I'm Andrew Graham-Dixon, and I'm an art historian.
Is it a town, or is it a piece of theatre?
I'm Giorgio Locatelli, and I'm a cook.
The sultana is really tiny in this recipe, like a little Sicilian!
We both share a passion.
- This is real Baroque! - This is decadent.
A love...
Oh, oh!
An obsession...
I've never seen anything like that.
Her name? Sicilia?! The Mediterranean Island of Sicily.
We've both been her ardent suitors for years.
I love how layers of history have created a unique blend of art and architecture here.
- It's like we're in the World Cup in archeologically terms. - Yeah!
And I adore the incredible flavour and no-nonsense approach to food.
Here you are, in ten square metre, you can find all of these ingredients in front of you.
But it's only recently we discovered
we share the same intense passion for the island.
So we decided to team up and travel here together.
- This really is the Naked Chef! - Yes!
- The real one. - Is the real Naked Chef!
In sharing our knowledge and love for the island with each other.
We hope to uncover even more of the secrets and treasures.
The sadness.
This was a hole in the nation.
This was a hole in the heart of the nation.
And the pleasures of our beloved Sicily.
As a piece of sincere painting, it's fantastic!
From simple delicious food packed with incredible flavour,
Perfection!
To the truly jaw-dropping art and culture, a mirror to
the exuberance and extraordinary history of its people.
'Our very first stop, a place called Porto Paolo, on the Southern coast of the island.'
For me to come here, I have the same feeling that I'm going home
to my village in Northern Italy.
At the moment I feel like... brrr!
My heart is beating, know what I mean?
It's a restaurant on the beach owned by my good friend Vittorio.
It may not look like much but it's my favourite spot in all Sicily
and the place I head first every time I come here.
It's an annual pilgrimage to remind me
what real honest food is all about, Sicilian style.
I hope Andrew likes it.
What a beautiful place!
Yes.
A shack by the seaside, it looks like.
That's all it was when he started.
Vittorio!
How are you?
Tonight we're going to drink, he says. He's been preparing for you.
We are going to go and get some fish to have for dinner tonight.
OK. We'll give him a call to sort out,
we're going to go and buy some fish, for dinner tonight.
We're going to get it from the boat. There's the way he cooks.
Look, that's it, see? That's... He cooks like that.
That's the way I want to cook in my life, not in London with
the jacket and this and that, this is the way you want to cook.
- This really is the Naked Chef. - Yes, the real Naked Chef.
The seas around Sicily have long been the richest ones in
the Mediterranean and today the Porto Sciacca boasts
one of the largest fleets in all of Italy.
It was founded by the Greek colonisers in ancient times,
but during the Arab occupation of the 9th century it became
an important stop on the trade routes to North Africa.
Trade brought hundreds of years of foreign influence and fish,
lots of fish, tons of the stuff
still comes through the port every day.
So this was two days fishing. These guys are going to go to Milan.
So this will be in the market tomorrow morning...in Milan.
- The whole boat...? - The whole boat - whatever it catches today,
- it goes on the van and goes straight to Milan. - Oh, that turbot!
- Skate. - Skate? - Skate.
Look at that. Beautiful.
It just keeps coming. Look at that.
Look, little sharks.
What I love best about Sciacca are the lively dockside auctions, where the locals haggle for fish.
Rough, rude and even a little anarchic for me.
What's happening is this - the two boats have come in and have all the fish on top.
That guy's telling the price of the boxes coming up.
Everybody looks at the box, you buy by the box.
What is important - hold the price up as much as you can.
So then take out fish and stop a little bit so that everybody panics.
No more, no more.
It goes up in fives, so 40, 45, 50.
- Are you saying it's 50 Euros? - Yes, for that box.
- For a crate of scampi! - For a crate of scampi.
What I don't understand... Could I come here with 50 Euros?
Well, if he doesn't know you, he maybe not take your bid.
Pero, if you are there with the money in your hands, he will take it.
What I love about this typically Sicilian market is that although it's
doing big business - a supplier to top restaurants across the country -
it's nothing fancy.
It's salty. Genuine. Unpretentious.
The fish is what's important here. Not the window dressing.
- Sta sera va bene per mangiare? - This is what we'll eat tonight.
- E questa le mangiamo, OK? - What is that?!
- Tromba. - Tromba.
- OK. - OK?
I'm not sure if I should be celebrating.
I'm kind of worried about eating that.
What the hell is that, Giorgio, I've never seen that before?
I've never seen it as well.
Back at the restaurant, the kitchen is in full swing for the evening service.
♪ ..Ci sono malattie inevitabili... ♪
Like Giorgio and I, Vittorio isn't from Sicily.
