsentence]

Sicilian Wildflower Garden

Photo: Ragusa, Sicily, Italy

[ghosthoodie]

cici warmup..

AHHH!!! AHHH!!!! ITS A WARMUP AND SHES HAVING A NICE DRINK!!! my heart cant take this

[archduchessofnowhere]

Close up of Queen Marie Sophie of the Two Sicilies at the unveiling of the Empress Elisabeth Monument in the Volksgarten, Vienna. June 4 of 1907.

Via Wien Museum

[pleasedontsmileatme]

cat in sicily 🪻

[cicerenella]

Do you have any headcanons on whether Romano visited the Americas during Spain’s colonial rule over Latam? I’m from Latin America (Mexico specifically) and I’ve seen a lot of people in the Latam fandom headcanon Romano to have visited the colonies before but truth be told, I know next to nothing about Italian history 😅 so I don’t really know how much truth this headcanon holds. I love your characterization of the Italy bros btw!!

First of all, thank you! I really appreciate all the support you guys give, it makes my heart melt❤️❤️

Anddd, to answer your question, I don't think Romano visited latin America during the spanish colonial times *gasp!* But I think he went AFTER he became independent.

And the answer is very simple. Up until the early 1700, Romano was a spanish dominated territory as well! Now, I don't think he could possibly go to Latin America since Spain basically kept him in his house (a bit paranoid aren't we?) so to not let him achieve his independence. But he EVENTUALLY did become independent, after a not so friendly quarrel with a certain Austrian...

But the next years weren't easy on Romano either, because our kingdom of Naples/Sicily was already fighting off a particular French and making 236 different coalitions against him. But after the Napoleonic reign fell, Southern Italy was again free, bringing us to the creation of The Kingdom Of Two Sicilies!

Now, I never thought about Romano visiting LatAm during this period. But if someone headcanons him going, I would suggest the time period of the kingdom of two sicilies (and prior to the Italian Unification). Its the only time he had a moment of quiet and everyone didn't want to conquer his territories LMAOO. anywaysss I hope my answer satisfied you! Mexico is a really fascinating country💕

[breitzbachbea]

Mediterranean's on fire. As usual. Cool cool cool.

[airenyah]

just finished watching the godfather and god is that a boring movie

[yuneu]

how ugly is the average american man that american women think that one guy is anything above mid

[seasicily]

Tre Piscine Cala del Cuore, Bene FAI, Fondo per l'Ambiente Italiano

[iamagodjkimcatholicicantsaythat]

If your ask button is scandalous I’d hate for that anon to meet a secular teenager. Or an Irishman. Or a Sicilian, sailor, or anyone else for that matter.

Pfffffffff hahahaha @sunglassesbot this anon is coming for your anon XD

[shutterandsentence]

In my opinion, November 1 is too early for Christmas trees and Santa Claus. But it's never too early to remember the miracle of Jesus!

Photo: Catania, Sicily

[ghosthoodie]

miscellaneous drawings!

[archduchessofnowhere]

“A queen from a fairy tale in which none but she believed”

Searching for information about Queen Marie Sophie of the Two Sicilies in the Archive, as one does, I came across a book called Portraits with backgrounds, written by sculptor Catherine Barjansky and published in 1947. I couldn't find much information on Catherine, only that she was born in 1890 in Odessa and moved to Munich in 1910 to study sculpture. She lived in several countries with her husband the cellist Alexandre Barjansky, whom she married in 1914, and after they separated in 1940 she moved to New York, where she lived for the rest of her life, dying in 1965.

Queen Marie was one of Catherine's many sitters. She dedicates the half of chapter five of her book to the deposed queen, which is by far the most detailed account of Marie as an old woman that I've ever come across. The entry is long, so I divided it in two parts. In this first part, Catherine narrates her first meeting with the last queen of the Two Sicilies in Switzerland, 1914:

A PHANTOM QUEEN AND A TORRENT OF MUSIC “HER Majesty the Queen will appear in a few minutes,” whispered the Comtesse de la Tour, lady in waiting to the Queen of Naples. How strange those words sounded in that conventional living room in the little hotel in Geneva! For the Queen of whom the little white-haired lady in waiting spoke with such ceremony had lost her throne fifty years before. Few people even remembered the Kingdom of Naples. The very existence of this woman was an historical anachronism. But not to the Comtesse de la Tour who, by a personal act of faith, managed to turn an ordinary hotel suite into a royal palace. Never having met a queen before, I did not know how to behave nor what was expected of me. And this queen, even in exile, perhaps because of her exile, was punctilious about etiquette. On the journey from Lausanne I had bombarded my husband with questions. What was she like? She was a very unusual woman, he said. She would interest me. He had met her first in Paris, where she had a charming house and occasionally received artists, among them Caruso who was a great friend of hers. Even there, Alexandre said, where she could walk unknown through the streets, she lived as though she were surrounded by high walls, remote from the world, untouchable. Several months of each year she spent in Munich because the Prince-Regent of Bavaria was a relative of hers. At that time, King Otto of Bavaria was in a sanitarium.

The door opened. The ghost of a woman stood there for a moment and then came forward swiftly. She was very tall, with a face as narrow as a knife blade; a body as thin, as narrow, as unsubstantial as a shadow. It was the body of a skeleton. She wore a long simple black dress with a high collar, her long neck swathed in tulle, under which gleamed a necklace of huge pearls. Her hands were almost transparent, with incredibly long fingers. Her eyes were pale blue and seemed to give out a blue light. Her nose was thin and long, her lips thin and expressive. Her hair was white with two heavy braids, which, surprisingly enough, were almost black, wrapped around her head, forming a sort of crown over her high forehead. She smiled, and the severe expression of her face altered, became softer, and even kind in a detached way. She gave me her long pale hand, and for the first time in my life I made a deep curtsy. My husband bowed and kissed her hand, and she seated herself, very erect, not touching the back of her chair. She sat on the ordinary hotel chair as though she were on a throne, and held her head as though her black braids were really a royal crown. It was an imaginary crown, but one of which she was conscious every moment of her life.

All that afternoon we sat in the little hotel room, while she carried on a conversation with my husband, and I, aside from answering an occasional question, was silent and studied her. She was gracious and kind, but she was a phantom woman on a cloud, remote from the rest of humanity. She was a being from the past, a ghost, a queen from a fairy tale in which none but she believed. She went through life holding high her head with its imaginary crown and conscious of an enormous distance between her and ordinary people, because she was not real.

Since then I have met other crowned heads in Europe; but always, when I think of a queen, it is of the Queen of Naples who lived for fifty years in exile, without a throne, without a country, with nothing but a dream to comfort her.

At length I gathered together my courage and asked whether she would let me bring some wax and do her portrait. “Oh, yes,” she said readily. “The Comtesse will write to you.”

[hauntedbythenarrative]

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