Category: italy

Postcard from Catania, Sicily: Homecoming for Sant’Agata

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A stamp featuring the celebration of Saint Agatha, highlighting the 900th anniversary of her relics' return to Catania, Italy. It depicts a crowned figure of Saint Agatha with a church in the background.

Above: During a solemn ceremony in front of Cattedrale Metropolitana di Sant’Agata this week, relics of Saint Agatha are returned to her newly restored reliquary. Screen grab from video on La Sicilia, August 17, 2026.

Saint Agatha (231?-251?) has been celebrated in the news recently, nowhere more than in Sicily. The occasion was the 900th anniversary of her return to her birthplace, Catania, and the Vatican marked it with a major meaningful gift. Would have loved to be there to witness it but will have to rely on others.

Affectionately called Santuzza by some, Saint Agatha was martyred in her hometown. After a vindictive, spurned suitor reported her illegal Christian beliefs to the Roman authorities, her torture began. If you do not know Agatha’s story, look back to this post from one of our visits to Sicily. One of the devious punishments inflicted upon her led her status as the patron saint of those women suffering from breast cancer and workers who toil in bell foundries.

One of the 12 Virgin Saints celebrated during Mass, Agatha gained popularity in Catania immediately following her death, as she received credit for miraculously halting an impending eruption of Mount Etna. The faithful enshrined her remains as sacred relics.

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Postcard from Trieste, Italy: Nightmarish end to palatial dreams

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An Italian postage stamp featuring a scenic view of the Miramare Gardens in Trieste, showcasing neatly trimmed hedges, a statue, and a fountain against a background of trees and the sea.

Above: Miramare, a palace erected by Princess Charlotte of Belgium and Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria

At age 22, Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian (1832-1867) was named Commander-in-Chief of the Austrian Navy. Sailing in 1855 in the Gulf of Trieste, then ruled by the Kingdom of Austria, the young archduke spotted a promontory jutting out into the water. Barren, rocky, yet a gorgeous waterfront view on three sides. He decided to acquire the land for his home.

Construction of the house, which he named Miramare, was already underway at the time of his 1857 marriage to Princess Charlotte of Belgium (1840-1927). Also in 1857, his older brother, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria (1830-1916), appointed Maximilian Viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia.

The couple moved into the Royal Palace of Milan while continuing work on Miramare. Charlotte’s royal dowry contributed to the money-pit project, including bringing in tons of dirt and topsoil for extensive gardens. Surrounded by all the requisite family portraits, the couple moved into their completed dream home in 1860.

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Postcard from Catania, Sicily: Ambling about Acireale

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A colorful vintage postcard featuring Mount Etna, with vineyards in the foreground and a bright blue sky.

Above: A version of a negroni created in honor of Mount Etna at Moro Acireale superimposed over a view of the simmering volcano in the distance.

Ambling sounded appealing, and, with a tenth of the population of bustling Catania, nearby Acireale beckoned. The predominant style of its architecture is Late Sicilian Baroque, sometimes referred to as “Earthquake Baroque.”

Then came an earthquake so horrible and ghastly that the soil undulated like the waves of a stormy sea, and the mountains danced as if drunk, and the city collapsed in one miserable moment….”

Account from an eyewitness to the 1693 Val di Noto Earthquake, The Genesis of Noto: An Eighteenth-Century Sicilian City, Stephen Tobriner, University of California Press, 1982

At the start of the new year in 1693, Mother Nature cursed most of southeastern Sicily with a triple whammy: Etna erupted; an earthquake believed to have measured well above 7 on the Richter Scale struck; and a tsunami hit. One way or another, more than 60,000 perished in the disaster.

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