But when he arrived over 40 years ago,
he fell in love with it and stayed.
And in embracing the native approach to food, Vittorio has made Sicilian culture his own.
Take the best ingredients, allow their quality to shine through,
and present them with as little fuss as possible.
Pasta fritta.
The most important thing at Vittorio's is not to ask for the menu.
They don't like the menu, or the idea of being tied to a piece of paper.
It's not about writing about it. It's about getting it, cooking it and eating it.
Look at this, the most amazing thing.
This is roast swordfish,
a little slice of orange has been cut underneath.
So that's raw marinated swordfish?
With blood orange.
I'm going to give you some of these, these are little tiny baby squid.
- Yes. - Fried. - Again, this is what we saw today in the market.
All we have here now has been fished today.
Sitting here in front of all this, amazing riches from the sea,
it strikes me that the Sicilians have always had a bit of a dual relationship with the sea.
On the one hand, it's where the enemy comes from.
It's where the invaders come from, the Spanish, the Arabs, all these people
who've dominated and controlled them. On the other hand,
it's the source of so much life, such bounty.
In Sicily, so often, there's this double aspect to something.
It's funny you say that because, especially in a place like Sciacca,
you have a division between the town -
all the houses you can see from the port,
those are where the fisherman lives, facing the sea.
And they speak one dialect.
The people the other side of the Corso,
they are the people who work the land.
The people who work the land say the people of the sea are stupid.
Because you just go down, put down the net and whatever comes up, you take back.
"But we are clever. We have irrigation, we grow things, we tame nature."
So they see themselves as belonging to a later stage -
the hunter-gatherers are the sea guys
and we're the agricultural ones.
Yeah. We're more like civilised.
We get water to run where we want.
Do they ever marry each other, the people from the land and the sea?
No!
So, real life Romeo and Juliet?
- Real life Romeo and Juliet. - Amazing.
Like opera. It's like a drama, everything is there.
All elements of Ital... Sicilian culture are in it.
At last the main course arrived.
- Voila! Aaaaah! - Ha, ha!
- Bravo! - Madonna, che bello! - Piacere.
- There's no holds barred! - ..E piccolo, lui.
Simple boiled lobster. Lobster with vegetables, herbs and a dressing of oil or lemon.
My kind of cooking.
'Simple stuff but one of the most delicious meals I've ever eaten.'
Hmm, oh, che bello, eh?!
Cheers!
- Cheers! - Cin-cin, dai!
What I love most about Sicily is how rich and diverse in culture it is.
Every old town is like a three course meal of history, beauty,
and atmosphere.
Just as delicious as the food, just as heady as the local wine.
But the best place of all to begin the feast? The capital - Palermo.
Colourful.
Theatrical.
It's my favourite city anywhere in the world.
A cultural layer cake baked over more than 1,000 years by Sicily's diverse colonisers.
Every time I come here I discover something new to marvel at.
And this is perhaps my favourite slice of that historical cake.
Tucked away on a back street in this unassuming chapel.
The Oratory of Santa Cita.
The unlikely home of a magnificent artwork.
And I hope Giorgio will find it every bit as tasty as I do.
This is the art equivalent of going and having an ice cream.
Or perhaps a glass of bubbly.
It's very light, very beautiful, very fun.
Actually, I want you to close your eyes.
Come on, close your eyes.
This is meant to be a treat. I'm going to lead you this way.
I just want you to get the full blast.
I'm going to take you here.
Now, OK...
Whoa!
- What do you think? - That is incredible.
Can you believe that we just walk off that street and here we are?
Yeah, you wouldn't expect something like this. So...
rich and beautiful.
'This exuberant masterpiece of Baroque sculpture was created by a local artist
'in the second half of the 17th century.
'But in true Sicilian style,
'the origins of the work and the artist are simple.'
It's by this guy called Giacomo Serpotta...
who was a poor artisan, who lived in the area of the city where
they traditionally made the statues for religious processions and ceremonies,
but they also did all the theatrical scenery and props.
- What is it made of? - It's made of stucco. - Stucco.
- It looks like marble, doesn't it? - Yes.
See, that's interesting because his secret was he added a bit of marble dust.
- Right. - You create an armature of wood and wire,
and then you make a paste,
and to this paste he added marble dust.
That meant that he could get a kind of fineness of texture.
Whereas all the other stucco artists were forced to paint their figures to make them lifelike,
he actually created it in the form itself.
So, it's not cast? Everything is made one by one?
Yeah. He had a workshop.
He finished every single figure himself.
The other reason I thought you'd like it, it seems to me,
that's it's also...
