Going down towards Pozzallo, before embarking for Malta, it is a must to walk towards Scicli, Punta Secca and Noto to savour the exploits of Inspector Montalbano and the misfortunes of the Pirate
Someone like Andrea Camilleri never dies.
It stays alive forever.
It is right to celebrate his birth and September 6, 2025. The centenary is approaching so quickly that it is encouraging publishing houses to launch a thousand initiatives to celebrate the anniversary of the most translated Sicilian writer in the world, even though he must compete with Leonardo Sciascia, Salvatore Quasimodo, Giovanni Verga, and that Nobel Prize winner Luigi Pirandello, whose path to redemption in writing was struck by lightning when the fellow countryman of "One, No One and One Hundred Thousand" knocked on the door of the royal house in Porto Empedocle.
The Republic, The Corriere della Sera, the Rai and so on, they compete to dust off Inspector Montalbano and to appease the wider public with new editions and/or re-editions of that bibliography that never fades and that will go far beyond the unfortunate date of July 17, 2019, the day of his disappearance in Rome where he lived a stone's throw from the city home of the showman Rosario Tindaro known as Fiorello.
We built the ideal bridge to Ferragosto in the name of literature by reading "La prova," in which Lollo wants to marry his longtime girlfriend without a trace, except that his plan runs afoul of a prostitute and all paradigms shift in the blink of an eye. Delightful (the book, of course). Little by little, we'll discover all the other volumes that have been announced: "L'uomo è forte," "I quattro Natali di Tridicino," "La guerra privata di Samuele," "La targa," and "La triple vita di Michele Sparacino." The last two are scheduled to be released around the centenary: they'll absorb us at least as much as the Formula One Grand Prix in Monza, which we'll be experiencing strictly from afar.
Keeping up with Camilleri is almost as impossible as reaching the heart of his Imaginary Town—Vigàta, in the Province of Fantasy—which is the fictional transposition of his Porto Empedocle. Vigàta doesn't exist. It's a cross between Licata, without being Licata, and one of those little villages where his friends and schoolmates' coaches would head, reaching Porto Empedocle early in the morning and leaving in the afternoon, returning the next day.
Whenever you drive down to Pozzallo to board a ferry to Malta, a stop in Scicli is a must, because it's where Camilleri's imaginary world comes to life. This baroque town is the quintessential "place" that looms before your eyes as the Vigàta Police Station. You can visit it for €4 or so at set times. Reservations are recommended, as recommended by Visit Scicli. It's on Via Francesco Mormino Penna, on the corner of Via Nazionale. It's essentially the Town Hall. Climb nine steps and you're at the entrance, already blessed with UNESCO heritage. Arriving in the historic center, you'll find a flourish of charming places where you can enjoy a granita, gelato, coffee, or even something more substantial. To ensure you don't miss the evening boarding at Virtu Ferries, you'll need to add a few hours to your ideal schedule. With the sea at your back, Modica and Ragusa lie to the northwest. And Noto further east.
Here, Noto. Let's leave aside Camilleri and his Montalbano for a moment. And let's leave on hold the start of the 2008 Giro, where Villa Bordonaro hosted us for a gala dinner unforgettable for the XNUMXth-century Flemish paintings hanging in the first-floor rooms and for a swordfish as long as here and there, grilled and capable of satisfying the palates of dozens and dozens of guests. The writer honored us with a poem, echoing the "Volata di Calò," written to praise the founder Calogero of the then-ruling Montante family, who had hosted him as an evacuee in Serradifalco, in the province of Caltanissetta, and from where he had raced down to Porto Empedocle on a bicycle with rod brakes in search of his father, who had been spared by the Liberation by the Allied military.
Camilleri crossed paths with the oncoming military convoy. And so on... The "Volata" was born, which the Montante heir, between a truck shock absorber made in Asti and an Italian-style iron bicycle, used to embellish the special edition of that bike, which is a bit like the Bianchi of the South. Misfortunes, intrigues, false battles against the Mafia through—it seems—a pseudo-Lergaltà, etc., the figure of Antonello overlapped with that of his grandfather "Calò" who had left him a great legacy.
Camilleri, bikes, the Giro, the Sicily of Scicli, Noto, and the Baroque. And… a dive into a memory that will never leave me. Visiting the Vigàta Police Station and knowing that Modica and Noto are just a stone's throw away, if you're a little ahead of the Pozzallo boarding time for Valletta, you inevitably end up in Noto, refreshing your memory of the 1999 Giro. It started in Agrigento, whose temples overlook Porto Empedocle—here we are again…—with the first stage in Modica, with Ivan Quaranta's winning sprint on May 15th. The second stage departed on the 16th from Noto to Catania. That Giro inherited the 1998 triumphs of Marco Pantani in pink and then in yellow for the double marred by the Festina Affair at the Tour de France. And Mercatone Uno had locked down Il Pirata for a myriad of reasons, such as the risk of special controls for supplies of substances incompatible with sport and a healthy lifestyle. And we'll stop there.
The fact is that on that Sunday morning of May 16, 1999, having just visited a photography exhibition in a deconsecrated church in Noto, I crossed the historic center to the Mercatone Uno team's hospitality stand, where since the previous day they had been offering a premium-roasted coffee as part of a public relations effort initiated by Romano Cenni, the owner of the large-scale retail brand. There was a certain over-the-top commotion. And in the enclosure was a man who looked like a caricature: black suit, white shirt, black tie, and a black bowler hat à la Rino Gaetano. He had introduced himself as a professional jinx and was demanding a substantial offer to keep the team from focusing its attention on Pantani.
Almost thirty years later, it makes us think that the team's financial managers did not adequately satisfy the demands of the black-clad jinx, considering that Pantani soared on the Gran Sasso, recovered from the mechanical problem at Oropa by overtaking 43 opponents who had slipped in front of his handlebars on a climb, but was unable to blunt the misfortune of Madonna di Campiglio, which resulted in his withdrawal from "his" second Giro, which ended in Aprica in the hands of his rival Ivan "Ruba-Gotti," as the Bergamo native would later be nicknamed.
Descending from Catania toward Pozzallo, without stopping at the Virtu ferry terminal, you can start the map with a line of Donnalucata, Punta Secca, Santa Croce Camerina, Ragusa, Noto, and Ispica, ending at Pozzallo. Inside, Scicli and Modica remain. It's an irregular geometric shape that resonates with Camilleri, a master at distorting real names into dots that serve his narratives and pique everyone's curiosity. There, you can glimpse the police station—in Scicli, precisely, with the office of the Montelusa Police Chief—as well as the "private" house overlooking the sea at Puntasecca. It's all magic branded Alberto Sironi, the first director of Luca Zingaretti who became "Montalbano, I am" and then also director of himself after the death, in 2019, twenty days after the passing of Camilleri, of the filmmaker and screenwriter from Busto Arsizio (Varese), who one day visited the offices of La Gazzetta dello Sport in the company, if we remember correctly, of Sergio Meda.
In that corner of paradise, you increasingly come across cars with three-letter, three-digit Maltese license plates and right-hand drive. Some of them might be neighbors in Sliema or San Giuliano. There's certainly a friend from Birkirkara who has transformed the south of the island and the eastern coast that passes Catania, leaving Etna on the left and climbing up to Taormina as a refreshing destination for food and wine adventures. He too will learn to love Camilleri and Montalbano. While waiting for the desired response, we dive into the new stories, and take a look at the Corriere series.
And now let's enjoy Ferragosto.
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