Vincenzo Girasoli
1.The Elephant
We’ll begin our tour with the Elephant, the statue that’s also the symbol of the city. Only few things are know for sure: it’s a statue made of volcanic rock (either by the Byzantines or the Carthaginians) and brought in Sicily by the Benedictine monks, becoming Catania’s emblem in 1200 AD . This elephant became part of the monumental fountain that faces Catania’s Cathedral during the XVII century – the proboscis pointing toward the church as if the beast were paying homage to the patron Saint Agatha. According to the most famous legend, this statue was made by Liodoro around the VIII century AD; this man was the owner of an elephant he would use to travel back and forth Catania and Costantinople. He also happened to be an heretic who enraged Pope Leo II, who ordered him burned at the stake and his volcanic rock masterpiece thrown outside the city walls. Too bad for the pope, Catania’s citizens loved the man, so they retrieved the statue, giving it the name Liotru – from Liodoro. Scientifically speaking, archaeologists have found numerous remnants of dwarf elephants from the Paleolithic – such a discovery prompted researchers to ask: what if the people from ancient Sicily mistook these elephants’ proboscises for a single eye, creating the myth of the cyclops? It would only made sense, given the fact the most famous cyclops Polyphemus was invented by the Ancient Greeks and Sicily belonged to Magna Graecia. Continue reading clicking the below button >