It's almost like a culinary art.
The creation of stucco.
It is like a massive cake.
From the inside!
The thing he was really famous for and where you get the full theatricality,
- is these putti - the little babies which are everywhere. - Yeah.
And they get smaller as they go up,
which gives you the impression that it's really tall.
Well, it's basically a theatrical curtain.
And into that theatrical curtain he's carved a series of almost like little theatre boxes.
And each one tells a story.
On the side walls we have the stories of the life of Christ.
- Ah, yes. - Exactly.
But if you look at each one, you look at the scene, for example,
You've got baby Jesus asleep in the manger.
- And above, look, the putto, he's sleeping. - Look at that.
Serpotta is a guy from the streets. We know his dad died in prison,
left the family with no money. This was Serpotta's first commission on a grand scale.
the first time he was given a chance to do something like this
with his street artist know-how. And did he pull it off or what?
He did, definitely. He really did.
- So you like it? - I love it.
Seeing Serpotta's stucco boxes reminds me how theatrical Sicilian culture can be.
There is one kind of theatre that epitomises Sicily more than anything else I can think of.
The art of puppetry.
I remember taking my daughter, Margarita, to see a show when she was a child.
And I loved it. I thought Andrew would, too.
UNESCO-protected, the Cuticchio Theatre is recognised as the best on the island.
Many of the ancient stories are the ones that inspired the Crusaders, but they have been Sicilian-ised.
The characters include Knights in Spanish Armour,
Arab Saracen and Norman Nobleman, all of whom invaded the island.
They are tales of vendetta, passion and brutal conflict.
A reminder that this island was born as much out of blood as sunshine.
Before leaving, I want a word with the puppet master, Mimmo Cuticchio.
His family have been puppeteers for over three generations.
It's my first time. I thought it was absolutely fantastic, one of the best things I've ever seen.
It's a combination of visual art, sculpture, theatre, literature.
Also, you're acting.
Yes, it is like a silent film. They've got strong faces.
I have to say, he scares me a little bit.
It reminds me of Mangiafuoco, the guy in Pinocchio!
We've certainly been scared tonight. Grazie.
- We will. - Grazie. Grazie.
- Grazie. - Grazie. - Buon viaggio. Arrivederci.
Palermo became the capital of Sicily in the year 902,
when Muslim Arab colonisers first consolidated their grip on the island.
They say it was one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.
I think they said the three great cities at the time were Cordoba, Damascus and Palermo.
And they said that in Palermo they had 1,000 mosques.
To see what's left of that, we're off to the Kalsa,
now the ancient Arab quarter of Palermo,
but once the very city itself.
To get there we've got to brave the very modern traffic.
There's so little left of the Arab city.
You really have two scratch quite deep to get any traces.
But if you look hard enough, they are there.
They love their horses, don't they? That's an Arab influence.
They're obsessed with horses in Sicily.
You are really expressing your Palermitano in your driving!
I'm trying to blend in.
I'm introducing Andrew to the flavour of Arabsis with a dish of sardine pasta.
A Sicilian classic with a pinch of North Africa.
- Buongiorno, Signor Franco. - Buongiorno!
'Signor Franco Trattoria is shut during the day, so we have arranged
'to borrow his kitchen to prepare the dish for lunch.'
The most important ingredient for pasta de sarda
is the wild mountain fennel.
It's only used in Sicily, nowhere else.
- So this is what we see everywhere, by the roadside, it grows in profusion? - Yes.
So the idea is we are going to put some of that in the boiling water, which we seasoned.
We put a little bit of the fennel. When we cook the pasta, it'll take up all the flavour.
OK? As that one is infusing, we are going to start to cook that sauce.
We're going to put a little bit of the anchovies in it. OK?
- It is nice to use anchovies instead of salt. - I love anchovies.
- Can I eat some of your ingredients? - Don't eat anything! Don't spoil your appetite and say you're not hungry.
- One little bit of anchovy. - That's OK.
OK, the next thing I am going to put in, sultanas.
The sultana is really tiny and aggressive like a little Sicilian.
As this is cooking gently, I'm going to add a little bit more oil,
in order to keep the temperature low. I let it cook.
I want the onions and the sultanas and everything else
to take in the flavour of the anchovies.
This is stratto, which is like... it's like a tomato paste.
You can taste it. Instead of being cooked down, this is sun dried.
So they made this paste, lay down big...
It's almost like a sweet. Delicious.
I'm going to put like a spoonful of that...
- Then... - These are the sardines? - The sardines, they go in.
- Whose idea was it to put these ingredients together? - OK.
There is a story that says when the Arabs arrived in Mazara del Vallo,
they found themselves with something like 1,000 men, the army.
So the guys in command asked them to do some food for these people
when they arrived. These were all the actual ingredients they found.
The smell is incredible, isn't it? OK.
I am going to put my pasta in now. Bang!
Now there is one more thing. Some people does it, some people don't.
But, you know, I like to put it in. It's a little bit of saffron.
- This is also Arabic. - That's why, sort of, you know...
I don't know, you give it a base on the flavour.
What is the characteristic that makes it
particularly expressive of Arabic Sicilian cuisine?
- Is it the combination? - It's the combination of the flavour, the ingredients and the culture.
There's no other pasta that is made with sultanas in it.
So that sweetness, and that edge of the sweet and sour,
that they use, that's very Arab. That's something.
And that sweet-sour combination, you don't really find that in northern Italian pasta recipes?
Never. That's only in Sicily that this is found.
OK, get in the pasta.
Really nice.
OK, we have to wait. There's one more very important thing to do now,
Which is la mollica, bread crumbs and olive oil,
give you that little extra flavour. OK, we should go.
You haven't even opened the wine, what is the matter with you?
By the time you've served the pasta, the wine will be open.
I always find when I'm serving pasta at home, all the best stuff gets left at the bottom
and I have to go around everyone's plates again.
- Just get stuck in? - Just do it.
Mmm. It's a great smell. This is going to be ugly.
- It's not very easy to eat elegantly, Giorgio? - No, no elegant people eat this.
This is meant to be for the workers, the people from the port,
people who can only afford sardines.
- Almost my favourite plate of pasta that I ever ate. - Yeah? - Really.
I love it. It's so unusual.
The sweet and sour and everything. Prego.
After a lunch like that, it only seems right to take Giorgio
to see one of the few remaining Arabic buildings in Palermo,
a palace called the Zisa.
Built in the 12th century, it comes from the Arabic word el-Aziz, "magnificent".
Although it was commissioned by a Norman King, William I,
it's in the Arabic tradition.
The architects were instructed to create a pleasure palace
which indulged the King's passion for hunting and women.
- This honeycomb vaulting... - It really is impressive. - It's very Arabic.
- You see it in Alhambra. Also, these tiles are like Islamic tiles. - That's right.
This is actually a palace built for a Norman King.
But although he was a Christian he lived here like a sultan.
- He had five wives. - That's good!
- I love this. - That's a little fountain coming down.
I can imagine the little noise that it would make,
to jump like if it was in a little torrent.
And then carry on until it goes out there.
They'll have a gazebo in the middle.
Then the water would be around it like a swimming pool sort of style.
And fish would be kept in it. It was called a piscera.
So when they want a fish for lunch, out a fish comes and off it goes on the table.
So this decoration keeps the palace cool,
creates the sense almost of living in an indoor garden.
But you've also got the added benefit of fresh fish.
You have to think about the Arabs, they introduced irrigation.
So the use of water... they were masterful on getting the water where they wanted.
Water inside the building, that's a typical thing of the Arabs. The Arabs always have fountains inside.
I think of this space as a microcosm of what happens to Arab culture after the Arabs have gone.
It still stays embedded in the system.
Nowhere is the Arab legacy more keenly felt than in the great fruit market.
Palermo has four of them.
Established by the Arabs over 1,000 years ago, they still feel like a kasbah.
But as well as being great traders, the Arabs were agriculturists,
which enabled new fruits and vegetables to flourish on the island.
This is the most famous of Palermo's markets.
the Vucciria - the name literally means "hubub",
in reference to all the shouting that goes on in here.
I want to buy ingredients for dinner tonight, but I haven't decided what to cook.
So like any Sicilian, I will go for the freshest, the tastiest option.
Buongiorno. 'The fish seller insisted the sardines are the best.'
Even though we had them yesterday, they are back on the menu tonight.
Andrew loves them, so he will be happy.
- Look at the beautiful colour. - They are like silver? - Yes.
He is going to clean them for us. That's what he does, he takes the heads off. Seven steps.
Picks the sardine up, look. Heads off. Down...
Just the hands. He's not looking at what he's doing. Just feels it with his fingers.
He feels the bone and the bone comes off. See, here you go. One, two, three, four.
- ... five, six, seven. Done. - I'll tell you the tragedy, Giorgio,
when I do this at home...
it takes me two minutes.
What's really new about tonight's menu is caponata,
a delicious vegetable relish you'll find in every house across Sicily.
All I need is a few simple ingredients.
All the ingredients are here, look,
it already looks like the recipe's done,
we don't need a recipe, isn't it? Grazie, grazie.
'All this food has given us an appetite for art.
'The Vucciria market was immortalised in a painting
'by Sicily's most celebrated modern artist, Renato Guttuso.
'Painted from memory in 1974, when Guttuso was living in Rome,
'it captures all the colour and detail of the real market.'
- I think it's a picture that appeals to all the senses. - It does.
The style is sort of, as it were,
a piece of the past that's frozen - it's like a time machine.
Here he is, painting in a kind of ancient folkloric style
in the 1970s, 10 years before his death,
and there's that market that we saw this morning,
and how much has changed in that market? Nothing.
They've still got those lightbulbs,
that profusion of fruit and vegetables.
Even the clothes seem the same.
The packaging, also.
Do you remember seeing the guy doing the twist of paper?
It's down, every last detail, nothing has changed.
The details are incredible, as well.
The fish, they are completely in rigor mortis, really standing up.
I had never seen that before, and you explained to me
it's cos the fish are so fresh they're still in rigor mortis.
A lot of art critics and art historians
turn their nose up a bit at his late work,
because they say, "How can this painter, who knew Picasso,
"how can he continue to paint in this old-fashioned,
"folkloric, anecdotal way? This isn't serious art."
But if you take that away and you just look at it
as a place of sincere painting, it's fantastic.
What is amazing is this verticality that he has.
It goes on and on and on and on, there is no end, it just goes on.
It really gives you the impression the road is going up.
He's fish-eyed it, hasn't he?
'But the painting also hints at the darker side of Sicilian history,
'a Sicily of ancient feuds and modern violence.'
The more you look at it, the more you see.
There seems to be a vendetta brewing between the fishmonger -
who's holding the swordfish almost like a blade,
the blade of the swordfish - and the cheese seller.
And I notice there's a little pentimento in the cheese seller's hand -
a pentimento's where you've painted something out -
and if you look closely I think he originally had a knife,
so I wonder if they're looking at each other,
do you think it's the origin of a vendetta or something?
Could the woman in the middle be...
Maybe there was a love story between some of them,
because he's really crossing.
Everything else seems to be vertical,
this is the only moment you have something going horizontal,
that look between themselves.
Because you don't know what the woman is doing,
she's walking up with this big bag in her hand.
I think Guttuso actually said that the line
that connects those guys' eyes, he called it the line of death.
And the line up through the centre of the picture is the line of life,
and between them they make a cross.
It's so visceral, isn't it?
It's so Sicily, and there's a secret story going on, as well.
I cannot think about any other picture
that just fulfils me more than this one.
Obviously it's about food, and...
It's almost edible!
..my life is all about food.
This like, something is jumping at you,
it's just the richness of that,
the vibrancy of the colour and the vegetables,
you can almost smell it.
I think this is a picture you'd like for your personal collection, isn't it?
I would love to have this in my collection.
'As Giorgio prepares dinner, I leaf through
'an old cookbook my mother gave me
'Italian food, by Elizabeth David.
'I've always loved the book for its graphic, vivid illustrations,
'sketched, in fact, by the painter of the Vucciria,
'Renato Guttuso.
'But David's beautiful capturing of the strong, earthy flavours
'of Mediterranean cooking in words is just as vivid as the pictures.
'David was the first writer to introduce a war-weary British public
'to the gutsy flavours of Italian cooking back in the 1950s.
'And she even includes a recipe for caponata,
'the Sicilian dish Giorgio's preparing.'
The first time I ate caponata I was in the Army
and there was this Sicilian guy, and he went home to Sicily
and he came back with this jar of caponata that his mum made.
He brought them in, got this bread and we just put the caponata
on top of the bed and we ate it like that.
And I thought, wow!
This was like blow me completely away!
Little restaurants by the sea always have the caponata,
but each one is different, so basically everyone
makes their own caponata, they find their own balance.
And you will find, if you talk to them,
they think theirs is the best, and this is so beautiful.
So who's are we making now?
- We're making your caponata, OK? - Oh, I see.
So, here is the base.
We've got the aubergine and the onions.
We're going to mix them together.
- You want a bit of courgette in it? - Definitely courgette.
I will put them all in.
- Would you like the peppers in it? - Definitely.
We want all the colours of the market.
I want all the colours of the painting.
- Your olives? - Yeah. - We shall put them all in.
Yeah, we didn't do too many.
I like it when you sort of discover the olives,
you have a few mouthfuls where you don't get one.
You want to every now and again, "Dah!" found an olive.
You're cooking with all your senses -
with your nose, with your hands, with your eyes...
The whole thing is coming together absolutely beautiful.
Some tomato salsa...
I want the tomato, but I don't know how much.
It needs a bit of sugar.
How does it look to you?
- It looks good. - OK.
'But what about those sardines?
'Let's see what else he can do with these everyday fish.'
Look, I do one, you have to do the other one.
So, we're going to put a little bit of breadcrumbs,
a little bit of olive oil, and put them in the oven and that is it.
We want the tail to stay up, Andrew, and to be really tight,
otherwise they're going to explode out.
- So you don't want any of the stuffing to come out the side? - That's right.
Perfect, look, and what we're going to,
we take one toothpick and we go like, two at a time.
What's the essence of the stuffing again? It's breadcrumbs?
Breadcrumbs, a little bit of orange juice,
little bit of lemon juice, some pine kernels...
What I like about that market is the immediacy of it,
and I was talking to the fish guy, and saying,
"You don't seem to have much fish today," and he said,
"No, there was a storm yesterday so it wasn't very good fishing, but the sardines were good."
- They were so beautiful, the sardines there. - Yeah, they were.
This is very Sicilian,
they don't go out the house with the idea of the recipe in their pocket.
They buy with their eyes,
they buy something that really turns them on at that moment.
It's really, really important.
Can't wait.
Maybe we'll have to have a glass of wine.
OK, here we are.
Perfect absolutely cooked.
Beautiful.
They're like little birds, isn't?
That's why they're like beccafico.
- That smells good. Can I give you some caponata? - Great.
Don't forget, you've got the...
I won't forget, I'm not going to eat the toothpick.
Are they nice?
It's fantastic.
It goes well with the caponata, wow.
That's nice.
What I like about that is that is the whole market on a plate,
we've just chosen the nicest fish they had that day.
But coming back to Elizabeth David, I think, OK, an Englishwoman,
when was she doing this? The 1950s.
When Mediterranean cuisine was really not known in England.
I think of England in the 1950s, I think the landscape is grey,
the city is grey and the food is brown.
And if someone in that generation comes to Italy...
She fell in love with it.
You can see that in the book.
It was not a matter of technicality.
That's why the book stands out, after 50 years.
That's why it is difficult to write a book for English people
that is better than that.
It's like a love letter to Italy.
And I love the fact that she got get our man Guttuso,
the painter of the market,
who captured all the colours and flavours in a painting,
she got him to do the illustrations.
- Cheers. - Salute.
Us.
'Sicily's had many rulers over the years,
'and in 1072, after two centuries,
'the Arabs surrendered control of Palermo to a new colonial power.
'The Normans were already ruling much of Europe,
'and soon the whole island was under their control.
'In 1130, the son of the first Norman ruler of Sicily,
'Roger II, crowned himself king.
'And I want to show Giorgio his personal place of worship
'the Palatine Chapel.'
So, what do you think?
Andrew, this is incredible.
'Built in 1132, it's the work of Byzantine Greek and Arab craftsmen.'
- What is the function of this room? - It's a chapel.
Built for a Norman King.
King Roger.
Arguably, it's the most fine surviving mediaeval
ensemble of art and architecture anywhere in the world.
The other thing that's amazing about this chapel is that
it's been in continuous use as a chapel since the 12th century.
It's incredible, isn't it? Look at that.
It's like an Arab ceiling, isn't it?
It's an incredible sort of piece of work,
all made out of cedar wood.
It's called a stalactite technique,
and it had only been invented in the Arab world 100 years before.
You've got Byzantine mosaics,
incredible Italian...look at this floor, this stonework.
And these walls - wonderful decoration.
The Normans were very conscious that they didn't have
much visual culture of their own, so their tendency was to be magpies,
to take the absolute best they could find in each place they conquered,
and, of course, Sicily had such a rich variety
of different heritages that they could create something like this.
So if it had been made somewhere else in northern Italy,
it wouldn't have all the Arab influence in it.
The Normans were old England.
In fact, they were taking over England just about the same time
as they were taking over Sicily.
They didn't create anything like this there,
because they didn't have the materials to draw on.
In a way, what you get here is both aspects of what I think of as the Byzantine Mosaic tradition.
On the one hand you get the vault of heaven, Christ looking down on you.
With the angels surrounding him.
But then the other side is this storytelling tradition,
that has a huge influence on Italian fresco tradition.
The Nativity, the baptism of Christ.
Isn't it beautiful, the baptism?
I love the way they do the water.
Yes, just on top of it,
you can see the rippling of the water, the image coming out.
And the angel with the towel is fantastic.
I think this bit is truly stunning, isn't it?
I think when you're here you can feel very much how this church
or this chapel pulls in two different directions.
At the far end you feel under the eye of God,
but at this end, where Roger would have sat enthroned with Christ's power, as it were,
being beamed down directly onto his head,
you feel that this space is very much an assertion of kingship.
- Divine right to rule. - Yeah.
But what I love, just look at this.
- The quality. - Isn't that fantastic?
In the Islamic world they weren't allowed to express God through the figure,
so they had to express the idea of God,
the power of God, the perfection of God,
through this wonderful geometry, through this colour, this patterning.
So that also is a way of Roger expressing his power.
It's like he's taking power from different cultures.
But he doesn't forget to put himself in the middle of that.
That's his coat of arms coming out,
so the power from above, from God,
and the political power, the ruler from this side.
I think that's what this space is about,
and I also think that ambiguity is partly what makes it so compelling.
But this intoxicating building isn't just a museum.
As a working church, it's the most popular place to get married in Palermo today.
One of the things I love most about Sicily is the fact that
the people really inhabit their own rich history,
and the Palatine Chapel's no exception.
History isn't merely heritage here, something to be preserved behind glass.
It's alive, present, highly visible in the fabric of everyday life.
But the greatest threat to this sense of living history in recent times
is also quintessentially Sicilian...
The Mafia.
In the early '60s, the Mafia infiltrated the city council
and managed to have many of Palermo's great historic buildings demolished.
Why?
To replace them with shoddy concrete tower blocks
as a way of laundering their drug money in a catastrophe that some called the sack of Palermo.
But the Mafia organisation would eventually be challenged.
In the 1980s, a Palermitan judge called Giovanni Falcone
began investigating the Sicilian crime network.
He wasn't prepared to be bought,
so the Mafia had him murdered on the motorway that runs into Palermo.
The date of the murder was 23rd May 1992.
It is imprinted in the memory of every Italian.
The spot where Falcone, his wife and the bodyguards were killed,
near the suburb of Capaci, is marked with a memorial.
For us Italians, it is almost a sacred place.
You can see the place.
Right there, so clearly in front of you.
Can you see that?
Yeah.
See, they have a little space to stop because people want to stop here.
- People ring their horn as they go by. - They mark it with a horn.
With a horn, yeah. People still remember.
People will never forget that.
It was a tragedy.
I want to show Andrew the place, high above the motorway,
from where the Mafia assassin Giovanni Brusca committed the murders.
Falcone had been working in Rome
and flew in to spend the weekend in Palermo.
He was driving from the airport when the murders happened.
Andrew, you can see, that's Punta Raisi, the airport.
Giovanni Falcone fly in. He's having a day off.
So there's two teams.
One team, then, is up here.
The day before, they laid down the explosive. Down there.
And they have a remote.
The other team is at the airport, and is coming behind Falcone.
They are travelling in this convoy of three cars, and Falcone's on the second car.
He travels next to them.
And he gives them a signal to tell them what was the speed that they're having.
He tells them they're going at 120 kilometres an hour.
Why is that important?
In order to get it right,
to blow it at the moment it's going over where they place the explosive.
So they disappear for a second and they come around the bend.
Giovanni Brusca is holding the remote.
And the other guy loses it completely and starts to shout.
"Press the button, press the button now. Press it now!"
Giovanni holds it, holds it, holds it, holds it.
He knows there is a little relay
because he's tried this system before.
So he waits until the car comes to the second bend there,
and then he presses it.
First car is gone,
and the car of Giovanni Falcone is right in the middle.
Hell, practically hell happened there. The road was a hole.
But not only... The significance of that, it was like a front of war to the state.
This was not just a hole in the ground.
This was a hole in the nation, a hole in the heart of the nation.
If these guys can be killed like that, nobody who serves the state is safe.
This is the great message that they were trying to put on.
So is it fair to say that this moment marked the beginning,
even here in Sicily, of a popular revulsion against the Mafia?
Definitely. The people really understood
that they could not allow something like that to happen.
But Falcone's death would kick-start a popular revolt against the Mafia.
The Sicily I love so much began to find a voice, to fight back.
In 2004, the Addiopizzo collective was born in Palermo,
an organisation of businesses who refused to pay the pizzo -
protection money to the Mafia.
Now, over 700 businesses across Sicily are part of the movement.
And one of the first to take a stand was the owner of the Antica Focacceria, Vincenzo Conticello.
When he reported the Mafia demands for bribes to the police,
the Mafia repeatedly vandalised the restaurant and threatened to kill him.
Buongiorno.
It got so bad that Vincenzo had to leave Palermo
and now lives under 24-hour police protection.
Grazie.
Valentina Lomeo, who works here, remembers the threats and intimidation very well.
Vincenzo found his cat and then his dog died.
And...
- They killed his cat and his dog? - Yes.
- Just one process after another. - Yes.
To scare him. And then he found his car broken and open.
So they said him,
"We will find you."
The implication is if they kill your cat and they kill your dog,
that's a way of saying, "Well, next, maybe your child, maybe your wife".
- It's true. - So he's a very brave man.
Yeah, he's a very, very brave man.
But he...
He discovered that he was a brave man in that moment.
This is an incredible story. It makes me want to cry, man.
Where is Vincenzo now?
I can't say where is Vincenzo,
but he always stays in a different place.
- So you can't say where he is because he's still in danger? - Yeah.
I don't feel well with this situation.
But I'm very proud about Vincenzo.
What he has done is good for me, for my work,
for my Sicily.
It's taken the efforts of Vincenzo and others like him
to make it possible for a new generation of Sicilians
to imagine a future free from the Mafia,
even if it's not yet a reality.
- Buongiorno. - Ciao. - Ciao. Piacere, Giorgio.
- Ciao. - Andrew.
Laboratorio Saccardi are the most talked about artists in Palermo right now,
with a growing international reputation.
And they're not scared of offending the Cosa Nostra, or Caravaggio.
I like this, look. This is my special subject, Caravaggio.
But this is the Caravaggio that got stolen,
I think in the '60s, by the Mafia, to order,
from the Oratory of San Lorenzo here.
And this is Laboratorio Saccardi's joke on this theft.
So, sort of, you know, the celebration of the Nativity.
"Mafia art collection."
I didn't know that it was possible to do satires on the Mafia.
Yeah, well, I like this.
This is, what do you say, a work in progress.
"Sicania" is the old name of Sicily. "Rising" is because of this strength of renewal,
just rising out of...
So there's a lot of grass as well.
It's been a real pleasure to meet you, guys.
- Bye. - Bye-bye. - Ciao.
So, it's our last night in Palermo,
and we are spending it back at the Vucciria.
In evenings, when the market traders close shop,
the area is transformed into an outdoor living room where Palermitans come to unwind.
And I want to stop at the Taverna Azzurra.
Drink.
After you.
It's not somewhere you find in many guidebooks.
I wanted to bring Andrew to a place where Sicilians of all ages and backgrounds spend an evening.
All we need now is two glasses of the local aperitif.
Grazie.
So I was thinking that Palermo, this chaotic town,
feels like a kind of microcosm of Sicily itself.
It's like if you took all Sicily and squeezed it like an orange,
that would be Palermo.
- Yeah, the juices. - Yeah.
The other thing about this place is, it seems to me,
that more and more you travel in the world,
the more everywhere becomes the same as everywhere else.
- It's almost like the experience of travel has been homogenised. - Sanitised. - Sanitised.
You know, you go in the coach, to the museum, to the air-conditioned restaurant,
you eat the same international cuisine.
- That's right. - But you come to Sicily and it's different.
They think that everybody should comply to their style of life.
If you had to pick one thing out from this journey,
what would be the one thing that stands out for you?
Definitely the Vucciria was something that left me completely breathless.
- The market. - Yes, the market and the painting. - And the painting!
- The one you wanted to take home. - The painting. - Maybe one day.
Just an incredible piece of art, isn't it?
- And what did you like best? - I'd say two things.
I'd say the Cuticchio puppet theatre. I was blown away by it.
And the other thing, which you're going to have to do again when we get back to London,
if you can with the ingredients, is the pasta.
It was really, I wasn't exaggerating, the best plate of pasta I've ever had.
- Ever? - Seriously. - Let's drink to that, man.
Drink to Palermo. What have you chosen that we're going to drink to Palermo with?
- This is called sangue, which means blood. - Blood.
So this is the blood of Palermo.
- Cheers. - Alla salute. - Alla salute.
- It's an aperitif. - Are you playing a joke on me?
You think I'm...
That's not an aperitif. That's dynamite.
I did just feel another hair grow on my chest.
Next week, we travel to the south and discover the legacy of the Spanish coloniser
who ruled the island for over 400 years.
We'll celebrate Easter in the true Sicilian style,
following spectacular processions,
and share a traditional Easter lunch with a family.
- I sit at the top of the table. - Yeah, why not?
It's a tale of two Sicilies.
One of great wealth and privilege for the nobles.
I think the richer you were, the more you got a place up the hill.
The whole town, the theatre of the town, seems to be up the hill.
And one of poverty and hardship for ordinary people.
At its height of population, 20,000 people lived in these caves.
But true to form, the Sicilians always found ways of creating great culture out of simple things.
Oh, my God!
- Grazie. - Delizioso!
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk