Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity: The Strait of Scylla and Charybdis in the Modern Imagination 9781350118188, 9781350118218, 9781350118195

Table of contents :
Cover page
Halftitle page
Series page
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Contents
Figures
Acknowledgements
Author’s Notes
1 Introduction
2 The Strait of Homer and the Strait of Reality
2.1 Methodology: Textuality, historiography, ethnography
2.2 The exceptional landscape: Myth and history
2.3 The South-as-Greece: Hellenicism
2.4 Constructing place: The mediated and the real
2.5 Projecting identities: Banal identitarianism
3 Chronotopes of Hellas: The StraitDuring the Grand Tour
3.1 Geographies of Graeco-Roman mythology
3.2 Cartographies of Homeric landmarks
3.3 Maps of monsters: The feminine asnature’s beauty and dread
3.4 Southernizing the landscape: Europe and its Others
3.5 From the travelogues to tourism
4 Mediterranean Place-Myths
4.1 Travel, exploration and mythological journeys
4.2 On the track of Odysseus: The Homeric Mediterranean
4.3 Italy from the sky: The picturesque South
4.4 Vistas of stillness: Greater Greece and Mediterraneanism
4.5 Playing Odysseus: The literary travellers
5 Myths of Myths: Mapping the Odyssey
5.1 Homeric geographies: Between epos and history
5.2 Contested mappings: Traditionalists, revisionists, heretics
5.3 Observations and expectations
5.4 The viper fish and the whirlpool: Claiming Homer in the Strait
5.5 Experiencing the sea of myths
6 Materializing Heritage: Tourism in Scilla
6.1 Symbolic accretion and pervasive heritage
6.2 Tourism in Scilla town
6.3 From the ground: Expectations and disappointments
6.4 The canon and the environment
6.5 Monumentalizing antiquity
7 Denizens of the Odyssey: Greater Greece in the Strait
7.1 The Greeks and the ‘rabble’: Popular histories of the Strait
7.2 Greece and its Others: Dominant historiographies
7.3 Foundational fathers: Homer in Reggio
7.4 Banal identitarianism: Hellas and contested politics
7.5 Heirs of Homer: Local hide, global pride
8 Conclusions: (Re-)Imagining the Strait
8.1 Mythical lands and historical mirages
8.2 Deconstructions and reconstructions
8.3 Places and bodies: Inhabiting history
8.4 The Strait and the Mediterranean
8.5 Re-imagining the Strait
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

i

Imagines – Classical Receptions in the Visual and Performing Arts Series Editors: Filippo Carlà-Uhink and Martin Lindner

Other titles in this series Ancient Greece and Rome in Videogames: Representation, Play, Transmedia, by Ross Clare Ancient Violence in the Modern Imagination: The Fear and the Fury, edited by Irene Berti, Maria G. Castello and Carla Scilabra Art Nouveau and the Classical Tradition, by Richard Warren Classical Antiquity in Heavy Metal Music, edited by K. F. B. Fletcher and Osman Umurhan Classical Antiquity in Video Games, edited by Christian Rollinger A Homeric Catalogue of Shapes, by Charlayn von Solms Orientalism and the Reception of Powerful Women from the Ancient World, edited by Filippo Carlà-Uhink and Anja Wieber Representations of Classical Greece in Theme Parks, by Filippo Carlà-Uhink Screening Love and War in Troy: Fall of a City, edited by Antony Augoustakis and Monica S. Cyrino The Ancient Mediterranean Sea in Modern Visual and Performing Arts, edited by Rosario Rovira Guardiola The Smells and Senses of Antiquity in the Modern Imagination, edited by Adeline Grand-Clément and Charlotte Ribeyrol

ii

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity The Strait of Scylla and Charybdis in the Modern Imagination Marco Benoît Carbone

iii

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2022 Copyright © Marco Benoît Carbone, 2022 Marco Benoît Carbone has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. xi constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover image: Engraving of Scylla and Charybdis by Matthaus Merian the Elder 17th century. Private collection. (Photo by Araldo de Luca/Corbis via Getty Images) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Benoît Carbone, Marco, author. Title: Geographies of myth and places of identity : the Strait of Scylla and Charybdis in the modern imagination / Marco Benoît Carbone. Other titles: Imagines – Classical receptions in the visual and performing arts. Description: New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2022. | Series: Imagines - classical receptions in the visual and performing arts | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021033264 (print) | LCCN 2021033265 (ebook) | ISBN 9781350118188 (hardback) | ISBN 9781350118195 (ebook) | ISBN 9781350118201 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Scylla and Charybdis (Greek mythology) | Civilization, Western--Classical influences. Classification: LCC BL820.S39 B46 2022 (print) | LCC BL820.S39 (ebook) | DDC 398/.4690916386—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021033264 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021033265 ISBN:

HB: ePDF: eBook:

978-1-3501-1818-8 978-1-3501-1819-5 978-1-3501-1820-1

Series: IMAGINES — Classical Receptions in the Visual and Performing Arts Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

iv

In memory of Francesca, Natalino and Maristella.

v

vi

Contents List of Figures Acknowledgements Author’s Notes

ix xi xvi

1

Introduction

2

The Strait of Homer and the Strait of Reality 2.1 Methodology: Textuality, historiography, ethnography 2.2 The exceptional landscape: Myth and history 2.3 The South-as-Greece: Hellenicism 2.4 Constructing place: The mediated and the real 2.5 Projecting identities: Banal identitarianism

11

Chronotopes of Hellas: The Strait During the Grand Tour 3.1 Geographies of Graeco-Roman mythology 3.2 Cartographies of Homeric landmarks 3.3 Maps of monsters: The feminine as nature’s beauty and dread 3.4 Southernizing the landscape: Europe and its Others 3.5 From the travelogues to tourism

41

Mediterranean Place-Myths 4.1 Travel, exploration and mythological journeys 4.2 On the track of Odysseus: The Homeric Mediterranean 4.3 Italy from the sky: The picturesque South 4.4 Vistas of stillness: Greater Greece and Mediterraneanism 4.5 Playing Odysseus: The literary travellers

63

Myths of Myths: Mapping the Odyssey 5.1 Homeric geographies: Between epos and history 5.2 Contested mappings: Traditionalists, revisionists, heretics 5.3 Observations and expectations 5.4 The viper fish and the whirlpool: Claiming Homer in the Strait 5.5 Experiencing the sea of myths

85

3

4

5

1

18 27 29 33 36

43 46 50 52 57

66 71 74 78 80

89 92 96 100 106

vii

viii

6

7

8

Contents

Materializing Heritage: Tourism in Scilla 6.1 Symbolic accretion and pervasive heritage 6.2 Tourism in Scilla town 6.3 From the ground: Expectations and disappointments 6.4 The canon and the environment 6.5 Monumentalizing antiquity

113

Denizens of the Odyssey: Greater Greece in the Strait 7.1 The Greeks and the ‘rabble’: Popular histories of the Strait 7.2 Greece and its Others: Dominant historiographies 7.3 Foundational fathers: Homer in Reggio 7.4 Banal identitarianism: Hellas and contested politics 7.5 Heirs of Homer: Local hide, global pride

141

Conclusions: (Re-)Imagining the Strait 8.1 Mythical lands and historical mirages 8.2 Deconstructions and reconstructions 8.3 Places and bodies: Inhabiting history 8.4 The Strait and the Mediterranean 8.5 Re-imagining the Strait

167

Notes Bibliography Index

117 124 130 134 137

145 148 151 156 162

168 172 177 182 184 189 221 251

Figures 1.1 1.2 1.3 2.1

2.2

2.3 2.4 3.1

3.2

3.3 4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1 5.2

Aerial view of the Strait from the Sicilian side with Calabria at the opposite end. Photo by author. A view of Scilla’s rock from the sea. Photo by author. Mythological statue of Scylla in Scilla town’s main square by Francesco Triglia, 2014. Photo by author. ‘Caribdis escollo en el Faro de Mecina que fingieron los Poetas monstruo che se tragava las embarcaciones’ (1886), in Crespo Delgado/Romero Muñoz (2009). A view of the replica of Giovanni Montorsoli’s statue of Neptune with Scylla and Charybdis, 1547–64, displayed in Messina, Italy. Photo by author. Main research locations. Map composition by author. View of Scilla town, Chianalea quarter. Photo by author. A route of Graeco-Roman landmarks. Detail from Saint-Non’s Voyage (1783). Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali – Biblioteca Nazionale ‘Vittorio Emanuele III’, Napoli. The Strait of Homeric myths and a view of Scilla’s promontory. Detail from G. Fortuyn, Aspetto meridionale della città di Scilla, incision (1773). Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali – Biblioteca Nazionale ‘Vittorio Emanuele III’, Napoli. A bookstand in Scilla town with histories of the town and Greater Greece. Photo by author. The Mediterranean of myths, in E. Lessing, The Voyages of Ulysses (1965). Photo by author. Stills from The Search of Ulysses (1966). The promontory of Scilla (top) and a cliff in Palmi (bottom). Photos by author. A viper fish in Reggio Calabria’s Museo di Biologia Marina. Photo by author. Currents in the Strait from Cannitello, a few miles off Scilla. Photo by author.

2 2 3

16

17 22 23

47

49 60 69 73 77 101 104 ix

x

5.3 6.1 6.2 6.3 7.1 7.2

8.1 8.2

8.3

Figures

Maria Rando’s statue to the victims of the sea in Punta Faro, Sicily. Photo by author. Mythological arch and statue ‘Scyllae Civitas’, Francesco Jerace, 1935, in Scilla, Calabria. Photo by author. Actresses in Scilla playing as Sirens and a Scylla monster inflatable. Photo by author. Tourists in Scilla town, overlooking the Strait and Sicily. Photo by author. Postcards of the Bronze Warriors in Reggio Calabria’s Archaeological Museum. Photo by author. Replica of Phidias’ Athena Promachos by Antonio Bonfiglio (1940s, resting on a 1932 pillar), in the modern Anfiteatro Anassilao (Arena dello Stretto), Reggio Calabria. Photo courtesy of Loredana Guinicelli. A child lifted by a tall wave in Scilla’s turbulent waters. Photo by author. Advertisement for the MArRC (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Reggio Calabria) in one of Reggio’s train stations. Photo by author. View from the Strait, facing Punta Faro in Sicily. Photo by author.

110 118 121 127 157

164 173

180 188

Acknowledgements The story behind this book is rather long and turbulent, spanning little short of a decade. It started with a relocation from Bologna, my adoptive town in the North of Italy, to London, to start my doctorate at University College London. This was a way to pursue my passion in the area of the reception of antiquity, while escaping from unemployment as an intellectual labourer hit by the global crisis in his early thirties. However, as I would realize in hindsight, it was also a marker of ambivalence – a way for me to get further away from my birthplace in Calabria while looking back at it from a distance, as if cautiously assessing its relations with antiquity – and my chances to reunite with it. By the time I got past both the thrills and the painful wall-hitting of a London PhD life with no solid economic backing, I was also initiating my ethnography down in my ‘South’ of Italy: the land of Graeco-Roman myths from my childhood and teen years. Soon after, I juggled my doctoral studies with teaching in various universities in London. These years were of febrile labour and a rebuilding of my perspectives as a scholar, subjected to the demands of training rigour and facing a casualized job market as a precarious academic, but encompassing satisfying, interdisciplinary professional growth. Still, this academic empowering was far from painless. Even with the privilege of my ethnicity (a ‘white other’ in the census) my work constantly faced not only the burden of interdisciplinarity – an enriching approach, albeit one that is exposed to multiplied foci of attack – but, more seriously, precariousness in life and work conditions. There was also a relative displacement and deconstruction of my identity, culminating in 2016 in acquiring a taste of what it means to feel like a ‘citizen of nowhere’. Defending the thesis marked – as for all PhDs – a momentous milestone. But both plans to publish and nostalgia for my homeplaces were superseded by an urge to stabilize my employment. A few months later, in summer, I was in Italy for a short break, electronically signing my first permanent university contract after a successful interview in London a few days earlier. On the same day, I discovered a serious health condition. Three and a half months of hospitalization ensued, but soon after my recovery I was on a flight back to London in search of a flat and to reclaim my new job. From a B&B, I sent back the signed contract of xi

xii

Acknowledgements

this book. I had written its proposal on a tiny green-hued glass desk in a reception hall of my hospital wing, in between operations, during convalescence, monitored by medical devices. The years that followed in London marked a desire to question and refine the scope of my doctoral thesis, do further research, and complete this monograph while initiating a tasking new commitment. My vicissitudes certainly imparted a sense of challenge to the writing up. While it is hard to assess how much this piece of work has been shaped by such tribulations, I am only giving in to the temptation of equating it to an Odyssey – whose reception is part of the object of the study – insofar as the metaphor captures an involuntary journey, largely devoid of sympathy for the narcissistic endeavours of the followers of the canonical hero, even though marked by an obstinate pursuit of its completion. What this experience has hopefully generated is a cognisance of different frames and perspectives concerning not only different methods, and not just a specific place in the world, but also place and identity, transience and mobility more at large. While obviously shaped by my own circumstances, my findings will hopefully have a few interested in relating them to their own stories, contexts and intellectual-historical-ethnographic curiosity. Over the course of these years, I have met a great number of people with whom I have incurred a debt for contributing to the existence and shaping of this study, undoubtedly more than I will be able to mention here. I should like to thank again my supervisors at UCL, Maria Wyke and Charles Stewart, for agreeing to my undertaking of doctoral work under their guidance and offering their complementary perspectives; and some who then variously helped me by commenting on my research and offering feedback or simply their friendly support, like Stephen Hart, Lee Grieveson, Gesine Manuwald, Stephen Colvin, and Cristina Massaccesi. I owe to UCL Greek and Latin and CMII initial backing of my ethnographic experience in the Strait in 2014. Initially driven by the pursuit of a documentary film, this experience complemented the archival and historical work and enhanced my perception of the method and object of study. In Calabria and Sicily (and elsewhere) I have been enriched and challenged by my encounters with the many subjectivities that crossed paths with me and allowed me glimpses into their lives and motivations, projects and hopes, irks and disappointments about Greater Greece and the present. Among them (while excluding a few at their own request for privacy, and with the added risk of forgetting too many) are Fortunato Polistena, Antonio Palamara, Francesco Triglia – and his precious documentation about his Scylla statue – Rocco Macrì,

Acknowledgements

xiii

Gesualdo Bergamo, Maurizio Marzolla and Paolo Barone of the Scilla Diving Center; Gaetano Giunta and Giacomo Farina from Horcynus Orca, Rocco Imbesi, Maria Rando, Francesca Borgia, Cosima Cardona, Oreste Kessel Pace, Mauro Longo, Valentina Longo, Sievim Beudin, Anne-Marie Lockheed and Francesco Porcaro from the Club UNESCO Scilla; Caterina Pastura from Mesogea; Florindo Rubbettino, Angela Pellicanò, Ninni Donato, Fabio de Chirico and the Mayor of Reggio Calabria Giuseppe Falcomatà. Francesco Praticò from the Casa Vela B&B in Scilla and Antonio Castorina from Centro Studi Aci Trezza have been particularly valuable informants and friends. Angelo Vazzana has been friendly and inspiring in guiding me through his Museum of Marine Biology, and kindly agreed to appear in one of my photos with his iconic ‘Skylla fish’. I hope that he will understand my criticism of his theses, in the light of my praise of his passionate public engagement. The late philologist Franco Mosino struck me for his erudition and infectious liveliness, even while preaching at an end of the political spectrum different to my own; I am thankful to him as well as his heirs, Manuela and Giandiego Càrastro, for their welcoming and attentive support to my work. The spark that led to the present publication was set off by publishing a paper in this very series: I am thankful to Rosario Rovira Guardiola for entrusting to me with the task of writing a chapter for her collection The Ancient Mediterranean Sea in Modern Visual and Performing Arts (2017). Series Editors Filippo CarlàUhink and Martin Lindner and the Publisher later kindly welcomed a proposal of mine. I should importantly mention the Editors at Bloomsbury Academic, Alice Wright and especially Lily Mac Mahon, who offered her continued assistance and demonstrated patience with my delays and requests. My reviewers provided feedback on my initial draft and a chance to deliver a more effective piece of writing. For this edition, I am thankful to those mentioned in my List of Figures for kindly allowing use of their textual and iconographic resources; and to the often unsung heroes – the staff at various libraries, from my beloved Senate House, ICS, and UCL libraries in London to the Biblioteca Universitaria in Bologna and Reggio Calabria’s Biblioteca Comunale Pietro De Nava. Loredana Guinicelli has graciously granted use of her wonderful photographic artwork to supersede one of my own. Vincenzo Leotta has my gratitude for his willingness to help and prodigality. I should next wholeheartedly thank Louise Chapman as an external Editor who provided her professionalism and wisely used the executive powers bestowed upon her to kill (some of) my textual darlings in my stead while I was in academic burnout, now that books are subjected to an increased pressure to be slimmer. It is my hope that the half-handful of readers

xiv

Acknowledgements

possibly interested in my work will want to seek more extensive documentation on my companion website, www.marcobenoit.net/geographiesofmyth/. During the write-up I was able to benefit from the readings and insightful criticism of many who have been of precious influence, whether by reading chapters and extracts, sharing their thoughts on my objectives, or confronting me with constructive criticism. Among these are Eric Hirsch and Anna Tuckett from Brunel University, London, Anthropology for commenting on my drafts; as well as the rest of the department for giving me a chance to present my ideas in their seminar series. I express similar gratitude to Curtis Dozier, Vassar College, and the convenors and speakers of the 2021 Archaeological Institute of America/ Society for Classical Studies Joint Annual Meeting for offering an important venue to share some of my theses on Hellenicism in Calabria. In addition to these, Jonathan Burgess from the University of Toronto shared his expertise and travel notes on Homeric geographies; Francescomaria Tedesco of the Università di Camerino has always been willing to discuss Mediterraneism and invaluable for his relentlessly and inspiringly sharp criticism; Giorgio Bertellini, University of Michigan, welcomed discussion of Southernism; and Stavroula Pipyrou, University of St Andrews, has consistently encouraged, acknowledged, and validated my ambitions as a researcher; Mauro Francesco Minervino, ABA Catanzaro, similarly encouraged me. Some of my colleagues and closest friends, Federico Ugolini, University of Haifa, and Federico Giordano, University of Perugia, have not only always offered me enjoyable discussions and constructive criticism, but also invaluable personal support, often bearing the cross of being a patient audience for my brain bugs about both academic and real life. I should also thank Andrew Lemon and Hillegonda Rietveld; Antonio Zoccali and Giulia Cardona, sharing my love of Scilla town; Ivan Girina and Gianluca Balla for their precious friendship and suffering my interminable lamentations; Giovanna Maina and Federico Zecca for their unselfish support and always being points of reference; Henry Martin T. Demasco; Mario de Pasquale; Anna Marie Galea; Sara Bova; and Rossella Catanese, Marco Teti, Luciano Attinà, Francesca Barbalace and Massimiliano Spanu for their deep amity and trusted affinity. Notwithstanding the vast amount of support that I was lucky enough to receive, any inconsistencies, misunderstandings, errors or shortcomings of this research will still reside firmly on my shoulders. Last but not least, I should probably thank my family, for not standing in the way at least some of the time; and Maria Chiara Billi, for never failing to be there when I was really in need. I am indebted to Mimmo Carbone for his vital support with words and actions and to the doctors and staff at the San Donato for pulling

Acknowledgements

xv

me out of the Underworld so I could continue my journey. Federico Giordano deserves very special thanks for our discussions on the Mezzogiorno and our ‘land of remorses’; for his opinionated erudition; for our glasses of good wine; for his continuous friendship and selfless support in and outside academia; and for being a wonderful part of my memories of himself and his beloved Francesca Saffioti. These have never faded from me throughout the pondering, writing and editing of this study, and I like to imagine that they are an integral part of it. This book is finally dedicated to my family who could never read it.

Author’s Notes This study is based on evidence drawn in part from ethnographic work carried out during my doctoral research at University College London. Most of the individuals cited in this study have kindly agreed to inform my research and graciously consented to be mentioned in it with their real names. A few have been anonymized to protect their privacy and their narratives have been rendered untraceable. The reader will find more extensive iconographies, film documentation and interviews with my informants on my companion website, www.marcobenoit. net/geographiesofmyth/. The author would like to state that he wishes to respectfully distance himself from the denomination of ‘classics’ usually employed by scholars. He hopes that more specific denominations, like ‘Graeco-Roman’, or others covering specific subjects, are preferred instead in the future as the debate on ‘classicism’ evolves in the field. Such denominations will appear in his view less generic and ideologically loaded, and untainted from the exclusionary baggage of the one in traditional and current use. Notwithstanding, the author wishes to emphasize that he holds in high praise and wholeheartedly supports the value and worth of the series and the list, their scientific and intellectual contents, and their Editors and authors.

xvi

1

Introduction

Towards the end of August 2014, I got up from my beach mat overlooking Sicily as the sun set on a hot summer day and people enjoyed their last dive. Walking up to the street side and then through a small alley with a café called Calypso, I stepped into a tavern. I was in Scilla, a small town by the sea in Calabria, Italy that has been traditionally associated with the myth of Scylla and Charybdis from Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey.1 Fortunato and Antonio, a fisherman and fishmonger, welcomed me to have a few drinks and talk about life in a town steeped in the memory (and place branding) of Magna Greacia: the former Greater Greece, a geographic area that encompassed parts of Southern Italy once inhabited by ancient Greek settlers. The two Scillesi also elaborated on the town’s economy, which owes a lot to seasonal intake from local seaside tourism. While drinking Peroni, Fortunato described to me the currents of the Strait (Figures 1.2, 5.2) that had generated the ‘fable of the monster’ from the Odyssey. Here, whirlpools would have once dragged down sailors, inspiring the myths. Indeed, mention of the Strait of Reggio and Messina – a narrow passage of water between the Tyrrhenian and Ionian Seas separating mainland Calabria from the Italian island of Sicily (Figures 1.1, 1.2) – frequently conjures up images of Scylla and Charybdis, the ancient Greeks and picturesque Mediterranean Italy. As Fortunato and Antonio reminded me, the Strait has enjoyed an enviably attractive literary aura with international renown owing to Homer and the poleis of antiquity. In textual, iconographic and historical traditions, scholars and explorers have explained the myths as metaphors of whirlpools, caves, sea rocks and marine animals. Images of the Strait as the inspirational source and abode of the mythological monsters have been reworked in the modern imagination from popular histories to scholarship, from the arts to travel cultures, from cartography to tourism. Travellers and tourists have often ‘played Odysseus’ by re-enacting his journey.2 This legacy is fairly apparent in Scilla town. In the central square, Francesco Triglia’s statue of the mythological Scylla captures the moment of the creature’s 1

2

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

Figure 1.1 Aerial view of the Strait from the Sicilian side with Calabria at the opposite end. Photo by author.

Figure 1.2 A view of Scilla’s rock from the sea. Photo by author.

Introduction

3

metamorphosis, dominating the onlooker from a height of some three metres and a view of the Strait with Sicily in sight (Figure 1.3). While discussing the mythology of the town, the burly Scillesi jokingly likened themselves to Odysseus, reminding me of the artists and explorers who had reworked the Odyssey and even tried to sail in the hero’s tracks over these seas. Then, their humour soured. As Fortunato put it, his boat was an ancient spatara used to hunt swordfish – a practice thought to hail back to Homer. Politicians, he said, claimed to support traditional activities and praised Scilla’s roots in ancient Greece in election times, but did not in reality promote any financially supportive policies. In the guise of hi-tech Charybdes, the boats of the multinational fishing industry devoured fish at a far quicker pace. The town, they continued, also suffered from chronic unemployment; sustainable, literary tourism had been perennially hailed as a key to development, but it had never taken off. In his raspy voice, Antonio concluded that ‘Homer had done a lot, while ourselves – we have done very little’. Antonio’s formulation condenses the gist of my research in the area of the Strait, particularly in the province of Reggio, as a site where the construction of a canonized Greek past has become a fundamental element in the modern region’s renown in the arts and literary cultures – and of its hopes and aspirations. At the same time, it plays a role in the region’s efforts to cope with a ‘crisis of presence’ as a marginal economy facing political disenfranchisement in Italy and

Figure 1.3 Mythological statue of Scylla in Scilla town’s main square by Francesco Triglia, 2014. Photo by author.

4

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

Europe.3 This book follows the cultural trajectories of the Homeric Strait from modernity to the present, presenting a historical and in-field treatment of the mythological landmark today. It focuses on how Greater Greece binds together ideas about geography and history to create a memory that then sustains local formulations of heritage, aspirations for tourism and development, constructions of cultural identity, and even myths of an ethnic ‘descent’ from the Greeks. An interrogation of how historical and imaginative geographies impact on the sense of place and identity, this study discusses the ‘projections’ of the past4 and interplay between literature, heritage, landscape and popular histories and archaeologies. It participates in a current approach to historical experience that investigates the specific question of how ‘history is subjectively experienced by people in the process of orienting their present toward the past’.5 I consider two intertwined perspectives. First, there is the Strait’s enduring fascination to tourists, travellers, artists and in media such as literature, film and documentaries. Second, the role of Greek antiquity has shaped ways of understanding the landscape, memory and heritage – even inviting the appropriation of Homer as an asset for literary tourism and as a foundational figure. This is thus an investigation into a sense of history for a sense of place. From this standpoint, the Strait is both liminal and marginal. It is liminal because its geographical position has made it work like an in-between, a ‘borderland’ between Europe and its Others, stuck in a backward present. Its liminality entails a state of in-between and threshold that has provided a setting suitable for imaginative travel. Yet the region has also been intended as peripheral and far from the centre, working as a geopolitical Other and as a ‘place on the margin’, ‘left behind by the onrush of modernity’, evoking ‘nostalgia and fascination’.6 Within this process, the Homeric landscape is a crucial element in the construction of ideas of belonging – as the Strait has been constructed over time by both visitors and locals as exceptional and myth-inspiring. In fact, the area’s reception has been at least as much shaped and produced by the history, Homeric myths and the expectations that they generated. Homeric geography in the Strait has become a defining element of heritage, intended as ‘the contemporary use of the past’.7 Historical traditions and iconographies have had an important effect not only on the geographical construction of an imaginatively mythological landscape, but also in building a local sense of place and belonging. As a native of the area, my own interest in the topic emerged as a way to selfreflexively explore how exposure to various forms of historical mediation shapes

Introduction

5

our sense of belonging and identity. As I investigated the visual genealogies of the Strait for my doctoral research, I realized that my earliest recollections of the themes of Greek mythology had also been acquired through the media accompanying my experience in the lived environment, and then via my later exposure to the Odyssey as I attended the Liceo Classico Italian high school. As a continuation of the doctorate I undertook on the subject, this study reflects a personal trajectory that has transformed my perception of what counts as local identity and how we attach ourselves to the symbols behind our affiliations – experientially and theoretically. Punctuated by statues, landmarks and countless examples of place branding inspired by Homeric geographies, Scilla is real-life proof of the impact of the cultural traditions of the Strait as a playground of Homeric geographies attracting generations of artists, filmmakers, travellers, writers and scholars.8 Centuries of imaginative projections, travels and re-mediations of mythical tales have also contributed to shaping a sense of identitarian belonging. Homeric geography has stood less imaginatively and more politically as a foundational myth to claim continuity with a prestigious past. Yet, the area of the Strait – comprising Calabria and Sicily – has been characterized by stilted modernization, weak industrialization and mass migration to Northern Italy and abroad since the country’s unification. Both have been fraught with structural social issues turned inescapable commonplaces, such as backwardness, corruption and criminality. The prestige of the past has thus often fuelled comparisons between a glorious heritage and a disappointing present. Homeric references have even supported a social mythology of the local inhabitants of the area as the ‘heirs of the Greeks’. Heard time and again from my informants in more or less ironic or serious forms, the myth of Homeric descent is a localist version of the ethnocentric belief that ‘Greece has made Europe’ (in fact, as historians tell us, Europe has claimed Greece).9 In the Strait, the claim of continuity with Hellas (often seen by Euro-Atlantic agents as one of their own precursors in civilization) has amounted for some to reversing a regional stigma with both a declaration of Mediterranean exceptionality and a romantic overperformance of the idea of having represented the earliest Europe. ‘Being the Greeks’ has meant for some in the South a way to secure one’s place both within Italy and the ‘West’ and in contrast with those supra-local foci of subordinating power.10 This study considers many of the facets of these political and cultural relationships, showing the ambivalent role of historical traditions and mediated representations in shaping an image of place that has often been accompanied by

6

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

an underlying narrative of a past historical glory. This narrative has impacted on ideas of development, shaped expectations about tourism as an asset, and even acquiesced to forms of ‘regional envy’ in the Strait through ‘romantic visions of an imagined homeland’.11 Appropriations of antiquity have fuelled hopes for economic development and a redemptive narrative for a disenfranchised region, alongside more daunting ethno-regionalist myths that intersect with xenophobia and the nation’s unresolved racism and colonial past. Thus, at a broader level, this study contributes to a conceptualization of the role played by iconographic and historical forms of popular antiquity in sustaining regionalist views of the territory, where ideas of places intersect and interact with larger historical and geopolitical narratives. Methodologically, this study emphasizes the importance of ethnographic and empirical observation to these processes in context and in everyday life. In this study, I rely on many informants met in Scilla and other places in the Strait mostly between 2014 and 2016. My experience with them accompanies my reflections on the representational histories of this region. The pervasive presence of Greater Greece is thus refracted across the region into a complex fresco of affective alignments. This presence is found in diverse appropriations of Greek antiquity and its consequences, which range from intense engagement to indifference, showing an array of responses to a grand historical narrative. Within representations are genealogies of meaning and power. This study connects Graeco-Roman histories to their more mundane effects and observable complexities as they enact a union ‘of erudite knowledge and local memories’.12 My perspective is part of these memories: as an economic migrant born in Reggio Calabria, the provincial capital of the Calabrian side of the Strait, some of my fondest childhood and teenage memories are tied here. Leaving after high school for ‘Northern’ Italy, and then for the United Kingdom, has largely separated me from these places. Neither an insider nor an outsider, neither ‘at home’ nor ‘elsewhere’ but rather switching between these positions,13 I have traversed different value frames for addressing the sense of identity and even nostalgia that come from affective relations with place. My navigation of this interstitial position informs this study. By focusing on how grand histories are implanted in everyday existence, I aim to contribute to an understanding of the role of representational processes – particularly from the standpoint of relations between the global and the regional.14 Among other things, this study shows how the Sirens of a globally renowned historical tradition have lured reasoned scholars of all backgrounds to

Introduction

7

act as gatekeepers of its cultural capital or even claim ideas of descent and origin. Globalized images help promote constructions that are claimed locally as if they were ‘natural’, even as they emerged from the historical (and globalized) processes of establishment of the ‘classics’ that have made them possible.15 The chapters in this study illustrate these processes by delving into the modern imaginings of the Strait and related areas of research and debate. Chapter 2 clarifies the methodology and theoretical issues that underpin the more evidence-based chapters. It begins with a historical background to the Homeric geographies, then discusses the theoretical notions of the place-myth, the chronotope and the heterotopia.16 After detailing these and a methodological framework on textuality, critical historiography and ethnography, I introduce the notion of Hellenicism to address ideological appropriations of Hellas in the Strait. These appropriations can be understood in relation to the historical Southern Question (Questione Meridionale)17 and existing theorizations around Orientalism, Mediterraneanism, Southernism and Celticism.18 Finally, I look at the role of place narratives in heritage and tourism, which are part of an everyday process of the social appropriation of the past. Providing the historical background to many of the ideas addressed in later sections, Chapter 3 focuses on the European Grand Tour’s foundations in a European gaze or view of the Strait – one that is steeped in antiquarianism and philhellenism.19 I review travelogues and charts that envisioned the Strait of Scylla and Charybdis as a nostalgic chronotope of Hellas for modern European audiences. I also discuss the ascription of the Strait to the visual category of the picturesque and the interest in mythological landmarks that motivate its visitors alongside geopolitical perceptions of the ‘South’ as a backward boundary of Europe. Showing how the creation of a common site for a lost Homeric landmark and the historical glory of Greater Greece informed cultural industries over the past century, I discuss re-editions of travelogues in local publishing projects in Calabria and how the Grand Tour itself has become a narrative used locally to further acknowledge and appropriate ideas of the South-as-Hellas. Chapter 4 searches travel photography books, documentaries and tourist media to observe the continuation of these visual tropes from the Grand Tour into twentieth-century global cultural industries, or when the Strait began working as a playground for mythological re-enactments that emerged with the imaginaries of tourism. I look at photo books, travel media, and tour guides published in Euro-Atlantic contexts (mostly Europe, but also Italy and the United States) over the course of the past century, particularly in the post-war period. I also examine film documentaries on the South by British historian and

8

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

explorer Ernle Bradford (1965) and Italian explorer and film-maker Folco Quilici (1968). These reveal how Mediterraneanist and Southernist views of the landscape and heritage of the area were shaped by what I call a Hellenicist historiographical perspective. I also discuss how explorers set out to localize the ‘actual’ landmarks of the myth of Scylla and Charybdis, often constructing mediated views of the landscape to approximate mythological accounts. Their efforts were motivated by a penchant for adventurous exploration ignited by archaeological missions such as Schliemann’s in previous eras, and by more recent endeavours of experimental travel such as Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon Tiki.20 Examining travel guides on Calabria published nationally and internationally today, I consider the endurance of primitivist and Hellenicist narratives for this region, and how the mythologies of the Strait have shaped the image of the area as a land of Homeric mythology, former Greater Greece and Italy’s archaic Hellas. Chapter 5 focuses on Homeric geographies as traditions of locating myths on the map – a long-running motif of travel, exploration, scholarship and semi- or utterly fictional attempts to rediscover and re-map the Odyssey in the real world. The Strait emerges as a milestone for both traditional and more subversive or imaginative takes on the Odyssey within a centuries-old tradition of adventurous geographical discovery in entertainment media, scholarship, popular histories and archaeology. These attempts I group into the categories of traditionalist, enquiring and revisionist Homeric geographies. They include recent ones such as that by Jean Cuisenier, centred around the Mediterranean, and the controversial hypothesis of Felice Vinci, who ‘heretically’ remapped the whirlpools of Charybdis, Scylla and other traditional mythological landmarks in the Baltic.21 Exploratory or armchair endeavours can function as ways to ‘own’ or claim cultural capital through empirical explanations of ‘true’ Homeric mappings. I thus turn to how scholars from the Strait have appropriated the Odyssey through enduring processes of gatekeeping and ownership. These processes also resonate with strong affective responses to the territory, which include natural forces such as tides and currents, its abyssal fauna, and its history of dreadful but highly mythopoeic earthquakes and tsunamis. One example is found in projects such as Horcynus Orca, which aims to establish a permanent point for an environmental and historical view of the region heavily informed by its cultural traditions (from Homer to more recent literature and the arts). They can also be seen in the work of artists and writers whose responses to the natural landscape are simultaneously shaped by pervasively Hellenicist cultural traditions.

Introduction

9

Chapter 6 relates how long-lasting traditions of Homeric references have impacted on the sense of place in Scilla and the Strait since the post-war period. This sense has helped diffuse forms of place branding based on Greek mythology that continue in the present. The pervasive presence of a Hellenist heritage discourse in the Strait can be observed in major archaeological museums, statues and numerous forms of place branding. I trace their appearance as outcomes of a process involving the inscription of antiquity that has been taking shape for the past century (particularly in the post-war period, when discourses on local development started to shape views of the town as a literary tourism destination). Discussing how Greater Greece has been mobilized by the political class and other elements as an asset for place branding, I look at the convergence of the state, media and local entrepreneurship in this narrative to discuss the mythologies, disappointments and short circuits of such expectations. These include the gentrification lamented by local fishermen, environmental dangers, the neoliberal ideology of development locking the South into a position as a tourism consumable, and even the potential, ultimate irrelevance of Homer within a more complicated context of underdevelopment. Chapter 7 turns to local appropriations of the Odyssey in the Strait and the self-fashioning of elements of local historiographies and society as the heirs of Homer. The legacy of Greater Greece as a tradition sustains everyday forms of localist pride and identitarianism that intersect with politically exclusionary frameworks. I provide examples from Calabria that address the issue of how a highly Hellenicist historiographical tradition has led to a highly selective mode of memorialization for Hellas (to the detriment of all other historical eras and ethnicities of the region). I thus focus on the political appropriations of Hellas, including some of the most dangerous intersections between ‘classicism’, xenophobia and masculinism. These intersections occur in a national and regional context dominated by systemic racism and an unprocessed colonial past, presenting competing political evocations of antiquity. Symbols such as the Riace Bronzes also serve as local variants of Mediterranean whiteness, partaking in exclusionary, racist and colourist formulations of citizenship and the homeland. Weaving together evidence and discussions from previous chapters, my conclusions reflect on the Strait as a part of Hellas and thus one of the imagined source points of Europe. I consider whether we can frame its mythologies and histories within a more complex and inclusive historiography of the region. In so doing, I suggest that this passage – where the cultural reception of Greater Greece often entails conceptions of difference as well as identity – may also

10

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

provide useful ground for reflecting more broadly on the uses of antiquity in the present. This use should be placed in a critical perspective, both for scholars of antiquity and the public at large. The past can enrich our present by allowing us to project fancies and anxieties. It creates space to explore the possibilities of future relations with past accomplishments, the territory and the environment. At the same time, tradition can also tie us to a hegemonic, romanticized setting of imagined golden ages and anchor us in imagined forms of belonging, selfreferential claims of importance, complacent approaches to the environment and exclusionary ethnic and political frameworks.

2

The Strait of Homer and the Strait of Reality

When one thinks of Stonehenge, what comes to mind is probably an ancient megalithic complex situated on a grassland plain in South England evoking popular images of ancient druidic rituals, star maps and mysterious archaeology. Certainly, it is a less distinguished image that emerges from its restoration history, let alone of that of Amesbury, a small town in Wiltshire only a stone’s throw from the landmark bringing the Real and the Imaginary together.1 This is an example of a place defined by a semi-imaginative counterpart to everyday reality, one that arguably exists in relation to the latter. Likewise, the Strait conjures up images of Scylla and Charybdis, monsters emerging from the waters of ancient Greater Greece or recollections of a landscape littered with the quaint remains of temples and the quiet wilderness of the Mediterranean. Rarely does one think of how such narratives emerged or what ties them to the social reality of the Strait, a region in South Italy encompassing areas of today’s Sicily and peninsular Calabria, facing each other and separated by a strip of sea, and home to the metropolitan areas of Messina and Reggio Calabria. While obviously distinct from reality, the literary landmark, the mythological Strait of Homer, has exerted a profound impact on it. The Odyssey’s worldwide popularity and the continuous rekindling of its myths and iconographies within a nation steeped in the memory of Graeco-Roman tradition have produced philhellenic notions of local heritage. This cements a tradition of thinking of heritage as an asset for development and of imagining Greater Greece as a homeland – and even of Homer as a fellow citizen.2 The premise for this identification corresponds with a putative geographical reality. The Odyssey only presents the setting for Scylla and Charybdis in vague terms. But the shape of the Strait, its currents, and its marine fauna have inextricably associated this iconic stretch of sea – three kilometres at its narrowest point – with Odysseus’ fateful crossing. The crossing was between Scylla, a sixheaded, canine snatcher in a sea grotto, and Charybdis, an abyss-dwelling swallower with a gaping maw that gulped careless sailors.3 This geographical 11

12

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

hypothesis hails back to ancient Greek rationalists who believed myths expressed environmental realities, such as threats to ancient seafarers, in imaginative forms.4 Charybdis thus represented the whirlpools generated by the clash of the Tyrrhenian and Ionian Seas. Scylla explained orcas and sharks or the protruding rocks of the area, as the winds passing through them sounded like howling dogs.5 While we can’t be certain about what Homer intended, this tradition certainly reinforced the name of the town of Scilla as well as that of Cape Pelorus (‘monstrous’) through history. The reception of Greek mythology in manifold literary, visual and intellectual traditions has inspired a tradition of mapping myths and relentless attempts to ground them in geographical and historical realities.6 Rather than analyse archaeological remains or tell a story about any such ‘truths’, this is a study of how the idea of this association has impacted on place and on relations between the Strait and reality or mythology and history more generally. Time and again as I stood listening to my local informants during my stay, they inevitably reminded me of the tale from the Odyssey. From the tour guide to the heritage activist, the fisherman and the local restaurant owner, all rehashed the story of how Odysseus met with the fateful Strait. Today, manifold representations of the myth punctuate the town. Among these, a large statue (Figure 1.3) in particular testifies to the enduring inspiration and thrill of the imaginative geographies and encounters with Otherness in Greek mythology – as well as to the idea that this place inspired Homer. The Strait-as-Greater Greece is the product of and for different gazes, forms of being-in-place, observational perspectives and spectatorial consumption internalized by the representational traditions of the area. The media have produced a tendency to typify and even stereotype place and the landscape, impacting its very perception and contributing to different approaches to understanding alongside ways of ‘knowing the past’.7 Media have shaped external gazes in addition to those developed locally on place: the top-down cartographies and picturesque vistas of the European visitors from the Grand Tour (Figure 2.1) have become a staple of locally celebrated publishers; the first-person gaze from the sea of foreign filmmakers and photographers has likewise progressed from travelogues and photography to paintings in homes and on social media; ancient art, iconic temples and Greek decorations became standardized sets of ‘Greeklooking’ font for cafes. All of this unfolds around the statues of Sirens and Scylla that signal the town’s relations with Hellas. By framing the Strait in different traditions (European travel, nationalism, tourism, popular archaeologies), media have provided a lively landscape8 in which to reproduce and popularize ideas of place for those who visit or inhabit it.

The Strait of Homer and the Strait of Reality

13

A cartographically iconic and memorable passage made to graphically match the Homeric myths since antiquity, the literary Strait has actively shaped the real place. Especially for locales such as the town of Scilla, it has turned them into landmarks that are hardly extricable from the volume of historical accounts and traditions that continuously re-engage them with ideas of Homeric geographies, an exotic Mediterranean and the legacy of Greater Greece. This work focuses on the relations between these iconographic, visual and cultural traditions along with the social reality and local geography of place. I take the standpoint of representational histories, their power to shape perception, and their role in shaping landscape as a cultural space. Ancient mythology and historical narratives prove meaningful signifiers of broader views about places and peoples. At the same time, they provide a shorthand for ways of experiencing exoticism and difference, and are a point of contact with antiquity. Rather than focusing on the reception of Scylla and Charybdis as gendered monstrosity or on the artistic or literary value of the Odyssey,9 I look at the importance of their presence in shaping forms of historical knowledge about the present and everyday life. This means acknowledging, in both a broader and more specific sense, the effect of such traditions on place both historically and for people living in the Strait today. Part of the fascination with the Strait is due to the fuzzy boundaries between the utterly imaginative representations of the place and its foundation in the Real – not entirely unlike places such as the Bermuda Triangle.10 This has to do with more than just the content of the myths. It comes from the fact that the Strait exists at the fringes of continental Europe in a country that stretches from continental Europe to the shores facing the African continent. Historically, this is a region that has been starkly underdeveloped compared to its grandiose past. Thus not too dissimilarly from modern Greece, South Italy has often been constructed as an imperfect continuation of Hellas, its remains and landmarks constantly measuring up the present against antiquity.11 Greater Greece has provided a reiterated mythography of place for the Strait, responding to regional anxieties to make use of a valuable symbolic asset and gain a place in history. Grand Tour travelogues written by erudite European travellers in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries present iconographies, mythographies and geopolitical assumptions about the Strait as historical documents. They are also highly relevant as their modern reprints are often sold in bookstores, at newsstands and at tourist kiosks in Scilla today (Figure 3.3), partaking of a narrative that exerts pressure on the town to perform like a literary destination.12

14

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

The idea of the roots of the myths in place also sustains beliefs in a deep correspondence between the geography of Homeric myths and the environmental characteristics found (or believed to be found) in the Strait. Travel literatures abound with the seeming compulsion of philhellenes to follow the Odyssey. As ‘the intellectual property of the global village’,13 the work has inspired countless literary and metaphorical forms of re-enactment.14 Yet such endeavours have also taken a geographical form, going beyond musings of ancient lore to include attempts to locate the ‘real’ places believed to have inspired ‘the oldest Western journey narrative’.15 Attempts to explain the Odyssey in geographical terms are steeped in these alignments and appropriations. They have had both proponents and detractors that align with positions known since antiquity. The sceptical Eratosthenes treated the poem as a work of pure fancy – one would only be able to find its real places if they also located ‘the cobbler of the bag of the winds’.16 But attempts to sail the waves and establish locations have been incessant, cementing a tradition of Homeric geographies (Figure 2.1) motivated by various cultural, professional and affective interests. A particularly fascinating terrain lies in the local appropriations of Homer in the Strait and other areas, where mapping the Odyssey amounts to claiming ownership over the poem and posing as the heirs to his figure. I have wrestled with this temptation myself, even though I never gave in to the temptation to wear the hat of the Homeric explorer. Instead, I chose to focus on the motivations behind these searches and their attempts to claim the cultural capital of the Odyssey as a piece of the Western canon. Regardless of the usefulness of seeking the ‘actual places of myth’ (an endeavour perhaps ignited historically by events such as Schliemann’s discovery of Troy), the symbolic power of the Strait has been relentless, making attempts to map myths interesting in terms of their motivations.17 The idea of a rootedness of myths has helped make the Strait a near-legendary land, inviting geographical hypotheses that thrived on the fancy of imagining mythological stories of marine monsters rupturing from within the ordinary. As Tolkien noted, travel tales fulfil ‘the wish to travel of all those unprivileged to do so’.18 Yet the Strait is more than a simple fantasy destination, as it seemingly stitches together the fantastic and the real. For visitors, this is a site to reminisce about the ancient and the mythical. For locals, myth becomes immanent to the everyday experience of landscape. Discourses of the real Strait’s Homeric ‘origins’ have been stretched to the point of being reduced to a formulaic trope. This came with the effect that the environment, while said to have inspired the myths, has in fact often been

The Strait of Homer and the Strait of Reality

15

expected to conform to them. In the eyes of some of its visitors, the Strait had to attune with the land of whirlpools and marine animals from myths – or at least with the quaint remains of ancient Greece – lest it become disappointing. An apt descriptor for the Strait is the chronotope, which Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin used to discuss places defined by an ‘intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships’ expressed through their literary renown.19 Indeed, the chronotope can take over reality, or at least have an effect on it. For people living in the place, the chronotope becomes an accompanying presence cemented by everyday symbols and signifiers, or a heritage-driven form of Renan’s ‘daily plebiscite’.20 The Strait is ‘spatialized’ (constructed in relation to cultural and spatial coordinates21) in a regionally specific narrative that speaks to a broader and overarching system of ideological and political formations. This system permeates the formulations of history, heritage and practices such as tourism that characterize the area as ‘Greater Greece’. The myths intended as ancient tales have thus become a shorthand for the modern, societal myth of Greater Greece. Their narratives and images are a deceptively relevant part of the tangle of social and geographical construction of this place in Italy’s ‘South’. For some of the travellers of the Grand Tour, the Strait was situated in the ‘archaic’ and ‘backward’ South of Italy. In relation to the observing gazes of the ‘civilized’ and ‘modern’ European visitors, this situation worked as part of what Shield calls a ‘space-myth’: a shared discourse and mythology where different places exist in a relational order.22 For Shields, the processes establish ideas of ‘a place-for-this’, articulating binaries and relations (centre/margin; near/far). A variety of ‘place-myths’ can exist in a broader spatial cosmology.23 From this perspective, the Homeric Strait has been working as a place defined by literature, endowed with a purported environmental pristineness and encapsulating a capacity to inspire mythology. It has also contrasted with the urban, the global and the metropolitan as part of a broader construction of a rural, disconnected and archaic Mediterranean ‘South’. The literary fame of the Strait reveals its role in providing a narrative for the place. The place, in turn, is expected to encapsulate its history as former Greater Greece and the landscape purported to be a source of inspiration for Homer. This is a historically established narrative in the Euro-Atlantic imagination, much like modern Rome has been conflated with ancient Rome or Florence with the Renaissance.24 To discuss the impact of images on the Strait is thus to approach ‘the manner in which fancy, fantasy, and wishful thinking play a role in the production of images of the environment’; it is also a way of showing how

16

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

Figure 2.1 ‘Caribdis escollo en el Faro de Mecina que fingieron los Poetas monstruo che se tragava las embarcaciones’ (1886), in Crespo Delgado/Romero Muñoz (2009).

broadly held ideas can be internalized by local communities, becoming a sort of ‘meta-social commentary’ in the form of the stories people tell themselves about themselves.25 The Greek past has become almost a heterotopia (the term Foucault26 used to refer to an ‘elsewhere’) in which reality and representations are locked in an ambiguous relationship. Unlike utopias, heterotopias condense the possible with the distant and the contradictory. I consider such ideas not as ‘floating’ or abstract signifiers,27 but as processes affecting reality. The visibility of these effects is hard to miss while looking at the pervasive use of symbols, metaphors and references to the Graeco-Roman past in the area. Fly to Reggio, the provincial capital of Calabria, and the national airline Alitalia will greet you with their onboard magazine Ulisse. An issue might even sport a feature on Calabria as former Greater Greece.28 In town, billboards display and postcard and souvenirs reproduce the Bronze Warrior statues (Figure 7.1) from the city’s archaeological museum, its exteriors modelled after art from ancient Greek coinage.29 Head over to Scilla, some twenty miles north, to view Francesco Triglia’s mythological

The Strait of Homer and the Strait of Reality

17

statue of Scylla in the main town square (Figure 1.3) and a diving centre sporting a mask-wearing Siren logo. Travel though Calabria to find replicas of the Bronze statues in the marinas of other towns. Travel to Sicily via ferry to find seacraft named after Odysseus and mythological figures. The seaboard in Messina boasts a replica of the city museum’s statue of Neptune, Scylla and Charybdis by Renaissance artist Giovanni Montorsoli (Figure 2.2). Newsagent windows are plastered with mythologically themed postcards and tour ads inviting visitors to the Aeolian Islands and Mount Etna (the mythical abodes of Aeolus and Hephaestus) visible from the seaside. Souvenirs such as masks, pottery and books populate tourist shops. Restaurants, cafes and shops are named after Greek myths across the two sides of the Strait, indulging in an imagery lifted from Renaissance paintings, reproductions of art pieces and original vignettes of the myths. Current infatuations with antiquity have historical genealogies. The high cultural status of Hellas-as-a-mirror-to-live-up-to and local celebrations of Homeric geographies are often presented as endemic and naturalized. But in fact, they are sustained by a largely external, grand historiographical narrative that feeds on the prestige traditionally accorded to the Graeco-Roman world within the Euro-Atlantic canons. The inscription of the former within the ranks of ‘classics’ and the high culture of the upper class (and later bourgeoisie) took place around the Renaissance. It has endured from modernity to the present,

Figure 2.2 A view of the replica of Giovanni Montorsoli’s statue of Neptune with Scylla and Charybdis, 1547–64, displayed in Messina, Italy. Photo by author.

18

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

becoming locally internalized and canonized. Encroached and displayed on the territory, it has become central to ideas about development and historical status. This process is both transnational (considering the global dominance of this canon) and national (as Italian national education places Graeco-Roman antiquity at the centre of the ‘high’ national curriculum). Yet it is also highly regional in the Strait, with local historiographies positing Hellas as the crowning (if exclusive) achievement that should be projected to the outside. This history canonizes not only Hellas, but even those such as the Grand Tour travellers who came to experience its remains – hence the local championing of Odyssey locales and the attempts to ‘own’ both the epic poem and Homer as a fellow citizen. This gives rise to problematic consequences, such as believing in nativist ideas that align romantically with the ‘West’ while presenting its Other as ‘invaders’. The ideas are more or less consciously selling a whitewashed notion of the ancient world produced within Eurocentric and colonialist ‘classicism’.30 In the process of looking at how diverse groups and audiences have seen the mythological Strait, this study focuses on how values act as a frame. It also centres on the broader geopolitics of the past, which overlap with the heritage of the Strait. Seeking to make sense of the relations between ideas of antiquity and present constructions of identities, this study does not intend to challenge the worth of Greek antiquity. Rather, it aims to question the presence of Greek antiquity as a ‘natural’ historical reality in order to show its more recent origins and point to its ideological consequences – including appropriations of the past that erase the diverse history of the region and fuel exclusionary political paradigms.

2.1 Methodology: Textuality, historiography, ethnography Mediated representations of the Strait are framed within a larger body of textual work. While I often rely on scholars of antiquity to ground my work in its modern reception, I also look at archaeological and ‘classicist’ perspectives as objects of study. Such perspectives play a key role in shaping public notions of history, heritage and landscape. They also mobilize arrays of affiliations with ancient epics, claims of ownership of history, disciplinary disputes, and the narratives of opposing groups that each claim antiquity as their own. While the study selectively focuses on Greater Greece within the historiographies of the region, this process cannot be separated from their current socio-political determinants. Both Calabria and Sicily belong to the ‘South’ of Italy, which refers

The Strait of Homer and the Strait of Reality

19

to a North/South binary used to capture economic, historical and social differences within the country. Traditionally, the North represents the industrialized, modernized and financially dominant part; the South represents the agricultural, backward and disadvantaged one. While carrying the dangers of oversimplification, the North/South divide is a narrative very much rooted in factual and profound intra-national asymmetries.31 Upon the unification of Italy, people began depopulating the South to look for jobs in the North and abroad.32 Between 1876 and 1976, almost two million people left Calabria. Today, the region still often features the highest numbers of people moving out to other parts of Italy as well as the highest numbers of migration abroad.33 I can relate personally to these numbers being twice an economic émigré, first to the ‘North’ as a teenager and then to the United Kingdom. Within the traditional North/South divide in the country, both Calabria and Sicily are also stilted by a weak economy and high dependence on the public national budget. Even today, Calabria consistently ranks at the bottom of national employment rates.34 To an extent, the regions also share a framing as part of a decadent South of Italy both after Italian unification and, less recently, in the historical eras that followed that of Greater Greece. This has favoured a view of the area that magnifies Greater Greece while pushing intervening histories to the margins.35 Calabria, the side of the Strait that I focus on, is a region whose history includes some of the oldest records of prehistoric populations in Italy: populations that preceded or accompanied Greek settlements (the Iapyges, Messapii and Pelasgians, the Bruttii, Itali and Lucanians); the Romans; the Ostrogothic Kingdom after 489; Byzantium by 556, which exerted a strong influence across the region; the Saracens; the Normans (prior to their conquest of England); and then the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, the Aragonese and the French, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and Italy as part of the South or Mezzogiorno.36 Yet, in public histories and memory, the astounding complexity of such experiences is mostly presented as ‘former Greater Greece’. Even the presence of Greek-speaking minorities in the region is marshalled into this selective memory.37 Greek mythology pervades public spaces while the narratives of tourism showcase the paramount cultural relevance of Hellas. Part of the administratively and politically distinct regions of Calabria and Sicily, the area spans the provinces of Reggio and Messina across the two sides of the Strait. Both sides share an idea of ‘ownership’ of Greek antiquity encapsulated within the popular expression of the scilleccariddi. This sense of duality is constantly evoked and even embodied by physical landmarks, such as the two piloni (two

20

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

large, disused communication towers) or the two facing branches of Horcynus Orca (a cultural centre working on environmental, social and art projects). As a study in society that alerts to the broadly public function and responsibilities of antiquity and its specialists,38 this is not strictly speaking ‘classical reception’ in the sense maintained by strands of Graeco-Roman scholarship seeking to accommodate what they define as a popular interest in the past. However, the very notion of the ‘classic’ needs to be addressed especially as relates to what is popular in that field. Over the course of this research, I explicitly reject ‘classics’ in the light of the term’s ideological baggage, which reflects assumptions of a superior or foundational canon of art, culture and civilization. While I certainly contribute to discussing the ‘cultural permanence’ of Graeco-Roman antiquity, I do not align with the old assumption that its legacy has any form of ‘moral and stylistic qualities of universality and timelessness’.39 Quite often, the classical and the popular have implicitly worked as the high and low term of a constructed scale of cultural worth. From the perspective of social and cultural studies, this binary has more or less explicitly worked to characterize the ‘classical’ as a signifier for the West-centric assumption that Euro-Atlantic art paradigms, cultural traditions and development are somehow superior to all others. Local historiographies in Calabria align with this hegemonic tradition. Scholars have thus worked as complacent gatekeepers of the ‘classical’ and – broadly speaking – the ‘West’. For some philhellenic elements in the Strait, the Graeco-Roman world has become a narrative of identity that can even take on ethno-regionalistic connotations. This is consistent with the close intertwining of ‘classics’ with a mostly colonial, white and Euro-Atlantic baggage.40 In this study, I try to avoid sweeping definitions of the ‘West’, and will sometimes use inverted commas to signal its use as a narrative rather than monolith reality. Yet West/Rest binaries, understood as discourses framing history and the territory, represent a crucial historical object. This is both due to the ascription of the Greeks to the canon of the former, which has helped erase and marginalize ‘Other’ presences from public histories (from the Iapygians and the Messapians to the Arabs and the Normans), and the privileging of Hellas as the proto-‘West’. The latter has involved constructing Others and weaponizing this identity against purported ‘invaders’ to this day.41 If the ‘classical past’ works, as Wyke notes, to serve present interests in its contemporary reception, then we should also acknowledge that the past is shaped by current coordinates.42 Here, I follow Hirsch and Stewart in moving

The Strait of Homer and the Strait of Reality

21

from ‘history’ (a way of isolating the past) to historicity (as a way to focus ‘on the complex temporal nexus of past-present-future’ works ‘in relation to events, political needs, available cultural forms and emotional dispositions’).43 A key distinction lies between history that is believed to have taken place and heritage as a narrative where a sense of belonging is constructed within a social, economic and political context. Notions of the Strait as an archaic Hellenic playground emerge from a view of geopolitical marginal spaces as laboratories for the centre44 inasmuch as identity presupposes a form of Otherness. Historiographies fix the South, located ambiguously between grand constructions of Europe and the Mediterranean, precisely at the moment when Greater Greece purportedly provided Europe with its foundations. The meanings ascribed to heritage thus work as symbols for collective identity, validating territorial ideologies. Specialists of the past are key agents in the monumentalization of Greek heritage in line with a West-centric philhellenism working within global ‘hierarchies of values’.45 Rather than taking the centrality of the ‘classics’ in the region at face value, my ethnography moved from historical archives to on-the-ground inquiry in order to introduce the ambiguities and contradictions of its appropriations. A grounded and inductive experience of participant observation in everyday contexts allowed me to capture a complex range of people’s relations with the past. Most of my fieldwork was spent as prolonged stays in Scilla and Reggio Calabria, with visits to the Bovesia, in Ionian Calabria, and Messina and the area of Mount Etna and Aci Trezza in Sicily (Figure 2.3). My interest in Scilla was motivated by the combined renown of the town as a major Homeric landmark and as a seaside locality. Reggio, my hometown, was relevant as an airport destination, ‘metropolitan city’ (provincial capital) and home to many local tourists. It is also a former polis of Greater Greece now replete with the Bronzes, the National Archaeological Museum, universities and heritage professions. I travelled to the Bovesia in Calabria, home to Greek-speaking minorities. In Sicily, I spent time in Ganzirri, near Punta Faro (the ancient Cape Pelorus, associated with the Homeric myths) and in Aci Trezza (associated with the Cyclops myth). In this ethnography, I use the past tense to signal a time now removed by only a few years yet separated by important and currently hard-to-assess possible evolutions, including the recent effects of the global pandemic on tourism. The bulk of my research took place in 2014–2017, a period when, despite a general economic crisis, new low-cost airlines had been established recently in the region. The rise of Airbnb, while controversial, seemed to suggest new chances

22

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

Figure 2.3 Main research locations. Map composition by author.

for heritage to attract tourists.46 New local publications were being devoted to Homer.47 The ‘return’ of the Bronze Warriors to the Museum in Reggio after restoration enjoyed national and international media coverage, rekindling local appraisals of Greater Greece.48 At the same time, populist policies fuelled by twin economic and Mediterranean refugee crises raged at a national and regional level, inciting localist views of the territory. Fascinatingly, the same town where the Bronze statues had once been retrieved from the sea hosted an experimental model of migrant integration.49 One the theses of this study is that in places such as Scilla town, mythological content becomes a signifier of Greater Greece. This sustains what I call a form of banal regionalism: a soft, more granular version of nationalism that finds in heritage one of its key drivers. It develops both explicitly and by force of habit and implication through reiterations of localist perceptions of social meaning and geography. Such convictions may also be seen as forms of what I define as banal identitarianism or everyday nativism. They are informal and often unconscious or unreflexive attachments to a perceived homeland sustained by long-term exposure to endogenous and exogenous ideas of affiliation. Exposure occurs both through an externally predominant and locally constructed, projected and validated narrative of origins.50 Such narratives impinge on everyday inscriptions in the urban fabric of heritage and the reproduction of commonplace, selective and externally validated histories.51

The Strait of Homer and the Strait of Reality

23

Figure 2.4 View of Scilla town, Chianalea quarter. Photo by author.

References to the Hellenic canon in the Strait may work to routinize references to its heritage in a manner consistent with how everyday references have been observed to legitimize imagined communities.52 To capture these traditions, I often relied on my informants’ perception of Greater Greece’s presence in the area. Fieldwork allowed me to gauge the impact of traditions beyond a merely textual approach, capturing the pertinence of visual and historical traditions to human action in the present. This was a largely inductive process whereby initial contacts with informants snowballed into more acquaintances. Use of a camera supported the research by allowing me to produce visual documentation of place. Whether on a small boat headed to the centre of the Strait (Figure 8.3), flying on a small airplane to watch it from the sky (as in Italian ethnographer Folco Quilici’s account of the region), or on the road to the Greek-speaking Bovesia, the device encouraged me to imagine my experience as mediated, reflecting on different gazes to remain aware of the haunting power of preforming reception of place.53 The camera also served to present me as a scholar and film documentarist with an interest in heritage. With it, I approached informants to request

24

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

interviews.54 The device thus aligned me with both tourists as a fellow visitor and with locals to signal my presence, breaking the ice before I could communicate my shared background. As an ethnographic tool, it allowed the creation and maintenance of bonds beginning with simple questions about who they were and what they did, what they thought of the place, and possibly then over to their ideas of heritage as well as deeper forms of acquaintance.55 Being in place allowed me to capture voices as diverse as disoriented tourists, disillusioned fishermen, enthusiastic entrepreneurs, hospitality professionals, incensed politicians, strenuous activists, seasonal tourists, visitors on the go, and simple passers-by. For a work focusing on the ideas of antiquity in the present, this evidence proved invaluable for escaping a textualist attitude. Responses included obliviousness to ancient history, as some visitors reported that local heritage was not at all their reason to be in town. Alignments with Hellas ranged from nil to paramount, from instrumental to affective, from contingent to existential, from pride and affect to irony or dismissal – clearly, heritage is not ‘all things to all people’.56 Rocco, a tour manager, felt hiring models as Sirens and using an inflatable Scylla monster was just another way to attract tourists via the internet. Gesualdo, a hotel owner, enthusiastically declared Scilla was close to booming with tourists. Francesco, a disillusioned B&B owner, underscored issues of inveterate underdevelopment and the partial delusions of heritage tourism.57 Ethnography also fractured assumptions of ‘classical’ timelessness58 and its appropriations as cultural capital while offering a rich array of examples of the reception of Homer in the Strait. Angelo, a biologist, fixed the mythology of the Odyssey onto the local landscape to find the Scylla monster in viper fish that the currents regularly shore up from the depths of the Strait. Domenico Mosino, a philologist, was convinced that Homer was an ancient citizen of his hometown.59 Franco, a local preservation activist, felt deeply for Greater Greece as his homeland. Cosima, a restaurant owner, wrote poetry inspired by local myths. To some, claims of supposed evidence for Homer’s origins in the Strait via the Odyssey or for local geography as metaphysically exceptional could take on a quasi-religious form, recalling Halbwachs’ writing about religion as producing memory in ‘dogmatic’ and ‘mystic’ modes through intensive study of canonical texts or environmental revelations.60 Yet, while heralded in a semi-religious fashion by some of its local acolytes (particularly those working in heritage professions), for others this form of gatekeeping could sound less antiquarian and more antiquated, or relatively irrelevant. Émigrée Maria Elena cringed at the ‘trite’ and ‘unbearable’ references

The Strait of Homer and the Strait of Reality

25

to myth that she had been exposed to since childhood. Bartender Maria nonchalantly declared to me her ‘complete disinterest in history’ as she handed me a brioche bun with the region’s distinctive granita. The Graeco-Roman tradition operates in place at various scales of importance for different people. But its workings still need observation from beyond the field of distortion created by dominant gatekeepers. Field research undermined the ‘classical’ assumption – made clear by an almost hegemonic visibility – that Greater Greece represents everybody’s history. A revelatory moment for me occurred on a beach when biologist Vazzana presented a shored-up specimen of viper fish as the ‘Skilla’ fish, implying its relation to myths (Figure 5.1). Locals replied with scepticism, calling it a different name and saying they knew nothing of Greece. Overall, the landscape itself emerged as a product of a ‘local practice’61 of meaning-making where existential belonging could or could not be modelled after expectations to match supra-local textual genealogies of the mythological place.62 ‘Truths’ about the historical landscape could be variously intertwined with other place mythologies or present ambiguities, in an array of performances of identity that are then projected to outsiders.63 For one of my informants, an émigrée from the United States in her late thirties, ‘we’ (the Scillesi with whom she still identified) ‘are people of the sea’. For two other natives returning from the United States after sixty years, their hometown was a semi-mythical place, but only while I recorded them on camera: when it stopped rolling, they saw it as backwards and ‘disappointing’. Exhibited forms of pride thus coexisted with betrayed expectations. This study is also based on my understanding of place as a native of Reggio who had moved to the ‘North’ of Italy some eighteen years earlier and then on to England, while still maintaining family and acquaintance networks in the area. As such, it grapples with the difficulty of writing a cultural and historical geography of place that addresses how personal positioning may affect judgement. I have included autobiographical notes as they allow me to confront the complexities – and even ambivalences and ambiguities – of a scholar more effectively than concealing opaque ideological interests and privileges behind a purported objectivity.64 My perspective is that of an estranged native: somebody who has lived a significant amount of time away from the site of their early upbringing, neither a complete insider nor an outsider. In the field, confidence with the cultures and dialects elicited closeness with the locals. Yet to some of the Scillesi I still qualified as thrice a foreigner: as a native of Reggio; as one who had lived ‘up North’ in Italy; and as a resident in a foreign country. These layers of difference countered the closeness acquired by means of my birth certificate

26

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

or fluency, as I became aware when my local renter presented me with a Big Ben keyring and rechristened me with the colourist formulation of the londinese pallido – the pale Londoner. This liminal position as an estranged native or familiar foreigner made me increasingly wary of the dangers of a complacent or apologetic reception to some of my interlocutors’ ideas. A narrative of an imagined descent from Homer might have temptingly pandered to my own upbringing in the area. Such narratives did resonate with me, rekindling memories and nostalgia for my previous musing about Homer in Scilla (such as dreams of opening a café or a museum one day), but they also revealed my very exposure to this identitarian tale. Even while chuckling at some of the claims about abyssal fauna in the Strait or Homer hailing from Reggio, I still aligned with their longing for this mythopoeic, redemptive tale of place. Yet navigating this ambivalence ultimately allowed me to distance my response to the landscape from its social mythology. In the process, my involuntarily Odyssean return home still worked as a first-person standpoint to examine the affective biases of the scholar invested in the territory. It also allowed me to avoid the opposite dangers of writing an ‘ethnohistory’ of the ‘South’ from an exclusively outsider’s point of view, devoid of the native perspective and its affective resonances.65 As Todorova noted, ‘the outsider’s view is not necessarily inferior to the insider’s, and the insider is not anointed with truth because of existential intimacy with the object of study’: those who benefit from both occupy an ambiguous position fraught with both advantages and challenges, privilege and responsibility.66 This study goes to the heart of a place that, while peripheral, is still widely anointed with the aura of Greater Greece as the ‘cradle of the West’. The historical framing became partly interwoven with my personal perspective on landscape, identity and origins. To me, this was both the place I had heard associated with Homer since birth and the home that I, like many of my generation, had left with both the white privilege to seek economic opportunity and the Southerner’s (and, later, foreigner abroad’s) disruption of affects, familiarity and language. As a researcher, I was subjected in first person to the self-glorifying myth of the ‘heirs of Homer’ and the self-bashing, internalized stereotypes of the Southern failure driving out its youth;67 exposed to a simultaneous check of my privilege and unpacking of my ‘Italianness’ reconfigured abroad as ‘white other’; and presented with the chance to approach the analysis of the ‘one face, one race’ Mediterranean narrative (in relation to Shelly’s Occidentalist dictum that ‘we are all the Greeks’) from the privileged viewpoint of a ‘Southern’ Italian, European and ‘Westerner’.

The Strait of Homer and the Strait of Reality

27

My return to the Strait thus allowed for a blend of unforgiving deconstruction and empathic understanding. From this point of insight, I engaged with a social analysis of identity-place relations, affective relations with landscape and identity, the iterative appreciation of identity-making, and the losses and gains associated with the deconstructions and reconstructions of identity.

2.2 The exceptional landscape: Myth and history Places can be understood as cultural sites made of meanings and bound up in ideas of identity and belonging.68 Cultural traditions can affect the way we receive geography, particularly from the standpoint of their internalization among people living in the Strait. In the Strait, biologists and philologists rubbed elbows as they celebrated the remnants of the mythological whirlpool, establishing that the viper fish upwelling on the beaches must have inspired Homer (Figure 5.1). Booklets and pamphlets celebrating these origins then proliferated. Homeric geographies ultimately have been perpetuated as myths ‘as real as the rocks, the waterholes, and the hills that he can see and touch’69 as their bonds with the environment are constantly recalled, re-enacted, performed and re-materialized.70 The word ‘myth’ is a complex signifier employed in different disciplines and discursive contexts. Its overall uses are too complex to exhaust, but in this work I refer to context and use ‘myth’ as either an ancient tale or an ideologically loaded narrative. ‘Mythology’ is either the broader literary corpus of Greek myths or its studies. ‘Mythography’ then signals an unreflective way of perpetuating and re-writing myths rather than their study. Finally, I use ‘mythopoeic’ to refer to the properties and capacities that objects and places (such as the Strait) may have had in inspiring mythologies. In common talk, myth is associated with allegations, falseness or fantasy. It is the opposite of factuality, truth and rationality.71 I cannot go deeper into the historical origins of this binary, which are rooted in enlightenment, positivism and numerous philosophical traditions. But the ambiguous relations between the real and the mythical are relevant to this study of a landscape associated with elements both geographical and fantastic – one that may deserve to be seen as a semi-imaginary land. In a more political sense, the notion of myth overlaps with contemporary conceptualizations of social ideologies that are the staple of critical and anthropology studies.72 This is particularly relevant for a study that, while not concerned with matters of archaeological or geomorphological

28

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

factuality, nevertheless assesses how the landscape was constructed as part of an economic, political and cultural order73 that sustained its naturalization as an exceptional and mythopoeic place. Observers may display affective and semi-mythographic relations with the landscape. For instance, Séstito’s analysis of the Strait regards its geography as if the place had been destined by nature to fulfil its mythopoeic, inspirational qualities: he points to tectonic plates, otherworldly earthquakes and tsunamis, and the meeting of currents thought to generate the whirlpools.74 In such narratives, environmental features are elevated to the ranks of mythological urphenomena, used to justify a belief in an exceptional place. Belief that the whirlpools in the sea used to be more powerful in the past or that ancient customs from the Odyssey survive in present ‘folk’ traditions is a way to explain the myth’s origins. While presenting nature as the source of inspiration for myth or for flattening historical time, these readings receive landscape under the influence of previously acquired ideas, images and expectations. Some cases involve forms of mythistory, or ways of telling history where borders between the scholarly or reflexive and the popular or mythical can be highly porous.75 In the Strait, ideas that Homer was inspired by the landscape produced what we could call meta-mythographies: interpretations of a relationship between the myth and the landscape that, disguised under a cloak of science, serve the quasi-religious purpose of their proponents, who aim to appropriate the cultural capital of Greater Greece and appoint themselves its gatekeeper. Candidly ignoring forty years of scholarly deconstructionism, these proponents demonstrate the permanence of essentialist relations with place and landscape as an element in which mythistorical ideas of belonging (including nativist ideas) can be locally appropriated and naturalized as universally objective.76 The particular historical concretions of these ideas have arguably contributed to the making of the literary Strait as a chronotope defined by its literary history. When in Scilla town, I noticed reprints of books from the Grand Tours era when Saint-Non (1783), Edward Lear (1852), Gissing (1901) and others travelled to a region they saw as former Greater Greece and thus as part of their own cultural foundation. In this process, the Strait is received as a semiimaginative landscape perceived halfway between mythology and reality. Early modern travellers were fascinated by the Strait’s currents, supposed mythological whirlpools from a past era, era-defining disasters (such as the 1783 earthquake) and its general construction as a land of wilderness. This form of reception was obviously shaped by cultural expectations that then led to selectively highlighting

The Strait of Homer and the Strait of Reality

29

or even half-fabricating evidence of whirlpools and sea rocks to confirm the Strait’s relations with the Odyssey. British historian Ernle Bradford used stock footage to represent a Charybdis whirlpool that he just could not locate in the sea. Most of the historical trajectory of this book follows iconographies and histories that took shape after Italy’s political unification process in 1861–1870. The post-unitary South of Italy includes regions such as Calabria, Sicily, Campania and Puglia, all of which were subject to conditions of political and economic peripherality. Many of these areas had been parts of Greater Greece. The Strait thus participated in this image of a ‘wild’ and backward Calabria, a periphery of the nation and Europe. At the same time, it is the once-home of glorious Greater Greece – a view that has persisted in media representations and historiographical approaches, and survives today in the ways people look at the landscape, its heritage, and ideas of place and identity.

2.3 The South-as-Greece: Hellenicism The intersections of narratives of past glory and underdevelopment are crucial for situating the effects of antiquity in the region. These work to legitimize the region’s relevance, given the dominant place of Greek antiquity in the grand historical narratives of the Euro-Atlantic geopolitical complex. For local historiographies, Hellas has become a way to participate in a broad geopolitical space-myth. Communities learn to distinguish themselves from others by contrasted forms of ‘spatialised identity’,77 which are then reflected and become ‘persuasive’ in discourses found in historiography, heritage and tourism. The geographical mythologies of the Strait are inseparable from its historical and sociocultural relations with binaries such as West/Rest, South/North and Europe/Other. Here, this area occupies an Other-within.78 Notions such as Orientalism, Mediterraneanism and Southernism have approached such cultural dynamics and historical processes of ‘Othering’. For Said, Orientalism amounted to a catch-all ideological framework.79 The concept can be extended to the patronizing and essentializing discourses on the ‘South’ of Italy in European geopolitics and cultural industries. This is particularly poignant in light of what Said sees as the ‘positional superiority’ of the ‘West’ looking at its Other as residing at the ‘edge of civilisation’.80 From a geopolitical and symbolic standpoint, Said’s Orientalism approaches the constructions of this region in terms of a perceived spatial and historical disconnection.

30

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

Said’s emphasis on the imperialist dynamics of power asymmetries has attracted criticism for overlooking resistance and reception. The ethnographic aspects of my research register the ambivalences and contradictions that would be left out by assuming a blanket, one-directional, colonialist framework for the influence of Euro-Atlantic philhellenism on the Strait. Instead, I show the ambivalent ‘mimicry’ of transnational philhellenic cultural capital.81 Indeed, local historians have been ‘told’ for decades by Euro-Atlantic traditions that their focus should be on glorifying this historical chapter as a cultural apex. Much like development discourses, historical memory rarely extends beyond Hellas. This point can be explored in relation to my previously anticipated discussion of how the South had become the ‘locus amoenus’ of European anthropologists via the notion of Mediterraneanism. Coined by Herzfeld, this term refers to Said’s ‘equally ironical coinage of ‘Orientalism’ to consistently suggest ‘the reification of a zone of cultural difference through the ideologically motivated representation of otherness’.82 Herzfeld discusses Mediterraneanism as a ‘subspecialty’ of European anthropology, particularly following national liberation movements in extra-European countries. It is also a way of characterizing the ‘ancestral core of Europe as a sufficiently exotic subject of anthropological analysis’.83 For him, Euro-Atlantic ethnocentric viewpoints appear ‘tainted by both heterophilic and heterophobic stereotypes’, resulting in an ‘archaization’, exoticization, and Othering of Mediterranean societies compared to ethnocentric external gazes.84 Studies such as Bertellini’s extended this line of thought discussing ‘Southernism’ and showing how such gazes are extensively projected onto media.85 This point ties into how many visitors to the South transfix its social reality within an ahistorical ur-point rendition of Greater Greece situated nominally in Europe, its one-time ‘cradle’, but now disconnected from it. It can also be found in the ways the South of Italy has been seen, as Faeta noted, as the ‘Indies of down here’ – even within the cultural traditions of the peninsula, both before and after the process of national unification.86 In other words, the South of Italy-as-Hellas has been ‘Othered’ by gazes and narratives produced from without and within. This is part of a set of issues that have found place in the Questione Meridionale (the problem of the South’s stilted modernization and marginality after Italian unification) and the emergence of political debates about Meridionalismo. Both among scholars and in broad perceptions, the South of Italy has been characterized as a ‘minus’ compared to developed, industrial Italy. This is due to

The Strait of Homer and the Strait of Reality

31

its stilted economics (a comparable lack of large investment and industrial conglomerates) and the relative persistence of an archaic and traditionalist society (including generalized stereotypes of amoral familism and irrationalism). The South has been a ‘problem’ to solve.87 At the same time, parts of this South have been drawn into the historical orbit of Greater Greece. While geographically and politically part of Italy since 1861, the ‘Hellenic’ South of Homeric geographies has been characterized as a mild Other where Hellas served to project it away from the centre of gravity of Europe. This process bears similarities to how modern Greece, a fringe region between polarized geopolitical blocks (one of which became economically and politically dominant in recent history, exerting a symbolic power that is arguably more pervasive), has constructed its public history and heritage based on expunging all non-Hellenic elements from its culture.88 Indeed, the area of the Strait has been ambiguously constructed within the remit of the ‘West’ in light of its Hellenic heritage. This redeemed the fringe area from being characterized as a full-fledged Other to Europe. Yet the alignment can still feed a sentiment of disappointment in the South for not living up to Greek antiquity, reinforcing the old idea of ‘a paradise inhabited by demons’.89 The ambiguity can be read in even more complex terms once one shifts focus to the internalized processes of Mediterraneanism, which are found when the subjects of an essentialized narrative more or less consciously adopt it. A diverse array of parties is complicit to the processes of essentialization as gazes on the Hellenic South and the narrative of a Homeric Strait exalting local history align with a supra-local canon.90 Greater Greece offered certain cadres of society a source of cultural capital that they align with by presenting the idea of Hellenic descent as natural and self-evident. In reality, they actually align with a Westcentric view of the Mediterranean. As I stress later, this reception is mostly of the Eurocentric, evolutionist and colonial, Winckelmannian kind. It has resulted in a simplification of Hellas and in the erasure of other historical presences in the region. The appraisal of Greater Greece is yet another way of celebrating the South by reframing stereotypes of archaicity into a positive narrative. This is a far-reaching narrative. The European Grand Tour travellers often exalted the heritage of Hellas or natural beauty in contrast to contemporary archaicity and underdevelopment. Locally, these gazes were incorporated into the canon to support lamentations about the chronic underdevelopment of the region. Yet the notion of underdevelopment is also turned into a positive, as a way of defying a ‘Northern’ modernization deemed destructive.91 As Tedesco elaborates more

32

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

extensively, these dynamics are produced from external gazes in equally celebrative and stigmatizing forms; they may also be appropriated and positively reappraised by those identifying with the represented cultures, resulting in first- or second-degree forms of Mediterraneanism.92 Bertellini similarly defines as ‘Southernism’ some of the ways the South is looked at (and looks at itself); while the ‘imaginative and comforting views’ of an exotic Southern landscape of modern iconographies underscore such dynamics of regionalist commonplacing. Scilla, especially, is a place whose appearance and everyday life has been impacted upon for decades by attempts to furnish it with statues, edifices and landmarks recalling Homer’s mythology. The town epitomizes how regional institutions in the Strait have worked in a similar way to the state, which plays the role of an ‘official arbitrator of public commemoration and, therefore, of national heritage’.93 Yet the intermediation of the historical prestige of Hellas also worked regionally to counter a view that traditionally locked the region in peripherality at a national and European level. In other words, ‘Greekness’ works through education, urban policies and landmarks to create region-centric forms of memory. This memory repositions the place within what Shield might have called a broader space-myth of Euro-Atlantic predominance over its Mediterranean Other.94 To look at how ‘Greekness’ is represented in the Strait, I took inspiration from Dietler’s approach to Celticism and the ‘manifestations of identity’ that are obscured or elided by the common ‘Celtic’ label and that allow exploration of ‘different genres of identity’.95 Observing the manipulation of past identities in modern French nationalism, Dietler distinguished between Celticism (‘selfconscious attempts to construct ethnicised forms of collective memory and communal identity’), Celticity (centred around a global spiritual connection to the idea of Celtic identity’) and Celtitude (‘largely “ethno-nostalgic” forms of diasporic transnational Celtic identity’). I sometimes use similar terms, Hellenicity, Hellenicism and Hellenitude, to refer to processes and narratives that involve ‘reverential engagement’ with the ancient world96 as well as appropriations related to popular ideas of ‘classics’ and larger political appropriations. Hellenicity refers to a generic distillation of grand ideas and themes, including commonplacing in cultural industries. Hellenicism is ideas of belonging to Greater Greece that support collective memory and identitarian narratives. Hellenitude is a form of Hellenocentric, post-diasporic narrative centred around the idea of a common ancestry (as in the case of the Greek-speaking minorities in Calabria). In all of these cases, I consider whether constructions can be

The Strait of Homer and the Strait of Reality

33

characterized as a way of rejecting globalization even as they are made possible by globalized dynamics. Dietler reflected on how appeals to an ancient past ‘played a role in the ‘ideological naturalization of modern political communities’, noting that the word Celtic became a dubious ‘umbrella term’ for past peoples used to fashion identities in the present. Similarly, Hellenicist forms are used today to inscribe identities within ideas of Europeanness and ‘Western-ness’ via heritage building, place branding, and tourism.97 In Calabria, Hellenicism is sometimes a cultural category that can be employed and bent by some to support forms of exclusion of Others (such as migrants). Such can be the role played by appropriations of Greater Greece in legitimizing ideas of ‘invaders of the homeland’. There are also regionalist dynamics at play within a national and supranational framework wherein a region such as Calabria is posited as a historical Other-within. Archaeology has supported and mutually reinforced politics within this framework; ethnic nationalism sees archaeologists as ‘the furnishers of the symbolic hardware of invented traditions’ as much as potential agents of deconstruction.98 While modern Greece provides a relatable context for South Italy’s ascription to Hellas (particularly in how it provides a narrative of affiliation with and antagonism towards Europe), it nevertheless does not make the former consistent with the latter politically and historically. If anything, it highlights distinctions in how the grand history of Hellas has worked in different contexts. Given how relations with ancient Greece are presented as immemorial in the Strait, working to underpin various ideas of Greek descent, this study is obviously indebted to the notion of invented traditions and imagined communities.99 But where many authors mostly discussed the nation-state and nationalism, my focus is on regionalism. My ethnographic approach thus frames similar dynamics within a more specific area.

2.4 Constructing place: The mediated and the real Overall, this ‘crisis of representation’ in the Strait amounts to deconstructing its essentialized geographical and historical ‘realities’ while assessing the social effects of these constructions.100 I aim to induce a fracture and point to the possibilities of celebrating new stories of place.101 This deconstructive approach is not meant to conclude that geographical elements, such as the shape, currents and fauna of the Strait (which have sustained traditional views of the Strait as a Homeric landmark), are necessarily or entirely mythical. For an ancient historian

34

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

or archaeologist, whether or not the Strait inspired the myths might work as a hypothesis. Certainly, other places in the Mediterranean are equally endowed with narrow passages or jutting rocks. But as Sole reminds us, the Strait did end up – by chance or reason – as its elective place.102 Media construct and reproduce images of place, and this study examines these productions from an everyday perspective. Visual cultures have always been highly pertinent for ethnographic research into how the symbolic contributes to economic, political and societal developments by establishing recognizable, typical or essentialized narratives of place.103 Representational journeys in the Strait as a consumable landscape within an economy of signs has impacted on the place branding of the area, particularly in a town shrouded in references to Greater Greece. The popularity of myths often generated expectations that Homeric landmarks would attract tourists. My experience of Scilla offers a more complex picture of the actual outcomes of such touristic ambitions, but the Strait has undeniably become an object of travel literature and practices related to tourism. These invite modalities of gaze and experience ranging from the navigational view of those who traversed and filmed the Mediterranean to the top-down map view of armchair explorers and artists, aerial photography, documentary films and the first-person perspectives of explorers.104 The region’s Greek past is reimaged through ‘technologies of mediation’, media inflections and ideologies that have worked as ‘intrinsic to historically effected consciousness’. They also ‘come to set the pathways for specific forms of historical experience’.105 The Strait thus provides travel literatures, experimental geographies and other creative and artistic endeavours with the chance to explore the landscapes of antiquity either in the field or from their armchairs. This is true both at a symbolic level and from a more political standpoint. Modern European print and the creative industries have constructed an archaic, mythological Strait that mirrors a Mediterraneanist perception of the backward Italian Southland. Images work as proxies for underlying power asymmetries, reflecting ideas through content and structure. Geographies in media must therefore also be understood as a geography of media.106 In other words, they do not only influence representations of place but also from place as local production aligns with what a locality is expected to express. In Scilla town, landmarks such as Francesco Triglia’s horror-tinged statue (Figure 1.3) inevitably reproduce an imagery rooted in centuries of iconographies. They implicitly draw on what is signified – the monster – to denote something more: relations with history. The monsters of the ‘imaginary geographies’ of the Strait are thus associated with a larger set of values, historical events and affects.107

The Strait of Homer and the Strait of Reality

35

Chapters often open with examples of popular histories and experiences from the field. Local representations are interesting from two perspectives. First, they are poetic explorations of the gendered and geographical features of the ancient myths.108 But above all, they are cases of ‘global’ reworkings that praise local and regionalist themes at least partly because of their global recognisability.109 Indeed, these are the identity-scapes of globalization, intimately reliant on their mass-mediation and global flows, which simultaneously take the form of regionalist expressions. That the local and the regional have never been suppressed by the global is perhaps even more apparent in how some in the Strait have appropriated the Odyssey as a historical document from their own town or province. Mediated images have also fed into debates taking place around whether the Odyssey really reflects the geography of place. Scholars have sometimes attempted to match descriptions of Scylla and Charybdis in the poem with early prints, such as Minasi’s (1773). In their view, the 1773 engraving presents evidence of an orography deemed consistent with the ancient myths – even though it no longer matches the rocks of today, which supposedly collapsed after a 1783 earthquake. Local scholars have nurtured and jealously defended the thesis that the Odyssey was inspired by their homeplaces, often clinging to sheds of imagined evidence. Local philologist Mosino and biologist Vazzana celebrated, both via exhibiting alleged factual truth in a paradoxically quasi-religious fashion, the delusion that Homer was an ancient citizen of Reggio – vehemently defending their ‘correct’ local landmarks of the Odyssey from alternative theories, and showing the porous boundaries between scholarship and gatekeeping, imagination and reality, history and myth – or even positivism and faith. As I discuss, visual genealogies of the literary Strait have had an effect on real-life policies and everyday life well beyond the imaginative dimension of escapist literature. Broadly speaking, this study complicates but confirms extensive theorization about the impact of mediated images on place and in shaping collective imaginaries,110 constructing cultures111 and speaking to transnational audiences. Such processes of cultural formation are indeed hard to deny. Representation is more material than ever. It occurs not just in terms of the carrying medium, but also because of the social relations that it engenders, contributing to the discursive shaping of natural history, landscape and geography.112 My discussion of the Strait reminds us that while the real should be observed in social context, the visual remains nonetheless ‘central to the cultural construction of life’.113 This means the visual is also key to the articulation of

36

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

heritage. As Lowenthal noted, ‘what is potentially visible is omnipresent’.114 As Appadurai observed, mediascapes can be windows through which audiences perceive worlds that they may regard as more or less factual, regardless of their factuality. Such ideological framings produce ‘ethnoscapes’ and ‘ideoscapes’, both ways of understanding reality that are ideological or even related to notions of ethnic belonging.115 Mediated representations and grand histories have perpetuated and reinforced ways of thinking about development and heritage, places and identity. While this study cannot but scratch the surface of the complex debate on the relations between reality, signs and simulacra, it is fair to note that Greater Greece has exerted a sort of ‘haunting’ presence on place as the real has almost been supplanted by the imaginary. As Eco noted, ‘we are giving you the reproduction so you will no longer feel any need for the original’.116 In perpetuating a sense of the timelessness of the ‘one-time Greater Greece’, whether by engaging with fantastic geographies or by focusing on the ‘past glory’ of the Greeks, representations have been concrete: magazines, tourist guides, postcards and merchandizing, illustrated popular science and documentaries (as well as many other cases that cannot find space here now) have all contributed to transfixing and orienting the Strait as a place confronted by the task of living up to its Hellenic past.117

2.5 Projecting identities: Banal identitarianism As a way of materializing traditions and heritage, tourism is very much connected to mediated images and received notions about place. Expectations about the landscape of former Greater Greece as a tourist consumable have surrounded the Strait since the Grand Tours, when visitors characterized the backward ‘South’of Italy as a region in which pristine nature contrasted with industrialization and modernity.118 Homeric references and Greater Greece have since continued to be characterized as crucial assets for the development of tourism in the area as well as manifestations of heritage.119 But there are also local attempts to consistently take part in the narrative of place through a heritage industry ‘governed by market considerations of entertainment and profitability and approached by the public as a consumable good’ involving ‘the staging, themeing, memorability (souvenirs) and sensual engagement of consumer activities’.120 I had a chance to interview Gesualdo, the owner of a hotel in Scilla town, at one point. Gesualdo presented Scilla to me as

The Strait of Homer and the Strait of Reality

37

a place that was meant for tourism and that only unwise policies had so far prevented from becoming a tourism boom. Among its many qualities, Scilla could boast ‘a tradition that is of our own’: Greek mythology. Tourism in this study is crucial both in relation to its development rhetoric and the use of Greater Greece as a perceived ‘asset’ or proxy for broader ideas of history and heritage. It is a key site of the manifestation and propagation of what I called ‘banal identitarianism’ as a narrative of belonging expressed and displayed in everyday social interaction that normalizes historical and political notions of belonging from the view of a certain region or area. Studies in tourism represent a broad interdisciplinary field developing in response to a complex historical and social phenomenon emerging with late modernity in the industrialized Euro-Atlantic milieu. This phenomenon involves the global transformation of both labour and leisure. It is embedded in national and international power dynamics and exchanges of people, commodities and images.121 The Strait can be seen as a Homeric landmark during the Grand Tour, which effectively inaugurated the phenomenon of literary tourism. It also exists within the ‘tourist gaze’ – a notion that emphasises the power of the visual and narrative to construct place as ‘touristed’.122 This notion is related to Shield’s concept of the place-myth, which is when mediated narratives sustain beliefs in actual and imagined topographies among visitors and spectators.123 Lastly, the Strait can be seen as part of the practice of archaeological and heritage tourism that commoditizes sites and places deemed worth remembering.124 All of these perspectives can be seen from the additional view that the experience of mythological landmarks make tourism a sort of liminal journey that suspends the everyday.125 Tourism is a form of reception of antiquity: policies in the Strait have amplified selective images of place and notions of history to construct an underlying mythology of environmental and historical exceptionalism. Tourism expectations in Scilla town and other parts of the region revolve around such ideas: politicians and entrepreneurs often present the local landscape as endowed with unique qualities. While supported by an undeniably striking and welcoming landscape, such claims are equally steeped in parochial self-incensement. The town’s relationship to Homeric myth can be an essential part of romantic and primitivist definitions, such as those of an Arcadian and Hellenic Strait that is purported to harbour (in the words of a local study) ‘perceptual faculties which we are losing with modernity’.126 Historically, debates in the region have revolved extensively around this potential as much as the perceived failure of the region (and particularly Scilla) in attracting and retaining visitors.127 Characterized as an unfulfilled vocation, tourism has embodied the mantra of antiquity as an

38

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

asset as much as a perceived disappointment in the missed chances for Scilla and the whole area to become destinations for sustainable travel. Institutions also work alongside broader grand histories to play ‘powerful tools to orient the past and the present’. As in other places, the websites of institutional tourist organizations and marketing tools used by private enterprises and museums selectively highlight views of the past affected by current values and ideologies.128 Popular ideas of history heavily influence the work of such professional networks, too. Palmié and Stewart note that there is circularity in the effects between framings of the past and the conditions that those framings develop in – and contribute to reinforcing, in turn.129 Overall, the idea of Greater Greece as ‘something to preserve’ has had significant influence on collective memory and local identities, its sanctification becoming expressions of local unity that communicate both an ancestral relation to the sea and an affiliation with the prestigious Odyssean mythologies. Such practices have consistently contributed to the process of remembering the past in Scilla and tying it to current aspirations. Discourses on Greater Greece as a driver of tourism have emerged as essential elements for a memory of the past through which the community arguably came and became tied together. This has had important effects. By reflecting the dominant tradition and cultural field of Greater Greece, the Hellenicist outlook of tourism practices and heritage policies has implicitly concealed, marginalized and essentially Othered other regional histories. As Lowenthal recalls, this is part of the cultivation effect of heritage and its way of producing belonging by exclusion: through remembering people create and in this creation, they also ‘suppress cultures and traditions’.130 Popular histories of Reggio glorifying the Greek past are published locally131; other glorification via symbols such as Scylla and Charybdis or the Bronze Warrior statues construct a regional variant of what Ernst Renan termed the ‘daily plebiscite’ of a nation. In the political arena, the heritage of Greater Greece is also appropriated by ideological frameworks ranging from left-wing cosmopolitanism to the liberal arena and right-wing traditionalism. Within this spectrum, Greater Greece has also provided raw material for the weaponization of imagined ancestral roots by xenophobes and the right. At the time of the Mediterranean migratory ‘crises’,132 alignments with the Greeks understood as proto-Europeans became interwoven with white- and West-centric reactionary discourses. Symbols of Greater Greece such as the Riace Bronzes were used in conjunction with ethnic nativist ideas of citizenship based on ancestral ‘blood’, often alongside images from films such as 300 (2007), to glorify or imply xenophobic hostility.

The Strait of Homer and the Strait of Reality

39

Such appropriations impact on the politics of identity, as I realized when one of my informants discussing the refugee crisis told me that ‘to each [should be] their own land’. He regarded people from South Italy to be different from both ‘pasty’ Northern Italians and ‘those Others’ coming from the sea. Yet, in his mind, the Riace Bronzes stood for the ‘tanned’, ideal Mediterranean body of the Southerners. This form of colourism was ‘mediated’ by a Hellenicist claim. It resided at an infra-national, nested plane of xenophobia intersecting with the broader issues of a nation that has thus far failed in elaborating on its colonial past, decolonizing its society and education, and challenging a whiteness-asdefault that has largely been imported in the face of internal diversity.133

Imaginings and re-imaginings This book is ultimately about how mythological signifiers and historical narratives become insignia for ideas of identity, citizenship and, regrettably, even exclusion. No matter how faithfully curated or trivialized and hackneyed, ancient Greek tales have often worked in and outside of the Strait as a shorthand for explorations of an atemporal ‘South’ Mediterranean or to sustain a deceitfully pervasive Hellenicist obsession. Symbols of Greater Greece have often appeased what De Martino defined as a ‘crisis of presence’ – the fear of ‘dehistorification’, of being ‘cut off from the synthesizing process of historical becoming’.134 In the South, time and again constructed and almost doomed to exist at the periphery of modernity, the past filled the horror vacui of being an Outsider in a EuroAtlantic order. Yet we can also think of moments of crisis as ways of stimulating ‘futural thought, provoking people to rethink their relationship to time’.135 Thus, I suggest dropping the ‘classical’ and challenging historical Hellenicism both in the Strait and in history at large. This is a call to reappraise Hellas within a more comprehensive view of history. As Martino argued, a crisis is a moment of loss of historification and resort to a mythical narrative.136 If a crisis can also entail hope for the future, it may be used to catalyse ‘dormant memory into kinetic historical imagination’.137 One of the symbolic literary places of Greater Greece can thus be part of a larger crisis of ‘classicity’ and its complacence with Western ethnocentrism. Re-imagining the Strait can help us re-think it alongside the role of Hellas in the histories of Europe and the Mediterranean – a larger region in which appropriations of the past are still being used to support hard borders that Other and repel its neighbours, while promoting illusory notions of purity and unity.

40

3

Chronotopes of Hellas: The Strait During the Grand Tour

My research on the Strait began in libraries and digitized archives, revealing the trail of its representations in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century travelogues written by European visitors. Anticipating modern tourism1 from the seventeenth century onwards, the Grand Tour saw European noblemen and, later, a rising bourgeoisie visit Italy to appreciate its art, history and culture. Most travellers stopped in Venice, Florence and Rome.2 Others proceeded further South to Pompeii and Naples, then beyond to Calabria and Sicily to witness the remains of former Greater Greece.3 As my research turned from print archives to ethnography in Scilla town, I found re-editions of these travelogues in bookstores and local newsagents – often alongside multi-lingual tourist books, postcards, souvenirs, the odd copy of the Odyssey, publications on local history, cuisine, folk tales, poetry and politics, and local products such as chilli peppers and bergamot citrus (Figure 3.3). These foreign gazes on the South of Italy (a body of work generally composed of engravings, cartographic pieces, etchings and travelogues) have become a part of a local canon and archive, attracting the attention of academics and an audience perusing the upper shelves on public and local histories in bookstores. In a book series titled Viaggio in Calabria, edited by a publisher based in Calabria, pocket-sized editions of the travelogues were accompanied by a smartphone application with geo-localized literary references and historical landmarks, and also by a website (both are now defunct) that mapped out some of the ‘itineraries of myth and history’ from the travelogues. Both media visualized texts, excerpts and maps, allowing the readers to situate themselves within the same route as the literary travellers. A measure of the preoccupations of local cultures with how foreign gazes have looked at the South of Italy, the online archive offered a chance to type in search keywords, revealing passages in which visitors discussed specific locations and landmarks. Indeed, many of 41

42

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

the authors from the series – including French official Auguste de Rivarol (1786–1826), writer and poet Charles Didier (1805–1864), writer Astolphe De Custine (1790–1857), English writer and illustrator Edward Lear (1812–1888) and Italian jurist and historian Carlantonio Pilati (1733–1802) – cited the Strait in relation to their Homeric notions from their received literary and cultural background. Some of them included maps punctuated by Homeric landmarks (Figure 3.1). Here, I look at early modern travel diaries, maps and illustrations produced by some of the aforementioned authors as well as others. Looking at mentions of the Homeric Strait around and during the Grand Tour, landmarks such as Scilla emerge as recurrent sites for stopovers from erudite philhellenic voyagers. They were willing to display knowledge of Greek and Latin antiquity, which they idolized and aligned with, drawing a sense of cultural authority from their cultural capital.4 This body of work sheds light on the Strait’s role within a ‘South’ of Italy understood as former Greater Greece. The Homeric landmark of the Strait can be situated within a broader narrative about the region in European travel literature, further showing the endurance of these representations in the present. During the Grand Tour, South Italy became an open-air museum as part of the appraisal of Graeco-Roman history, thought and art that had originated during Renaissance. It also provided a stage for newly emerging European nation-states to appropriate its intellectual legacy. The former Greater Greece that corresponds to the Strait today appeared, from the continent, as one of its furthermost parts. It was also the most remote part of a nation, Italy, that had experienced a relatively belated (compared to other European states) political unification in 1861. During the colonial age, South Italy was understood both as a former setting of Hellas steeped in archaeological remains and mythical landmarks, and as ‘Italy’s own Indies’.5 The establishment of the print medium, which swept the world from its main centres of production in urbanized Italy and continental Europe, was concomitant with the latter’s geographies of power. A rift grew between the centres that visited, consumed, and represented and the peripheries that were explorable and consumable, typified as landscape in text, narrative and iconography.6 During the Grand Tours, far-reaching cultural and literary traditions of reading the Odyssey in relation to the Mediterranean were ferried into new representational and narrative forms. Allowing for a broad popularization of the sciences, literatures and arts, prints offered new ways to represent landscape. Maps and travelogues turned the South into a map of Homeric landmarks where

Chronotopes of Hellas

43

visitors could imaginatively follow the tracks of Odysseus. The travelogues also ushered what would become a way of receiving the literary landscape in the later emerging mass tourism and popular media, such as tourist guides and the documentary film. Transfixed into a backward arcadia, the South often worked in these representations as a fringe of Europe, steeped in wild nature and seas and punctuated by the ruins of the past and mythological tales. Illustrations and visual material make up a relevant part of my analysis. I discuss the Strait as a mythological panorama caught in evolving and competing frames of capturing landscape, from the metaphysical and rationalistic to the picturesque and the literary and erudite. Some of the earliest examples of the Homeric Strait functioning as a chronotope also appear in this chapter. In the Strait, European visitors tended to read and consume the territory by neglecting contemporary social realities to focus instead on ancient landmarks. There are also early cases of discourses on the rift between the glories of Greater Greece and the present political irrelevance of the area. A heterotopic construction where past and present collide, Greater Greece allowed visitors to acknowledge glorious antiquity before noticing that the present could only brood over its ruined memories – the contradictions of a forever lost relevance to European ‘civilization’. Increasingly accessible travel guide maps and European antiquarianism privileged literary landmarks in the mapping of former Greater Greece. This literary cartography enabled visitors to display literary erudition and flaunt scientific explanations of the mythology. I expand on how attitudes to the purported wilderness of the landscape, from positivist explanations of mythopoeic phenomena to the romanticized reception of its purportedly sublime qualities, were culturally predisposed by an ethnocentric mindset. Overall, this chapter illustrates the historical construction of the Strait as a literary landmark. This is how the Grand Tours received a cultural and historical canon that contributed to naturalizing long-lasting ideas of a purportedly unique landscape. Such chronotopical discourses cemented a representational history that would persist in the discourses of tourism and mass media today, generating expectations for the local society in the present to capitalize from and measure itself against the Greek past.

3.1 Geographies of Graeco-Roman mythology Antiquarian interest in ancient Roman and Greek civilizations had already emerged in Europe by the sixteenth century, fuelled by a new print medium and

44

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

under the influence of philhellenic literary, artistic and intellectual movements.7 Literature, early archaeology and exploration would set the basis for the rediscovery of the material and immaterial legacy of the Graeco-Roman world. Dominant traditions elevated a specific form of reception of ancient Greek civilization as the bedrock of the modern ‘West’, and presented themselves as their legitimate heirs.8 In the time between early travelogues such as Thomas Hoby’s diaries from 1547– 1564 and the rise of modern tourism around the nineteenth century,9 intellectuals, writers, artists and poets were driven to travel by a fascination with the Renaissance and Graeco-Roman world.10 Beyond Naples, regions such as Calabria and Sicily were perceived as at the fringes of Europe. Travel thus acquired a layer of temporal regression and adventurous enticement. The former sites of Greek antiquity became the object of a nostalgic longing while the underdevelopment of the region contributed to its being perceived as a lost arcadia. In the era of colonialism and geographical discovery, the GraecoRoman world was special to ‘Western’ Europeans as their very history. Appreciation of Greek and Roman art assumed a tangible form through acquisitions of classical antiquities for collections that would become the basis for the British Museum or the Louvre.11 For artists and travellers, the Mediterranean Sea, its myths and history, and the Graeco-Roman tradition represented major attractions.12 The Strait was one of the most recognizable Homeric landmarks along with Capri and its Sirens in Campania, the rocks of the Cyclops in Aci Trezza, and Hephaestus’ Mount Etna in Sicily. Re-enacting the routes of Odysseus meant paying literary homage to a lineage of ancient, canonized geographers and mythographers, the likes of Strabo,13 Eustathius, Pausanias14 and Odysseus himself. Citing the Odyssean passage was not only an opportunity to display erudition, poetic flair and antiquarian interests. It also seemed a rite of passage inspired by liminal landscapes and their capacity to inspire journeys, quests, pilgrimages.15 This fascination with the South’s mythical toponyms pervaded the accounts, cartographic maps, illustrations, landscaping and iconologies of the mythological monsters. For Didier, Scilla’s rocks were those ‘celebrated by the ancient fables’ and part ‘of classical memory’; crossing the Strait allowed access to a space imbued with references to ancient mythology.16 Mythical place-names worked as ‘a culturally dense access to ancient history’ that was ‘intimately connected with present coordinates and interests’, combining erudition and leisure.17 Elisabeth Décultot’s likening of Winckelmann’s history of art to a travel narrative18 grasped this tendency for the foreignness of place and narrative to converge on past remoteness, inviting the Strait to be traversed as travel in time.

Chronotopes of Hellas

45

In combination with transport routes, movable print types had popularized texts such as Pausanias’ Description of Greece (second century bce ), which had already served ‘as a somewhat bulky handbook for scholarly travellers’.19 An increasingly abundant body of travel literature catered to audience interest in ancient literary landmarks. In 1771, Johann H. Riedesel published Reise durch Sizilien und Großgriechenland, citing the ‘Charybdis of the ancient’ close to Messina.20 The year 1783 saw the publication of popular texts that used myth-places as itineraries, such as Swinburne’s travelogue21 where the author compared his own comfortable crossing of the Strait to the more perilous literary journey of Odysseus.22 As Jeremy Black notes, the consumer revolution of the eighteenth century meant that foreign tourism was also part ‘of a more widespread consumerism that was general throughout both the social elite and the middling orders’. This meant ‘massive growth’ in the production of travel accounts, which proved ‘an important stimulant to the growth of foreign travel in the eighteenth century’.23 Visitors could not resist the Sirens of mythological citations when nearing the Strait. Among them in 1768–1788 was Goethe, Riedesel’s guide in hand.24 Textual and visual references to Scylla and Charybdis occur across a number of travel books and illustrations, including: Saint-Non’s Voyage pittoresque (1783) (Figure 3.1), an illustrated travelogue; Henry Swinburne’s diary Travels in the Two Sicilies (1783); French Aristocrat Astolphe de Custine’s 1830 Mémoires et voyages, collecting his travel impressions; Goethe’s Italian Journey (1786–1788); George Robert Gissing’s By the Ionian Sea (1901); and in visual representations such as G.-G. Fortuyn’s (1773) view of Scilla (Figure 3.2).25 The Strait thus became an established must-see in the rediscovery of Greater Greece. Astolphe de Custine’s 1830 Letters provides an apt example. Custine writes that ‘I could not have forgiven myself, had I not let myself be transported by the waves of the strait that have seen the passage of Odysseus’ boat. It was either to face Scilla’s rocks, or not come to Calabria at all’.26 Gissing also articulated a relationship with the landscape, writing that: alone and quiet, I heard the washing of the waves; I saw the evening fall on cloud-wreathed Etna, the twinkling lights come forth on Scylla and Charybdis; and, as I looked my last towards the Ionian Sea, I wished it were mine to wander endlessly amid the silence of the ancient world, to-day and all its sounds forgotten.27

Inspired by their knowledge of the Graeco-Roman world, visitors saw the area as a setting for erudite escapism in lands where striking sceneries co-existed with the disquieting rêverie of legends.

46

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

As a result, this chronotopical view of the Strait worked to pre-empt an understanding of the geography of the region, positioning it as a dried-out setting for the formerly thriving Greater Greece. Musings from Custine and Gissing were representative of a broader tendency. Joseph Addison’s Remarks on Several Parts of Italy (1767) pioneered interest in the ‘antiquities and curiosities’ found in Italy, presenting regions such as Calabria as trekking grounds after the traces of Greek civilization.28 Later works such as the 1819 Classical Tour through Italy and Sicily by Richard Hoare, who followed Pliny and Horace,29 and the 1863 John Murray Hand-Book for Travelling in the Continent continued in this tradition. Both displayed an understanding of local reality deeply veined by relations with ancient landmarks.

3.2 Cartographies of Homeric landmarks Visual representations played an important role in constructing the landscape after received notions of literary heritage. In Saint-Non’s Voyage pittoresque, the author dedicated extensive attention to Reggio, Messina, Scilla, Cape Pelorus and the detroit of Homer.30 The ‘famous and dreadful Rock’ of the mythical Scylla of the ancient Greeks, he noted, was the cliff facing ‘a charming sea village’ that drew its fame and attractiveness from mythology.31 Cartographic media often contained within travelogues contributed to the establishment of the Strait as an iconic, pan-European visual landmark, as in the case of the 1886 Spanish print ‘Caribdis escollo en el Faro de Mecina’ (Figure 2.1).32 Engravings and maps disseminated both a pictorial, landscape-oriented and topdown, cartographic view of landmarks, presenting and mapping them as a possible travel destination.33 A map from Saint-Non’s Voyage (Figure 3.1) corresponds with contemporary geopolitical realities and mythological landmarks to include ‘Scylla’, ‘Pelorum’, ‘Herculis Promontorium’ and ‘Laestrigonii Campi’34 – a Homeric toponomasty that still characterizes the tourist imaginary in the area of the Strait, Mount Etna and the Aeolian Islands. Saint-Non was not a trendsetter. He followed in the footsteps of previous journeys, such as the one of ‘travelling philosopher’ Carlantonio Pilati from 1775–1777.35 Both itineraries were subject to recent discussion on the companion website to the abovementioned book series Viaggio in Calabria, where the publisher offered a map of Calabria comparing the areas and routes explored by different travellers.36 The visual consumption of scenes of Southern Italy based on its myths found an increasingly international and literate audience due to the circulation of

Chronotopes of Hellas

47

Figure 3.1 A route of Graeco-Roman landmarks. Detail from Saint-Non’s Voyage (1783). Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali – Biblioteca Nazionale ‘Vittorio Emanuele III’, Napoli.

travelogues. Riedefield’s Reise was translated into French and English in 1773, Swinburne’s Journey into French and German in 1785, and Saint-Non’s Voyage into English and German in 1789. Before them, the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Encyclopédie featured Scylla and Charybdis in their sections on mythology and poetry, as well as in ancient and modern geography.37 As Placanica notes (1999: 20), foreign cartography often indulged in the ‘recalling [. . .] of the classical age’, privileging a literary flair and historical landmarks over political nomenclatures. Overall, it demonstrated an unsubstantial understanding of the territory and fleeting engagement with informants. The gap revealed the rift between the actual region and its privileged representations in the eyes of foreign visitors and enterprises. A large part of the interest in the Strait’s cartography resided in rationalist explanations of myths as inspired by its natural environment. These drew on ancient traditions of myth exegesis rekindled under the rubric of a rising positivist paradigm.38 For Swinburne,39 Homer had described the exact scenery

48

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

and customs of the areas so he ‘did not raise his epic building merely upon the shadowy basis of fiction; the voyages of Odysseus had been handed down by traditions, and to some well-known stories he added poetic embellishment’.40 Riedesel discussed Charybdis in relation to the actual currents off the shore of Messina,41 while La Salle’s Voyage (1829) described mythical landmarks such as ‘Jaci Reale’ and its ‘rocks of the Cyclops’ as poetic transfigurations of the natural environment. For publishers and engravers, the Strait and Scilla represented a highly recognizable and much-evoked spot in a broader Homeric geography.42 Norman Douglas would write about Capri as the land of the Sirens, indulging in poetic descriptions of the marine fauna and its relations to myths.43 Gissing’s 1901 By the Ionian Sea ended with an image of Mount Etna and the Strait featured on a map of Southern Italy and Sicily.44 Yet probably due to the homonymy of Scilla town, the Strait represented a somewhat seminal reference: for La Salle, among the ‘hazards and wonders’ of the ‘South’, ‘there exist two in particular, which the imagination of poets and popular traditions have recognized under the names of Charybdis and Scylla’.45 Representations of Scilla and of its scenery grew in popularity. As Séstito reminded the reader, ‘whether rendered as sharp or smudged in undulating lines, and hollowed by an over-sized grotto or seen as landing ground, the cliff of Scilla is a must-see stop of the Grand Tours’.46 Achille Étienne alla prima menzione di La Salle’s 1822–1826 Voyage reports it as a place where nature had unfolded its marvels.47 Willem Fortuyn’s artwork for Minasi’s article on the ‘Southern view of the town of Scilla’ (1773), rife with picturesque aesthetics as a way to fuse together natural sceneries and relics of past architecture,48 features the mythological figures in half-human form inside a frame (Figure 3.2). Such depictions had already been established in encyclopedias, engravings, etchings and cartographic iconography. As Van Duzer shows, monsters from the Graeco-Roman tradition had accompanied the bestiaries of mapmakers since the 1515 Schöner globe.49 But while earlier sea monsters inhabited or symbolized unknown areas of the far seas, Fortuyn’s Scylla and Charybdis may have not necessarily represented unfathomable abysses. At a time when science and progress in navigation technology had made travel safer, and as the Age of Discovery pushed the uncharted areas of wilderness away from the Mediterranean, the Strait of monsters may have expressed a philological embellishment above all, signalling a literary form of erudition shared by writers and readers. Representations of the area are often indebted to Graeco-Roman imagery. Scylla and Charybdis appear as such in the already cited Teatro Geográfico

Chronotopes of Hellas

49

Figure 3.2 The Strait of Homeric myths and a view of Scilla’s promontory. Detail from G. Fortuyn, Aspetto meridionale della città di Scilla, incision (1773). Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali – Biblioteca Nazionale ‘Vittorio Emanuele III’, Napoli.

50

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

(1886) (Figure 2.1), a Spanish military atlas presenting elements of Sicilian geography and its historical and mythological assets. Placanica argues that at least until the rise of late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century professional charts, until ‘rhetorical and decorative necessities’ influenced cartography, Calabria was seen as ‘protruding onto a Mediterranean traversed by huffing mythical monsters and agile fleets, fluttering with sails swollen by the winds’ and punctuated by ‘toponyms that [. . .] evoked ancient glories and an exotic pleasantness’.50 Some illustrations of the Strait show a shift in views of mythology from the domain of metaphysical geographies to that of positivist thought, relegating it to the stadium of a pre-science, as shown in Franciscan friar Vincenzo Coronelli’s comparison of distinct artworks from Swiss engraver Matthäus Merian’s geographical treatise Topographia Italiae (1688) and German polymath Athanasius Kircher’s illustration of the Strait for his Mundus Subterranean (1683). Overall, these descriptions matched ‘the poetics of the space that is Hellas’ as a mythical construction that seemed bound to be ‘eternally recovered in the literary imagination’ – while being used as a recognizable narrative to appropriate and entice audiences.

3.3 Maps of monsters: The feminine as nature’s beauty and dread To the eyes of modern visitors, the Homeric Mediterranean appeared to be a cove of mythical landmarks and scientific curiosities. Visitors could revel in poetic inspiration or boast rationalist interpretations of ancient beliefs. In his Mémoires et voyages, Custine (1830) stated how everything in the landscape, from the pure water to the clear sky and the contours of the mountains, inspired his imagination. The Strait was projected as an ideal setting for wild and untamed forces of nature such as volcanoes and unique marine whirlpools. Yet along with an appreciation of the area’s natural beauty, a sense of fear surrounding its underlying, threatening forces occasionally lurked in these accounts (particularly in reference to the earthquakes and tsunamis that had struck the region in 178351). One can read Fortuyn’s treatment of Scilla as if predicting the earthquake that devastated Calabria and Sicily in 1783: in his engraving, Scilla is mainly depicted as a picturesque, idyllic place, but the monsters of myth feature in the smaller illustration at the bottom of the print (Figure 3.2). The sea and earthquakes had been feeding the imagination of European travellers ever since Kircher’s Mundus.52 Custine’s Mémoires et voyages of 1830

Chronotopes of Hellas

51

insisted on the ‘couleur d’époque’ of Southern Calabria and its delightful scenery as a paradise on Earth. But, he reminded the reader, in reference to the earthquake, that nature could manifest frightening power through volcanoes and other events that had ‘revolted against the conquests of man, deriding his civilization’.53 Duret De Tavel, a French official, indulged in a description of the earthquake and tsunami while reporting the collapse of Campallà (Monte Pacì, south of Scilla) into the sea, noting how it had ‘pushed an enormous mass of water onto the opposite shore [. . .] swallowing all the people who were seeking shelter from the previous earthquake on the shore of Scilla’.54 In these renditions, mythological figures stood as forces of nature. In 1907, Norman Douglas associated ‘the worst earthquake of the century’ with the metaphorical dread of ancient Greek monsters whom he saw as signifiers of death and putrefaction. As a figure of uncanny femininity and a ‘speaking name’ for death and annihilation,55 Scylla might have provided a suitable symbol for the Strait’s ambivalence between scenic beauty and its manifestations of a cruel Mother Nature.56 The destruction and wholescale suffering brought about by the 1783 earthquake that devastated the region along with Scilla, which lay at one of the epicentres,57 bewildered literate visitors.58 The quaintly Arcadian South of Italy had an ambiguous and potentially calamitous side that further invited a treatment of this land as a wild opposite of urbanized European cities. The reception of Greek myths seemed to have embodied such contrasts in figurative form. The Strait’s iconography was associated with two half-human marine monsters, conveying ideas of weirdness, fascination and abjection. Combining repulsion and attraction, Scylla and Charybdis aptly stood for the region’s perceived mix of ambiguous attraction and disquieting Otherness. Conversely, prints such as Cassini’s (1797) allegory of the continents represented Europe via the myth of Europa ravaged by Zeus disguised as a bull, using a sexually allusive and hypertrophic allegory that recalled a reassuringly traditional metaphor of fertility, power and reproduction.59 Aside from the historical event of the 1783 tsunami, poetic enjoyment and rationalizing interpretations went hand in hand. Charles Didier rehearsed the notorious etymological explanation of the dogs’ heads of Scylla as hissing winds through which the rocks produced a deceitful barking sound.60 Arthur John Strutt noted in 1842 that the rocks in Scilla seemed to be eternally fighting a marine war with the ‘barking waves’.61 While in awe of the setting, travellers did not waste the chance to produce a customary rational explanation for the myths. Edward Lear reported with a hint of disappointment that he had expected howls and screams, but had been unable to perceive even a small ‘degree of romance in

52

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

our researches’ (1852), even though he was still awestruck by the ‘wide expanse of sea’ and the ‘very magnificent’ rocks of Scilla, ‘rising above the boiling current of dark blue foamy water’.62 This now typical view of Scilla would later become the cover of the English edition.63 It would also initiate a twofold tendency of disappointment among visitors (who expected the real place to conform to mythological narratives) and of insistence among local historians in providing or fabricating evidence that the myths were indeed ‘located’ here. Several environmental elements inspired poets and intellectuals, including the cliff dominating the sea, the rocks, the view of Sicily and the Aeolian Islands, and peculiar fishing techniques that seemed to correspond with those described in the Odyssey. While passing ‘through Charybdis and Scylla’, Custine noted that the local hunt for swordfish, a peculiar ‘species of notorious monsters’, could be found in ancient texts.64 Such elements enforced a feeling of travelling into an ahistorical dimension. George Robert Gissing’s re-enactment of the classical voyage (from 1901), which projects the traveller back to Hellas, is consistent with how myth has the power to project its subjects to the moment it ‘first occurred’.65 By seeing this region as an ahistorical counterpart to the civilized space of bustling European capitals, visitors enacted a chronotopic motion to the age of an idealized antiquity on the basis of what Fabian terms a denial of coevalness.66 Steeped in an antiquarian appreciation of Hellenism, these representations emerged at the same time as modern historiography to focus on a binary opposition between ‘home and elsewhere’.67 The archaic civilization of the South thus held the romantic promise of an escape from modernity and its grip on the individual, projecting them into the pre-cultural yet mythopoeic field of nature. Mythology appeared grounded in visions of marine animals roaming the Strait with threatening, massive mouths; of protruding sea rocks that posed a danger for boats; of winds that hissed and wailed like packs of dogs; of clashes between Ionian and Tyrrhenian currents that generated dangerous eddies. This appreciation of Hellenic myths as deriving from a perceived uniqueness of the environment endures up to the present day in the Strait. There, statues celebrate mythological figures or commemorate mariners dead at sea, celebrating the perceived uniqueness of the landscape by inscribing mythology upon it.68

3.4 Southernizing the landscape: Europe and its Others Visitors to the Strait often hailed from latitudes with relatively less welcoming climates, which made them inclined to idealize the scenery. For Custine, Palmi

Chronotopes of Hellas

53

and other areas of Calabria were akin to an ‘earthly paradise’.69 Still, the power of the landscape’s seemingly objective, pre-cultural marvels was also largely foregrounded by a series of grand narratives about civilization and perceptions of the region as an almost-Other within the ‘West’. This dynamic was underpinned by a series of historical factors. By the early sixteenth century when the cartography of Europe ‘was very well established’, the southernmost parts of Italy began to be seen as borders separating Europe and the so-called West and North of Europe from what the Occidentalist binary regarded as its opposite: the East and the South.70 At a time of redefinitions in global power balances, as continents were discovered and colonized and the poles of the Earth conquered by daring explorers,71 the popularity of Mediterranean Sea routes had declined in favour of transatlantic exchanges.72 A region such as Calabria could be reached by sea, yet it remained relatively disconnected. Attached to Italy’s southernmost ‘ankle’, its core formed a progression of four main mountainous blocks isolated by surrounding steep heights that descended as cliffs onto Italy’s longest regional stretch of coastline. Land travel was tortuous. Before 1861 (but even after unification), this amounted to traversing distinct political entities, which enhanced the feeling of stepping into a distant land. This insularity seemed all the more striking following the ‘discovery’ of the Americas and transatlantic colonialism, the emergence of transatlantic capitalism, the rise of European nation-states, and the consolidation of their transportation routes in continental Europe. In this context, European nations fashioned themselves as ‘a burgeoning and civilised modernity’, which they regarded as ‘sharply distinct from the social and cultural organisation of southern and eastern Mediterranean regions’.73 Historically, the condition of the area of the Strait was one of effective industrial backwardness, the perception of which was further amplified by the perspective and perception of its observers. Conceptually, this was consistent with the notion of an Orientalist discourse emerging to justify self-appointed claims of Western superiority thought to rest on delimitation from its backward and uncivilized Oriental Others.74 It also resonated with Mediterraneanism75 as a binary view that pits the area as a slow and backward Other against the counterpart of a dynamic, advanced continental Europe. As the technological gap between the regions of Europe became meaningful in the framework of new structural relations underpinning the creation of what Wallerstein designates a world-economy, the movement to its centres was perceived as ‘evolution from simple to complex, backward to developed, primitive to

54

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

cultivated’.76 Many of the documents in these travelogues are consistent with how the Mediterranean became a site ‘of patronising discursive practices’ in the eyes of the newly forming consciousness of European modern states.77 Yet, the legacy of Greater Greece and the Graeco-Roman roots ascribed to the Italian peninsula within the dominant European canons meant that the South of Italy could still be seen in proximity to Europe and ‘Western’ civilization (albeit in an imperfect, fringe form). Attachment to ‘classical’ ideals78 in Western historiographies and their perception of the South of Italy as part of Greater Greece prevented the region from being wholly characterized as an Other to Europe. But the relative remoteness, backwardness, and difference of Italy’s South meant that it still partook of the features associated with Europe’s Oriental and Southern Others. The South could thus ambiguously serve as both Us and Them, safely working as the once-cradle of the ‘West’ while satisfying the conditions of its symbolic consumption as an Other. This occurred under the rubric of the primitivistic view that had become ‘the hallmark of the well-educated gentlemen’, markers of a ‘slightly decadent cult’79 visible in the musings of many a traveller. The characterization allowed for ambiguous responses to place. Already in 1817, almost foreshadowing the emergence of the Southern Question and well before the 1861 Italian unification, Auguste de Rivarol argued that ‘had the Calabrie occupied more the attention of the Neapolitan government, had the objectives been pursued, the industry would have gained a more lively impulse and these provinces would make the prosperity of the Reign today’.80 As antiquity became a selectively heightened property of the landscape, images of ruins and mythological landmarks offered a sense of ‘temporal density’.81 With the gradual rise of tourism, political and social Otherness worked as a precondition to also configure wilderness as a dimension for well-to-do city folks to temporarily escape urban pressure and romantically claim an adventurous relation with nature. The ‘Southern’ landscape, embellished with mythological signifiers, could work to set up a calm, distant past, archaicity and nature, in contrast to the hectic present of modern, civilized Europe – and still remain, both ideally and romantically, part of that very history.82 Within these broader constructions, the Strait symbolized a marine passageway and mythological landmark endowed with untouched, pristine archaicity. Situated ambiguously at the fringes of Europe, it allowed visitors to plunge into a heterotopia of ruins, haunted by its mediated relations with Hellas – a perception foregrounded by geopolitical coordinates.83 The characterization of the Strait as a fascinating land of ruins was thus consistent with its occupying a fringe place in binaries such as centre/periphery

Chronotopes of Hellas

55

and familiar/foreign, the civilised and the wild, the ‘West’ and the ‘Rest’. Neither urbanized, civilized and European, nor entirely rural, archaic and Oriental, Italy’s ‘South’ was nevertheless characterized on the whole as an environment contrasting with the familiar urbanite experience of the visitor.84 Representations insisted ‘on a high degree of anthropological difference, economic depression, and cultural primitivism’,85 representing some of the earliest examples of the ‘tendentious cultural categories’ that would continue to characterize regions such as Calabria for decades and centuries to come.86 While spared from being characterized as a complete Other, the South was still heavily affected by the cultural lens of colonialism that provided an accompanying grand narrative of exploration and adventure modelled after encounters with the peoples of other continents.87 Climactic conditions and natural riches could see observers from ‘modern’ and ‘civilized’ nations marvel at the resources available to ‘backward’ civilizations. Reflecting on the Greek’s ancient arrival, Swinburne stated that ‘a situation blest with so delicious a climate and so fine a haven, must have attracted the early notice of the Eastern navigators, who, like Christopher Columbus, Drake and James Cook of modern times, sailed from home in quest of new worlds, and unexplored coasts’.88 Cook’s voyages to the South Pacific had a powerful grip on the imagination of the Europeans, appearing to extend the Grand Tour conventions. Travelling to a distant world meant a chance to ‘report its peculiarities’, which formed ‘the prelude to world travel’ as inspired by exoticised representations.89 Travellers to the Strait brought with them preconceptions about both the environment and the people who inhabited the land that they derived from previous accounts and representations. Lenormant saw the Calabrians in an evolutionary and ethnocentric view: ‘rather taciturne, and having in their ways a restrained gravitas and dignified attitude that reminds of the Orientals’, they lived in a society where civilization had not yet ‘overcome an imperfect stage of development’,90 unable to harvest the very same riches that the Greeks had employed for the thriving of their civilization. Yet, the South was still associated with the glory of Hellas. However imperfect, the role played by Greater Greece in securing its ascription to the West can be understood more clearly in relation to Eastern Europe, itself at the time ‘a link between modernity and backwardness’.91 Custine wrote on the Strait (1830) and ‘Eastern’ Europe (1843), which he considered equally primitive and underdeveloped, in terms of what Said defines as a ‘positional superiority’.92 But Southern Italy benefited from the ‘classical’ tradition, which set it aside from

56

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

‘Easterners’.93 The latter he saw as entirely uncivilized savages, while the Italian Southerners boasted a connection with ancient Greece. In other words, Custine did not regard ancient Greece as an extraneous land, but as the bedrock of his own civilization. Russians were excluded from Europe, while Southern Italy was at the edge of Europe where it embodied, in primitivist fashion, an original simplicity.94 Thus, the association of the South with Hellas meant that it could still be reclaimed as ‘Western’ rather than entirely Oriental, suspending or casting away the sociobiological, racist mindset of the observers.95 As Bouchard and Ferme remark,96 this historical process ‘was to be seen in an even broader context of earth discovery and colonialism’ where ‘the Greek and Roman remains were special to the ideas of western Europeans because they were regarded precisely as relatable to their very history’. The elements exposed so far may explain why prominent travelogues largely ‘fail to mention the work of early geographers and topographers’ who had written on the South of Italy and its social realities, and preferred instead to focus on the remains of ancient Greece and present their trips ‘as novel explorations of unknown lands’; this created a ‘widening gap between local and foreign approaches to the region at that moment in history’.97 The view did not simply come from visitors from European nation-states. It had roots in preunitary perceptions of the South from other states on the Italian peninsula. Dominican historian Leandro Alberti (1479–1552), who lived between Bologna and Rome, saw Calabria as a backward remainder of Hellas98 and relied on ancient texts to understand the region, maintaining an ‘eerie silence on contemporary political and religious upheavals’ while displaying ‘garrulity in relating myths, legends, and anecdotes from the long-lost past’.99 The new travelogues stepped into territory conceptualized as uncharted, as reflected in their narrative styles and emphasis on antiquity, ruins and quaint, picturesque landscapes. The uchronia of the South developed to serve visitors who, like tourists later on, sought ‘personal adventure’, the ‘crossing of boundaries’ and a ‘demand for alterity’.100 As world borders were continuously discovered, imagined and reinforced,101 the genre of travel claimed ‘the South as an unknown region’102 while the picturesque and other Othering representational devices invited the essentializing of ‘natural’ landscapes to the detriment of the nuances of social reality.103 As Cosgrove notes, landscape works in a truly mythical process. It functions as the naturalization and suppression of a cultural process of meaning-making. This process involves the practice of fixing ‘nature’ into a picture, emphasizing visual aspects that restrict meaning and privileging an outsider’s point of view.104

Chronotopes of Hellas

57

Visitors less frequently focused on urbanized, thriving centres, such as Reggio and Messina, where affluent, urbanite classes had erected monuments to Greek myths. Instead, they opted for small villages and the countryside. There were also exceptions to this narrative. British explorer Thomas Hoby admired Messina’s ‘lively’ outlook and its neoclassical ‘fountaine of verie white marble’ in his 1547–1564 Travels. Commissioned by the Senate in 1557 and sculpted by Giovanni Montorsoli, an assistant of Michelangelo (Figure 2.2), the fountain featured Neptune, Scylla and Charybdis.105 It expressed the power of wealthy elites within the harbours of the Strait. Likewise, edifications such as the castle in the town of Scilla, in Calabria, reflected the tastes of an opulent leading class.106 Visitors often resorted to highly selective narratives because a more complex social analysis could undermine framing the South in exotic terms for their audiences. Custine’s visit to Reggio in 1830 almost ruined his uchronic wanderings into the lost past of Greater Greece when he acknowledged that the urban centre was a modern, busy and well-connected harbour. In the author’s words, “je me faisais une autre idée d’une ville baignée par la mer d’Afrique et placée à l’une des extrémités du monde civilisé!” In time, though, he resumed his original longings for pre-modern vistas and the rural and isolated world of the Southern spirit, romantically celebrating the Arcadian life of Calabria and the pre-cultural wilderness of its picturesque scenery: ‘Oh, to what extent is the farmer citizen superior to the idle cosmopolite!’107

3.5 From the travelogues to tourism The travelogues represent a complex body of literature that goes beyond what can be assessed here. More modestly, this chapter has focused on references to Greater Greece and Homeric geographies to show how travellers, in spite of their different backgrounds, performed similar acts of erudite recognition of the mythological Strait. Many of the travelogues mentioned above tend to confirm expectations about the South of Italy as an area transfixed in a mythical, ahistorical Otherness. There, the Strait represents an eminently recognizable signifier of times of the bygone glory of Hellas. With this shared literary background came commonplaces and stereotypes that typically share grounded concerns for the conditions of relative isolation and underdevelopment that persisted in the South. The heritage of Greater Greece and the problem of underdevelopment in the South outlasted the Grand Tour to become irremediably intertwined up to the

58

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

present. While consigned to history and incorporated in local historiographies, the Grand Tour still resonate with a region stuck in the Southern Question of uneven national development, seemingly compelled to gauge its place in the world against the heritage of Greater Greece. The Grand Tour provide a stepping-stone for the development of the images of the mythological Strait, formerly a part of Greater Greece, in a host of diverse representational genealogies in media. It also reveals the inception of foreign gazes and their pleasure in mapping and consuming Greek antiquity and Homeric landmarks in backward South Italy. This idea of Calabria as a land of wilderness has remained common currency in the discourses of media and travel through to the present. On the website for Undiscovered Destination, an ‘adventure travel company dedicated to providing truly authentic holiday experiences in some of the world’s most exciting regions’, Calabria is still presented as the ‘secret gem’ of Italy whose ‘isolation and dramatic topography’, ‘vertiginous cliffs’ and ‘treasure cove of delights’ meant that ‘it remains an enigma even to most Italians’; in this ‘secluded peninsula’, a ‘cornucopia of historical sites’ that include ‘the swagger of Graeco-Roman towns’, the guide finally turns the spotlight on ‘Scilla, the enchanting guardian town of the Messina Strait’.108 No doubt less recognizable than Sicily, Calabria has remained transfixed in the narrative of a hard-to-reach, pristine unknown. The travel and cartographic imagination of the Grand Tours also seemed to anticipate some of the ways in which ‘touristic landscapes’ seduce audiences via constructed anticipations of elements of geography,109 promising a suspension of ordinary time and the everyday.110 As modern mass tourism arose in the wake of further revolutions in transportation and communication, few historical examinations could overlook ‘the influences of the Grand Tour [. . .], including travel to classical Mediterranean sites’.111 By the nineteenth century, travelling was no longer a prerogative of the elites and tourism became widespread among the lower classes that mimicked the aristocrats; in the twentieth century, tourism would become even more popular and accessible. Still, the dominant representations of the region in the local institutions and industries revolved around Greater Greece.112 Finally, the Grand Tour represented an early case of the perception of a deep rift between an antiquity deemed as glorious and a present often characterized as unremarkable – or better yet, of a narrative in which the glory of the Greeks represented a forever-lost recollection in an underdeveloped region, since then – as I elaborate in Chapter 7 – a theatre of foreign occupiers. As in the case of Greece’s relationship to its past,113 a region such as Calabria was a passive,

Chronotopes of Hellas

59

decadent witness of former splendour. Either ‘consigned to the pomp of a forever bygone era, or threatened by historical oblivion’ as the extreme boundary of Europe, the Strait would remain, from the Grand Tour to the present, characterized as ‘a paradise inhabited by devils’114 facing an unfulfilled obligation to live up to the greatness of Magna Graecia. This is, indeed, an image of Calabria that one can find in recent travel books written by foreign visitors. In 1176, John of Oxford, the Bishop of Norwich, complained (much as a capricious prototourist) about the wilderness and the ‘excess of heat’ during his trip to see ‘the rocks and the whirlpools of Scylla and Charybdis’.115 Almost a millennium later,116 others lamented the shoddy infrastructure and the ways that the Calabrians, whom she saw as genuine but sometimes rude, had failed to harness their resources. Such lamentations strike a chord with elements of reality and of how locals (and even returning expats) have internalized this narrative as an inevitable historical fact. During my ethnographic work, I heard it time and again. Fishmonger Antonio reminded me that Homer ‘has done a lot, we have done little’. Returning migrant Sandra, seeing her hometown after sixty years in the US along with her husband, lamented it as doomed to economic disarray and social stagnation while commenting on the town’s unregulated, unfinished building sites or the fact that the ‘youth have no jobs here’ and that their old land plot had been turned into a dump. It is no surprise that such publications gain visibility locally, often found placed among tourist guides and copies of the Grand Tour travelogues by book clerks. Whether due to unsavvy shallowness or deliberate self-bashing, the placement reminds the viewer of the shared discursive genealogies of these texts and the fascinatingly enduring historical persistence of their narratives. As with other cases (most notably modern Greece), Calabria seems stuck in the selfSouthernist trope that sees it ‘seemingly fixed ab immemorabili’, basking in the scorching light of a past ‘so far away as to become a venerable referent’ in a way that it may be used to appropriate its cultural capital, but in the process also becoming a perpetual reminder of its present failures.117 The travelogues of the Grand Tour are a series of enduringly powerful narratives of the area of the Strait, which should serve to problematize the histories of the region. Whether marked by objectivity or marred by stereotypes and clichés, the voices from the travelogues provide a diverse historical sense not only of the Strait of Homeric myths, but of the whole area as a limen or boundary of Europe. Within this broader narrative of difference, these travelogues, diaries, maps and accounts represent a now-canonized corpus that has defined a Hellenic

60

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

Figure 3.3 A bookstand in Scilla town with histories of the town and Greater Greece. Photo by author.

image of the Strait in both the European and global modern imaginations as well as in national and regional historiographies. An example of this long-lasting process can be found in a recent article on the Corriere titled ‘On the tracks of Greater Greece’.118 It begins by discussing areas

Chronotopes of Hellas

61

of the region that have still remained ‘slightly overlooked, maybe because the travellers of the Grand Tour did not pay particular attention to this area (which needed a lot of time to be reached)’. After explaining that the area is precious for naturalistic riches, clay and marble-veined hills, green expanses of olive trees and majestic views, the article turns to the ‘Hellenic heart of the Ionian coast’ with its ‘solemn ruins of Greater Greece’. A more recent tourist website based in Reggio welcomes visitors with images of the Bronze Warrior statues and an emphasis on remoteness and heritage. Positioning Reggio at the ‘Sea and mountains at the tip of the Italian boot, in the heart of Magna Graecia’, its offerings include a feature on the Grand Tours titled ‘From all over Europe to the deep South’, stating that the ‘preferred destination’ of the European elites was ‘Italy, the birthplace of civilisation and art, and specifically, the Southern area of Magna-Greek origins’ (sic).119 These recent examples of destination marketing, out of the countless number that a broader examination would uncover, affirm the role of the Grand Tours as one of receiving and propagating the chronotope of the Homeric Strait. They also consist of an unavoidable element of discussion in national and local discourses on regional history not least by validating the narrative of the region’s descent from Greater Greece. Far from simply populating the local newsagents of Scilla or articles in newspapers and tourist marketing (alongside souvenirs, travel guides (Figure 3.3), mythological statues, signposts and Hellenic branding), the body of travel literature on the Grand Tour travelogues has played an important role in shaping a sense of collective, official history in the region.

62

4

Mediterranean Place-Myths

A large part of my study on the Strait has dealt with travel both as a subject and as a necessary means for investigation. Over the course of several moments during my in-field trip to the area, I realized that my work was almost doomed to an involuntary compliance with the cliché of re-enacting the voyage of Odysseus. This happened to me over several occasions including when flying to Reggio’s airport from London (with a stopover in Rome), while working on the early versions of these very chapters for my doctoral thesis, or crossing the Strait to interview people on the other side. While initially gleeful at the prospect of wearing the hat of the travelling scholar, I soon came to realize that the performative force of cultural habit and commonplace was haunting me and leading me into the dangers of reproducing what is by now a tired practice. So widespread are the ways in which the Odyssey has provided metaphors for personal journeys, having been performed time and again by writers of all ages, that my possible re-enactment threatened me with finding myself stuck, stretched out and abused, between Scylla and Charybdis. This state is perhaps best epitomized by the British poet Armitage’s almost cringeworthy hijacking of the epos in his documentary Homer’s Odyssey (2010), wherein he claimed that he wanted to ‘try and get into [the hero’s] mind’. Adopting the more ironic mindset of the place-savvy local, I reminded myself that the Strait could keep the visitor under a powerful spell despite its symbolic fatigue. The references to mythology that surround the traveller there are a common currency that is pervasive in its everyday occurrence. The banal manifestation often becomes almost transparent to those who inhabit it. But to the unaccustomed visitor as well as the more patriotically nostalgic local, the continuous references to mythology may work in a way that forebodes their possible consumption of the landscape even more intensely as an observable – both as an object that one gazes at (as in the case of visual media) and as a landscape that one traverses in the way of seeing travel. 63

64

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

An example of the first is a copy of the Italian national airline’s onboard magazine Ulisse, which I once found flying to Reggio in 2015. The issue included a special feature on Calabria sponsored by the region’s tourist office, presenting it as the land of ‘ancient and glorious Greater Greece, the cradle of Italic civilization’.1 Opening with top-down vistas of the sea from the beaches and with the remains of Hera Lacinia’s temple, it then proceeded to describe Reggio’s province as a centre of Greater Greece, mentioning the ‘symbolic valence’ of the Strait and offering images of the Bronze Warriors of Riace, Reggio Calabria’s Via Marina seaside, and the replica of Phidias’ Athena Promachos.2 Constructed by the visual language of this travel magazine, Calabria consisted entirely of images of sunny beaches, blue sea and nostalgic remains of Hellas rigorously seen as destinations that one would gaze on ‘from above’, as if ideally extending the eye of the airplane traveller onto what would or could become their destination. In another perspective, such as when travelling by one of the many ferries that connect the Sicilian and Calabrian ends of the Strait, the traveller (whether visitor or local, literary-prone or sceptical and blasé) would be reminded of their obligate re-enactment of Odysseus’ voyage by the fact that those very ferries are named after the hero or other mythological figures. Modern visual and screen media focused on and constructing Calabria-asHellas provide a historical antecedent for the top-down view of Alitalia’s presentday magazine and the habit of attaching mythological names to local landmarks. My examples draw from tourist guides and travel and photo books published in Europe around the Grand Tour up through the post-war period, including works by Finnish writer and historian Eric Schildt (1917–2009), English writer Louis Golding (1895–1958) and Austrian photographer Erich Lessing (1965), to document the rise of these narratives and representations in European travel media. I also focus on two documentaries: Ernle Bradford’s The Search for Ulysses (1965), produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (and based on his 1954 book Ulysses Found); and L’Italia vista dal Cielo (1967–1975) produced by Italian national broadcaster RAI for the international licensing market and directed by the Italian ethnographer, writer and filmmaker Folco Quilici. All of these media are made for forms of consumption that include, vicariously, the first-person experience of the traveller and, as a mediated representation, the audio/video end product of their journey. Emerging at the turn of the last century, these visual re-enactments of the Mediterranean in photography and film consumed the landscape by indulging in novel forms of gazing made possible by emerging technologies and media forms. In the process, Odyssean tropes and recurring Mediterranean vistas also transfixed the region into its now

Mediterranean Place-Myths

65

commonplace primitivist, backward outlook sprinkled with almost obligate and (more or less pedantic) scientific explanations of myths as reflections of the sea fauna and whirlpools. This image had characterized the previous discursive traditions of rationalistic and positivist mythologists as well as the para-colonial anthropology of the Mediterranean. It remains a recurrent mythological theme for the narratives of local place marketing.3 Bradford’s Search spoke to Anglophone audiences, sailing to the sea with the aim of exploring the hero’s journey by navigating the Mediterranean landmarks that had become common currency in the imaginaries of tourism and photography. Quilici’s L’Italia addresses, as a series, both national and international audiences with a bird’s eye view of Italy’s landscape. In the episode on Calabria, it insistently centres on the Graeco-Roman landmarks that have long been seen as the region’s main historical chapter. Both films selectively focus on the landscape to visually and narratively construct a land of nostalgia and mythopoeic wilderness. In both, the Strait continues to work as a signifier of Hellas within a larger process wherein the latter has already arisen not only as a real historical and geographical place, but also as a recognizable visual topos – the iconography and aesthetics of ruins, temples and mythology composing the popular face of ancient Greece in tourism and popular media.4 Quilici’s and Bradford’s mediated travels were also influenced by the emergence of new mythologies of world journeying. Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl had become popular for his experimental research involving the crossing of ancient Pacific Ocean routes on a replica of a Palaeolithic ship. Graeco-Roman scholar Bérard had already contributed to this re-mediation of archaeological travel by setting out to localize the places of the Odyssey in the Mediterranean, renewing popular interest in Homeric geographies.5 In the gazes of the historians and filmmakers, the Strait is one of the landmarks that clustered the Mediterranean as a potential sailing playground of Odyssean re-enactments, fuelling a scholarly and traveller tradition of identifying the ‘correct’ mappings of mythological material. The timespan of these cases follows that of the Grand Tours and brings us to the current historical timeframe after the post-war period. The cultural baggage of these travel documentary broadcasts continues to selectively characterize the region in primitivist terms. It also reveals how visual and pronominal choices continue to characterize the white male gaze of the protagonists and authors as followers of Ulysses. Unlike most previous travellers, I (both as a native and ethnographer with a heightened concern about the unintended interpretative distortions of the observer) strove to switch between two ways of seeing: on the

66

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

one hand, suspending disbelief to walk in the shoes of the Odyssean traveller; on the other, exercising a kind of entertained scepticism that allowed me to remain mindful of the constructed process of Calabria-as-Hellas, its imaginative powers, the risks of aestheticizing it. Both adopting and challenging the first-person views of these travellers, I eventually report my own attempts to defy and frame this temptation by sailing through and flying over the Strait myself. The place exerts an ongoing sense of fascination over visitors. The media, too, has worked to cement popular understandings of the Homeric passage in the travel imaginaries of international tourism and media industries. Its success as a chronotope and place-myth6 may reside in how it provides ways of journeying that sustained ‘credence to both actual and imagined topographies’ among visitors and spectators.7 Ultimately, it offers a chance to relate to these topographies simultaneously, engaging with the fancy of mythology and the situatedness of a real place in the world.

4.1 Travel, exploration and mythological journeys The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw picturesque views of South Italy morph ‘from an elitist aesthetic tradition into a popular, multimedia commerce’ of national representations, for which ‘crucial factors were the emergence of mass tourism and photography’.8 Greek myths provided a reservoir of themes and commonplaces making their way into emerging media. Films such as The Odyssey of Homer (1911) featured representations of the monstrous Scylla and Charybdis, while documentaries rekindled views of the South as a land of devastating earthquakes and volcanic eruptions – all consistent with the images of the Grand Tour. The South as a mythographic landscape was projected onto new ways of being, mythologized as advanced-stage capitalism reinforcing ‘disjunctions between centres that consume and represent and ones that are seen as consumables and iconic’.9 This inscribed existing iconographies onto a new audience that accompanied the international stage with the creation of newly explored recognizable signifiers and consumables of antiquity. As printed texts and etchings were replaced by photography and film, tourism also became an increasingly formalized and recognizable social practice. By the 1920s, guides and travel books had established the Strait as a Homeric landmark on a par with previous traditions. Scilla was the most extensively referenced

Mediterranean Place-Myths

67

Homeric landmark in the European books that I examined based on convenience sampling (availability in London and a few Italian libraries and online archives, pending a more systematic review), as in the case of popular British guides. Muirhead’s Blue Guide, the 1928 volume of a world travel series, echoed Grand Tour descriptions about the ‘comparatively little known southern half of the Italian peninsula, which was fringed in antiquity with the cities of Magna Græcia’, ‘rich in ancient art and dowered with natural beauty’.10 The Strait of Messina stood out in descriptions as a recognizable topos, incomparable for the beauty of its landscape and home of the ancient monsters and ‘terrors of the mariners’.11 The rock of Scylla (Figure 4.3) and the location of Charybdis by ‘a spot near the harbour of Messina’ are recurring references12 along with ‘the fable of Ulysses, of the Sirens and of the vortex of Charybdis’ and other mythological landmarks such as the grottos of Tremusa/Lamia.13 The case of Italy paints a similar picture. The 1938 Touring Club, an edition of the important nation-wide association, had been promoting the national territory since 1896. In the same art canon-driven approach to geography as some of the maps from the Grand Tours, it also saw South Italy as ‘a land sacred to Ceres, Pallas Athena, and Dionysus’, dedicating extensive space to archaeological sites and images of the ‘splendid’ Scilla.14 These descriptions persisted through the decades. By the 1950s, the post-war recovery had ensured tourists from Europe and other parts of the world (including Italy) would now see some Mediterranean destinations as attractive locations from former Greater Greece. Homeric myth-places such as the Strait, the Sirens’ islands in Capri and the Rock of Cyclops in Sicily contributed to a representation of the South of Italy as an extension of ancient Greece. Travel and photo books would increasingly feature visual elements and illustrations of Mediterranean and Aegean localities that brought together landscape and antiquity. In 1965, De Lange’s Guide to Italy (Amsterdam/London) opened with an image of the remains of Paestum immersed in a sunny, quaint landscape. Among the many landmarks detailed in an extensive index, it included the ‘incredibly beautiful’ Strait of Messina ‘in which is the vortex of Charybdis’, and Scylla, ‘famous in mythology’.15 De Lange defines the remains of Greater Greece as ‘standing majestically in a silent land’, fixing a Mediterraneanist image on the definition of Alberobello as ‘the most African town in Europe’.16 British traveller Henry Morton’s travel diary (1969)17 details an ethnographic account of Southern Italy that is markedly philhellenic, beginning in a hotel in Rome with a discussion of Ovid and of ‘the famous rock of Scylla’, the

68

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

earthquakes,18 and the purported continuity between current swordfish hunting and descriptions of that practice from the Odyssey. In it, Morton laments how modern tourism has impacted on some localities in Italy (an issue upon which other travellers, as we will see, also insist), and closes the book with a description of himself looking out of his window at the Strait and the ‘red angry Etna’, hoping that ‘someday I might be fortunate enough to cross those tempting waters’.19 Similar descriptions of quaint landscapes and Homeric references are widespread among writers. Louis Golding dwelled extensively on these places as the source of the Odyssey’s explanation in books such as Good-bye to Ithaca.20 Eric Schildt wrote of his navigations along Ulysses’ route to discuss antiquarianism and landscape via a first-person view of the landmarks.21 Schildt’s 1953 travelogue is a love letter to both Homer and the Grand Tour: travelling on a ketch ‘from Circe’s island to Scylla and Charybdis’, he reports of the ‘sun-baked islands and rural poverty among crumbling temple ruins’ of ‘what was called Great Greece’. Crossing the Strait on a boat, he takes out Goethe’s Italianische Reise (1992) written ‘on the same coast’ they were following, admiring the ‘treacherous tidal coasts’. Armed with nautical instructions, he turns off the engine to enjoy these ‘freak spots of nature’ and ‘cut across the monster’s whirlpool’ as if ‘on the Phaeacians’ ship’: Near Charybdis we were suddenly seized by a southbound current, with which we literally flew toward Messina, while fishing boats closer inshore flew in the opposite direction in the counter currents. Not until we were off Reggio did we slip around. We have succeeded in our venture and would long remember it. The whole of this morning trip [. . .] was one of the most exhilarating sails I have known.22

Schildt would traverse the Strait twice more in his journey, playing with a suspenseful trope of the treacherous waters that had by now become a literary travel ritual. A great variety of media forms had already tied together Odysseus, the philhellenes from the Grand Tour, and more recent travellers in the same genealogy of mythological reception. A flourishing new medium consisted of coffee table photographic books. Canadian photographer and world traveller Beny Roloff (1962) published a lushly illustrated book on Gibraltar, the Strait of Messina, the Aeolian Islands and Li Galli in Campania, featuring a silver-printed map of Homeric place-myth and images of ruined marbles like the ones cherished by Saint-Non (Figure 3.1) or Swinburne. The photographic tribute to the Mediterranean landscape focused on the ‘little fretwork of land and islands

Mediterranean Place-Myths

69

Figure 4.1 The Mediterranean of myths, in E. Lessing, The Voyages of Ulysses (1965). Photo by author.

where stood those temples, statues, and olive trees’.23 Erich Lessing’s 1965 volume (Figure 4.1) began with a two-page map of Mediterranean mythical landmarks. Scylla and Charybdis are not illustrated here (Poseidon and the winged Sirens are), but they are still mapped onto the Strait, the scene of Odysseus’ struggle, and accompanied by excerpts from the Odyssey. In Lessing’s book, the photography focuses on Mediterranean and Aegean barren and marine landscapes and on ancient artefacts and archaeological remains. These media renewed pictorial interest in the Mediterranean in newly available, mass-marketed, lush, often full-colour prints and photos that offered larger audiences the opportunity to ‘stay at home and yet travel the world’.24 This elective gaze again stylized Southern Italy within the aesthetics of Hellas, its depictions focusing on aestheticized renditions of Greek art that hailed back to previous traditions. They were also consistent with those of multinational television productions such as L’Odissea (1968) and the feature film L’Odissea (1954), showing barren landscapes and archaeological remains while captioning that they were shot in the ‘real places of myth’. The 1954 international coproduction, starring Kirk Douglas, began with a visual background of ancient Greek red-figure vases, informing the spectators that ‘the exteriors of this motion picture were filmed on the Mediterranean coasts and islands described in Homer’s Odyssey’ before indulging in a costume drama interspersed with action

70

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

sequences following the adventures of Odysseus.25 The 1968 series, an Italian/ international co-production, started with a narrating voice on a silent audio background melancholically discussing desolate and barren remains in currentday Turkey that corresponded to Troy, the ‘city sung by Homer, up there, on that hill’, reminding the spectators to look at a rendition of the Odyssey filmed in ‘the very same places that bore witness to the journey of Ulysses’.26 Colour photography and film thus marked a new phase in the popular celebration of Homeric geographies characterized by a multitude of ways of seeing and consuming the literary landscape. Representational forms shared a desire to ‘hunt for the places [. . .] which Ulysses visited’, as Lessing determined in his exploration of the Strait.27 Visitors sought to establish the ‘real’ places that had inspired the myths. Myth began to shape the reception of landscape, which was increasingly expected to showcase its purported mythopoeic qualities. Travellers then began to selectively frame the landscape so that it conformed to the myths. Cornelia Kérenyi’s pictorial index of Lessing’s photo book presents a rock from the sea as evidence that Scilla town had inspired the myth. In fact, Kérenyi’s rock is located in nearby Palmi (Figure 4.3) and locally associated with Orestes. This tendency to creatively select dramatic landmarks to match mythology shows how landscape and place were being subjected to the pressure of conforming with the chronotopical28 make-up of the literary landmark. In addition to having been transmitted by existing narratives and iconographies of Hellas, this ‘hunt for the real places’ of Greek mythology was paralleled and perhaps fuelled by a rekindled popular appetite for adventurous world journeys. The mythology of archaeological travel had foundations in the likes of Pausanias, a notable source of inspiration in works by Schliemann (1874) and Arthur J. Evans (1909). It also more recently influenced Norwegian researcher and explorer Thor Heyerdahl, whose Kon Tiki (1952) ethnographic travel book recalled an enterprise in the Pacific that sought to demonstrate archaic routes of trans-Pacific colonization. Heyerdahl used ancient navigational technology, presenting himself as an experimental archaeologist-meetsadventurer, the ‘professional or semi-professional type of specialist’ whose mission was ‘to bring back accounts of the nature of newly found regions’.29 Popular or semi-popular archaeology books presented as visually attractive and vaguely adventurous atlases allowed them to sit beside exploration and tourist material while drawing on the renown, prestige and attraction of ancient Greek myths. Within this cultural milieu, professional and amateur explorers, visitors and tourists, archaeologists and experts alike set out to nostalgically or adventurously rediscover the Homeric Mediterranean.

Mediterranean Place-Myths

71

4.2 On the track of Odysseus: The Homeric Mediterranean Ernle Bradford’s travel book Ulysses Found (1963) recounts his voyage along the route of the Odyssey. Bradford spent much of his life sailing in the Mediterranean and specialized in naval history. The book begins with the premise of the Odyssey as a work of imagination, even though the author had been fascinated by ‘what seas washed the insubstantial shores that harboured Circe and Calypso’ ever since working in the Mediterranean as a young sailor who carried with him a copy of the poem.30 Bradford thus presents himself as competent and authoritative in the Odyssey ‘as thoroughly as [in] the Messina Strait’.31 He then recounts his journey across the Aegean and the Mediterranean, where he spotted the locations of the Cave of Polyphemus, the abode of the Laestrygonians, the land of the Phaeacians, Calypso’s island, the Wandering Rocks and Scylla and Charybdis. Bradford looks at ancient sources and previous explorers to assess the validity of the mappings of each landmark while compiling observations and providing maps of Greece and the Aegean, the West Coast of Sicily, the Central Mediterranean, Sicily and the Ionian and Tyrrhenian. In this account, the Strait is a Homeric cornerstone: Coming through this same Strait in the late autumn of 1952 I did exactly as Ulysses had done 3,000 years ago – get close to the Italian coast where the village of Scilla now stands, so as to avoid the broken water and overfalls on the Sicilian side of the strait.32

Aligning with traditional Homeric geographies, Bradford vehemently espouses the traditional explanations of myth via geography: for him, Scylla ‘the Render’ was a reference to giant squids or octopuses, while Charybdis ‘the Sucker Down’ corresponded (as usual) to a large whirlpool thought to have existed in the area.33 Bradford is certain ‘there has never been any suggestion that Scylla and Charybdis dwelt anywhere but in the Messina Strait’ (1963: p. 150). In fact, Bradford offers no evidence for his claims that Charybdis was ‘a clear description of a violent whirlpool’ or that Scylla was inspired by marine fauna from this specific area.34 His is at least as much a personal journey as an aetiological mythology. His explanations sound, above all, like excuses to employ the Odyssey as a map of fascinating myth-places, indulging in the pleasures of playing Odysseus and presenting the traveller as an explorer. In his Foreword to Ulysses Found, ancient historian A. R. Burn notes that Bradford’s attitude is, in fact, more lyrical than scientific.35 As an autobiographical journey, the book continuously suggests an identification between Odysseus,

72

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

Bradford and, vicariously, the reader. The journey is, above all, an attempt to rediscover Odysseus on his own subjective terms, then deliver his discovery to readers: Turn to the story of Ulysses; come to the sea as he has sailed, and you too may be caught by this power and begin a search too perhaps of a different sort; we all have a different journey to make; this was mine.36

This aspect emerges even more clearly in the sixty-minute film adaptation of the book produced by CBC news called The Search for Ulysses (1966).37 In it, Bradford likens himself to archaeologist Schliemann and Christopher Columbus. The shooting of the documentary often takes a first-person point of view, switching to moments in which it seemingly likens Bradford to Odysseus visually as he stands on the deck or close to the masthead while a voice recites the passage from the Odyssey (Figure 4.2). The narrating voice introduces the film by stating that Odysseus was a real man on a real journey to real sea places. Bradford is presented as a ground-breaking experimental scholar who finally put hypotheses speculated by scholars about the places of the Odyssey to the empirical test.38 Thus, Odysseus’ route is explained as a 2500-year-old ‘mystery’ that may have finally been solved by a novel travelling explorer. Bradford’s journey comes only a few years after Heyerdahl grew famous from Kon Tiki at a time when mass-produced media allowed archaeologists, geographers, travellers and anthropologists to further the Western narrative of discovery of ‘landscapes, possible harbours, ancient ruins, and tribal peoples’.39 While probably not as popular or scientifically ground-breaking as the journey of the Norwegian explorer, Ulysses Found was reprinted and translated into several languages, inviting Homeric scholars and the public to leave their couches and taste the ‘real life of the sea’ from the Odyssey.40 While most of the journey deals with geography and landscape, Bradford sometimes discusses art and suggests the persistence of elements of ancient Greek myth in present-day life among Mediterranean communities. In so doing, he displays a markedly male-centred and Orientalizing gaze. Bradford looks at mythological figures as always representing ‘the eternal danger and appeal of a beautiful woman’. Sirens are equated to bathing women somewhere in the Mediterranean. Circe is likened to a woman surrounded by men at a pool. Bradford even likens the physical build of Maltese women to ancient Great Mothers. A piece of art is described as a representation of the goddess Calypso, to which Bradford adds that Odysseus had shared his couch with ‘a rather ample goddess’. Bradford’s male gaze41 is thus partly conflated with a primitivist

Mediterranean Place-Myths

73

Figure 4.2 Stills from The Search of Ulysses (1966).

perspective: by likening present-day women to Junoesque figurines, Bradford flattens historical time to present us with a Mediterraneanist commonplace of purported archaicity. Overall, the first-person narration of the book and style of shooting of the documentary aim to bring the spectator to witness the places vicariously through the gaze of the scholar-traveller (Figure 4.2). Images of ancient and modern boats interspersed in the montage elicit a sense of adventurousness. Evocative shots of the marine landscape convey a sense of timelessness and stillness. Such passages are accompanied by sounds of low, evocative strings, and the moment Bradford

74

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

approaches the Strait is accompanied by the hammering snare of the drum kit. A reference to the Strait ensues, beginning with a montage of the mythical scenes depicted in the sculptural Sperlonga group (which is actually located in Lazio, in central Italy). Images from the coastline and moving waters provide the background to cite ‘the impossible choice’ waiting for Odysseus, ‘with Charybdis on one side, the rock of Scylla on the other’.42 But consistent with the chronotopical image’s foreboding of the sense of real place, Bradford is somewhat disappointed by the outlook of the real geography of Scilla town compared to the sinister grandeur of the poem: In describing Scylla’s rock, Homer is indulging in poetic exaggeration: to me, Scilla frankly looks like a travel poster. But even modern maps and guidebooks bear me out – the fishing village [. . .] still bears the fearsome name of Scylla; in a small boat the waters here are not as peaceful as they seem; local fishermen still fear the currents, eddies, shifting tides and whirlpools.43

While demonstrating the existence of a narrative around the region’s potential for tourism, Bradford’s comment highlights a seemingly frustrated attempt to locate a striking landscape that corresponded to the Homeric descriptions – a process that is fairly typical of place-myths.44 Bradford eventually resorted to creatively illustrating Charybdis by means of an image of an unspecified whirlpool (Figure 4.2). The same process is at work in Lessing’s (1965) coffee table book The Voyages of Ulysses (Figure 4.1) where, as I have previously discussed, an iconographic apparatus compiled by Cornelia Kérenyi presents a picture of Scylla’s rock by implying the image came from Scilla town even though the photograph was taken somewhere else. Kérenyi also provides a description of the Strait as ‘very narrow’,45 which is consistent with the bowshot distance discussed in the Odyssey, even though the narrowest point between Sicily and Calabria is actually three kilometres wide. Not unlike in Bradford’s Search, the Strait as an idea, representation, chronotope and place-myth preceding Lessing’s encounter with the real invited a degree of editorial adjustment.

4.3 Italy from the sky: The picturesque South Italian film director and writer-explorer Folco Quilici’s documentary film series Italia Vista dal Cielo46 also follows the routes of Odysseus, offering spectators an aerial rather than maritime tour of the Strait’s landscape. The fourteen-episode documentary film was commissioned by the Italian subsidiary of fuel

Mediterranean Place-Myths

75

multinational Hexxon for the Italian national broadcasting company RAI, and it features helicopter views of Italy’s regional landscapes. The visual style thus obtained strongly characterizes the concept and narrative: an exploration from a bird’s eye perspective that slows down and zooms in on scenic, archaeological and architectural landmarks. Quilici’s work can also be taken as an example of how the Strait has been understood in the national Italian media through associations with Greater Greece and vistas of archaic landscapes and social realities. These are consistent with ideas that date back to the examples of the Grand Tour discussed in the previous chapter. Each episode of the series focuses on a region from the South and North of Italy. The very first one is dedicated to Calabria and Basilicata, the two southernmost regions of the Italian peninsula. As in Bradford’s case, Quilici acted in a tradition of posing as an explorer. In addition to filming L’Italia, he ventured as a travel journalist into ethnographic journeys across the world and its seas while pioneering underwater photography. The emergence of ethnographic and reportage film offered new opportunities to re-activate the grand narrative of Hellenic Calabria and Sicily. Quilici, who hailed from North/Central Italy, claims at the beginning of the chapter (though the narrating voice) that the South had never been filmed in the way he was doing now. Eliciting a sense of adventure and discovery of areas deemed remote even though within the familiar space of the nation, Quilici presents Calabria as almost ahistorical, taking his spectators south as well as back in time, his narrative of exotic lands off-the-beaten-track echoing the Mediterraneanist tropes of the Grand Tour. The fact that the voyage starts from ‘our Deep South’ in ‘areas [. . .] among the least well-known in our country’ reinforces traditional views of the South of Italy as an Other-within.47 The film is dedicated to an area described as one of the ‘most insulated regions [. . .], for the purpose of their understanding’ – a bold statement considering that despite its state of relative underdevelopment compared to the rest of the country, Calabria did include metropolitan areas rife with infrastructure and population sizes upwards of 150,000 people in cities such as Reggio Calabria.48 Again, Scylla and Charybdis receive an early mention, quickly reinforcing a connection between the region and Greater Greece as its most renowned historical asset. As the helicopter flies along the coasts ‘where the Mycenaeans, the Dorians, the Achaeans’ once resided, ‘for that chapter of ancient history which was called Magna Graecia’, the narrator states that Greek colonizers had disembarked on those shores and ignited a flourishing phase of Greek civilization. Scilla town is then introduced with a close-up of an ancient print depicting a

76

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

mountain top that descends onto a coast in front of which a large cliff emerges from the waters.49 ‘There is the sea’, the narrating voice says, ‘and the first thing that comes to mind is that there Ulysses passed by; perhaps he may just have been here moments ago’.50 For Quilici, off the coasts of the Strait in Calabria where past and present still ‘connect seamlessly’, one can imagine ‘the sacred monsters of myth, [. . .] nested in the gloomy waters’.51 The Strait’s chronotopic potential to inspire immersive mediated experiences emerges in the way this evocative travel culminates with a dramatic shot showing a rock projecting from the sea and surrounded by trees in a gloomy dawn. There, the documentary declares, can be found ‘the large rock of Scylla’, its mythological fig tree overlooking Sicily, at the other end of a treacherous Strait ‘where the fear of the seafarer escaped from Scylla would take the name of Charybdis’.52 In fact, this identification is again (as with the case of Lessing and Bradford (Figure 4.2)) a creative treatment to ensure that geography would pair strikingly with the mythological narrative. The rock with the evocative fig tree was shot in Palmi, some fifty kilometres away from Scilla (Figure 4.3), the choice of location perhaps motivated by a feeling that it would match Homer’s description more dramatically.53 This combination of landscapes, archaeological remains, and references to archaic lore reconfirms South Italy as a lost land of pristine landscapes and mythical landmarks. Again implicitly regarded as the ‘Indies of down here’,54 the South of Quilici is as picturesque, wild and primitive as in the travelogue literature from one or two centuries earlier. L’Italia also explicitly mentions that ‘our South’ had illustrious visitors of the likes of Goethe and Swinburne.55 The very treatment of the area remains locked in almost the same kind of romantic conception of the ‘ancient present’ that a foreign visitor like Goethe believed he experienced in the Kingdom of Sicily, musing about one of the lands of the Greek ‘fathers’ of Europe.56 That Scylla and Charybdis feature prominently in the episode could also be explained by Quilici’s co-writer Giuseppe Berto, a classically trained teacher.57 Along with Calabria, other Southern regions insist on this tradition.58 Representations of the South are dominated by a sense of awe for a perceived environmental pristineness and a nostalgic contemplation of mythology, with evocative and languid background music supporting the narrative. Vestiges of ruins and stark landscapes convey a sense of a wilderness and a form of nostalgia for an extinct civilization upon whose remains one could also find accumulated the more recent dilapidations of entire villages and towns drained by depopulation and migration.59 Crumbling temples are alternated with oblique points of view of abandoned towers and villages on isolated hilltops.

Mediterranean Place-Myths

77

Figure 4.3 The promontory of Scilla (top) and a cliff in Palmi (bottom). Photos by author.

This contrasts strikingly with the representations of the northernmost regions of Italy. Here, the documentary exalts ongoing modernization and industrialization. While Calabria’s view focuses on peasant rituals and the timestricken faces of the elderly in deserted villages, the treatment of Emilia Romagna (ep. 2, 1968) highlights the ‘fast modernisation processes’ and the ‘eruption of modernity’ in previously rural areas. Calabria’s seashores are infused with the wild and mythical echoes of Scylla and Charybdis. Emilia is seen as a place of ‘tumultuous swarming up of international masses and kaleidoscopes of colours’.

78

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

Quilici’s South is static and archaic, while the North is dynamic and forwardlooking. Calabria’s musical presentation includes evocative acoustic and wind instruments, conveying a sense of melancholy and nostalgia. Emilia Romagna features a cheerful, buzzing jazz. This binary emerges from the convergence of socio-historical factors and preformed perspectives. The romantic appreciation of the South matched a heartfelt concern about depopulation and migration to the industrialized North and other parts of Europe or the world, which had jarringly emptied whole swathes of towns and villages. Yet Quilici’s portrayal of social destitution remains selective, focusing exclusively on ancient glories and present decadence. This is not to say that these views only amount to the commonplace or entirely consist of hackneyed, primitivist stereotypes.60 A growing developmental gap did exist between large areas of Southern Italy and more industrialized areas from the rest of the peninsula. Emigration, infrastructural paucity and political peripherality had congealed around the issue of the Questione Meridionale as early as in the aftermath of Italy’s unification61 as a debate on the condition and ‘persistent image of the South as stilted and underdeveloped’.62 In spite of objective elements of the South’s relative backwardness, Quilici’s documentary (and book adaptations63) still lock it in a highly selective narrative of timelessness, where elements of modernization and large centres are erased in exchange for a focus on mythological landmarks, ancient temples and small villages.64 As an other-within-Italy, L’Italia reflects what De Seta had noted about the South as a geo-historical construction ‘with respect to which centralnorthern Italy is extraneous’, and which could be seen as a part ‘of a cultural area whose epicentre was mythical Greece’.65 While the gazes of Bradford and Quilici are distinct, they thus shared a tendency to read the Strait through an antiquarian and Mediterraneanist lens.

4.4 Vistas of stillness: Greater Greece and Mediterraneanism As Gribaudi noted, Southern Italy had ‘great difficulty in obtaining any positive recognition in the founding myths of the Italian nation, apart from abstract references to its Greek and Roman past’.66 The Mezzogiorno had long appeared ‘as if it were a colonial or underdeveloped country resisting modernisation, in an opposition to the North’. Much more than a geographical area, the South provided ‘a metaphor which refers to an imaginary and mythical entity, associated with both hell and paradise’.67 The theme of backwardness had already

Mediterranean Place-Myths

79

been articulated since early modernity, but ‘it took a new lease of life’ in the theories of development in the 1940s and 1950s when it provided a further layer of exoticness to representations of Greater Greece by the cultural industries of countries with fast-developing international capitalist markets.68 Abroad, images of old Southern ‘lag’ were ‘transferred to the concept of underdevelopment’ and exoticism, with Greek antiquity providing the most relevant if not unique reference point.69 In the 1950s, the South was still seen as ‘half-way from traditional to modern’.70 Under post-war reconstruction and European integration, it was characterized as a place of radical Otherness and difference. ‘Southern immobility’ informed anthropological studies of the 1950s and 1960s, a notion resting upon ideas of Mediterranean pre-modernity, ‘sociocultural [. . .] patronage, familism, religious syncretism, magic, codes of honour, and shame’.71 Such ‘romanticizing and de-historicizing filters’ informed the ways the South was constructed invariably as ‘primitive’ and ‘timeless’ based on a mix of facts and mythologies. In Italy, the discussion concerned historians, linguists, folklorists and anthropologists such as Costantino Nigra, Giuseppe Pitré, Lamberto Loria and Ernesto de Martino.72 De Martino’s work focused on the beliefs and practices of peasant communities in rural areas, exerting a strong influence on how folklore studies came to characterize them as subaltern and reappraise them as worthwhile of cultural consideration. In the process, it contributed to ‘making them appear metonymically as rural, archaic, and immobile, in contrast to the modern and innovative North’.73 In other words, Tedesco noted, the focus of the South as ‘Our Indies’ of Italian ethnography, even when politically radical, had the effect of reinforcing views on the area as ahistorical.74 Thus, environmentally exceptionalist and socially primitivist views of the South oscillated between negative and positive attributes without facing a conceptual challenge either nationally or abroad. Ultimately, both views present different signs of similarly Mediterraneanist perspectives.75 At their extreme, such theories presented the purported indolence of Southern societies on the basis of a relation between climate and culture through the notion of ‘amoral familism’ and the perceived impossibility of self-governance and development.76 These deterministic views were overturned by those who reappraised Mediterranean societies to report a social superiority, positive relations with the environment, moderation and slowness – values thought at odds with the North’s purported social alienation, environmentally destructive modernity and inhuman pace.77 References to Graeco-Roman antiquity partake of these Mediterraneanist perceptions. Gribaudi notes that the South has been ‘abstracted on classical

80

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

models compared to the rest of the country’, the ideas that ‘Italy ends in Naples’ perpetuated abroad as well as ‘in Croce’s assessment of the history of the South’.78 Representations of the region have been moulded by locals and visitors alike as a way to regard the nation’s temples and traditions as witnesses to their former splendour and contemporary decadence. In doing so, Calabria recalls Greece’s view of itself as a ‘sad relic’ of its past.79 In fact, the presence of a primitivist and Mediterraneanist way of framing the landscape and region at large does not mean that these should be taken exclusively as vignettes and simplifications. A ‘high degree of inequality between regions and classes’ did exist in Italy at the time and it only started to ‘flatten out in the late 1950s80 in certain areas and among a restricted strata of the population. Broadly speaking, the stilted industrialization of the south entailed phenomena such as migration and the depopulation of entire towns. In this context, the underdevelopment of the South fed into its characterization as a ‘slow’ world, overlapping with ideas of past Hellenic glories to perpetuate a heterotopia of nostalgic travel and timelessness. Yet mediated images reproduced selectively constructed perceptions of the South in general and of the area of the Strait more specifically, helping perpetuate the kind of ‘powerful impression on public opinion’ that may have tended to ‘confirm the mental model, and lead to its perpetuation’ in both local and external eyes.81 The Othering of the Hellenistic South, its transfixing in a lost arcadia and ‘Eden-like geography’, was accompanied by more or less explicit ‘disparagements of the South as a cultural and economic black hole’.82 This underpins the more specific process through which the Strait of Homer began to be discussed in relation to tourism, with the latter often conceptualized as an area of needed development to overcome backwardness by harnessing its heritage.

4.5 Playing Odysseus: The literary travellers The use of stock images to ‘complete’ media so that they matched Homeric description is particularly telling in demonstrating how the search ‘for the illusory and fantastic’ can contribute to forms of consumption of place that might involve scholars and researchers, even though they might be ‘not necessarily more rational or objective than those based on pure fiction’.83 The Strait of Scylla and Charybdis has certainly become a part of a ‘poetics of the space [. . .] recovered in the literary imagination’,84 which could orientate the

Mediterranean Place-Myths

81

expectations of both travellers and their projected audiences. In this perspective, the area has continued to be perceived in romantically essentialist terms as a consumable, both geographically and historically, attracting re-enactments of Odysseus’ travels in various observational perspectives. As a literary landmark consistent with what has been defined ‘the fusion of the real worlds in which writers lived with the worlds portrayed as novel’,85 fascination with the Strait has often stemmed from its potential to conflate the real with the imagined, eliciting identifications with the travels of the hero and alignments with a prestigious and highly recognizable cultural tradition. Such identifications and forms of inhabiting Odysseus become evident when looking at their often entangled genealogical webs. In his travel book from 1965, Lessing calls Ernle Bradford (for whom he had worked as film crew) as ‘an energetic, sea-going professor of Greek [. . .] who looks, in his photographs, rather like Kirk Douglas playing Ulysses’. No longer simply emulating Odysseus, Bradford could be seen as emulating Douglas. By then already formulaic, these attempts to play Ulysses elicit my previously expressed preoccupation with avoiding falling into the trap of unconsciously replicating them as a researcher, aestheticizing place and overlooking its construction. Rather than sweeping the problem under the rug, my approach has been to ultimately embrace it reflexively. At various times during my research, I indulged in travelling on the small boats that people kindly offered to navigate me in around the coasts of the Strait. This meant playing Ulysses by suspending disbelief and doubling up on the sensory experience of the sea while thinking about the literary travels that its waves and creatures had inspired, filming the environment first-hand, and walking in the shoes of a filmmaker who needed to identify and shoot a cliff that worked on film to illustrate the Scylla myth. Imitating Quilici, I sat on a small, two-seater aircraft with a professional pilot friend, Nicola, who kindly agreed to take me out to watch the Strait from the sky. I had approached him to walk in the shoes of Quilici, an explorer-meetsfilmmaker who also produced distinctive aerial view photography destined for coffee table books – only to discover that most of Nicola’s customers were local publishers who needed original, striking photography for their publications. On almost all of these occasions, playing Ulysses in the presence of others meant patiently sitting as they proceeded to ‘mythsplain’ every aspect of the sea or the environment. In addition to confirming our relentless fascination for landscape and how media may allow us to experience place almost as if we were there, this experience also showed me the persistence of this packaging of Calabria as former Greater

82

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

Greece. This image can still be found in popular media. As recently as 2018, Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore reiterated the idea of Calabria as ‘the Greece of Italy’, a ‘land of myth, isolated, wild, rural’ where the ‘autochthonous goats’ of the ‘reign of the Sibyl’ ‘balanced on precipitous mountain walls, amidst the tiny nuclei of abandoned houses, display a prehistoric beauty’.86 The same article also mentions how the nearby area of the Bovesia sees ‘many elders [who] still speak the language of Homer’. This is – as I argue in Chapter 7 – a partly mythological construct that simplifies a far more complex and recent historical and linguistic complexity of the region. It is also an example of how ‘denial of the coevalness’87 of Calabria has persisted, as well as the tendency to collapse its present onto the limits of its historical horizon of Greater Greece. The continuity of such images is also quite evident in tourism, which has been subject to relentless debate in Scilla town since the 1960s.88 This debate is interwoven with larger ones on the South’s stilted transport infrastructures, creating expectations about the ‘touristic vocation of the marvellous reality of Scilla’ and leading to the inscription of mythology in the urban fabric through new statues and landmarks.89 Issues that include the South’s systemic infrastructural shortcomings have proved an obstacle to such expectations that exists to the present day. They fuel a narrative of disappointment at the perceived unfulfilled potential (as least before the most recent decade) of tourism as ‘a cornerstone of politics in Scilla’.90 Yet Scilla’s relative failure to attract mass tourism would have made Quilici and Bradford happy: both expressed sceptical views on it, concerned by a perceived danger in stereotyping that would distort place to make it palatable for mass consumption in a capitalist system. Quilici mentioned that he saw mass tourism as a threat to Scilla’s authenticity and the Strait’s ‘timeless equilibrium’. Bradford pronounced disappointment upon seeing the village of Scilla resembling a magazine poster. For both, ideas about economic development in the Strait contradicted their ideas of the place as timeless and off-the-beatentrack, even as they arguably behaved as little more than literary tourists who relied on a highly selective cultural memory of place.91 In fact, such views are steeped in a particular ideological construct. The practice of exploration in places and landscapes that are off the conventional tourist map do nevertheless constitute a form of adventure tourism. Quilici presents a one-dimensional view of the Strait, frozen in archaic Magna Graecia and pre-modernity. Comparing Scilla to a more popular destination after the post-war period, fellow writer Giuseppe Berto (who relocated to live in the Strait) photographed a time when Scilla was beginning to gain renown ‘not only

Mediterranean Place-Myths

83

[among] avant-garde tourists and artists in their perennial search for the unknown and therefore cheap beauty, but also [among] average tourists travelling in economy cars and using their August holidays’.92 The equation between mass consumption and a lack of authenticity reflects the scepticism held by many Italian intellectuals towards capitalism during a period of a violently fast inception of modernity in post-war Italy – when a large part of the peninsula underwent a radical shift from agrarian to industrial practices and tertiarization.93 The way that these views stand for ‘authenticity’ while engraining Mediterraneanist views of the Strait as a land that should remain static and passive as a consumable should be apparent. That these narratives persist even today also shows their enduring performative effects on a region still relegated to underdevelopment. The same region occupies a peripheral and largely passive role in the national politics’ agenda-setting. Even the dreaded commoditization of tourism has largely failed to produce substantive, non-consumptive and non-Othering forms of long-term development that benefit society at large. The tourist guides, travel books and documentary films discussed in this chapter have certainly contributed to a ‘formation of popular memory’ about the Strait.94 Publishing houses and broadcasters, travellers and researchers have found in the Strait a reservoir of erudite citations and a playground for archaeology and adventure. Some of these endeavours have been developing in Homeric geographies. In these traditions of textual interpretation and geographical enquiry revolving around the elements of evidence of the putative correspondences between the Odyssey and real places in the Mediterranean and beyond, the Strait of Scylla and Charybdis provides a recurring milestone.

84

5

Myths of Myths: Mapping the Odyssey

The Strait is a recurrent landmark in discussions of Homeric geographies. In this vast array of scholarly, popular history and entertainment texts, in areas that encompass the work of historians, philologists, archaeologists, biologists and scientists, the environmental features of certain landmarks in the Mediterranean (and elsewhere) have been variously discussed as the direct source of inspiration for some of the Odyssey’s myths. Due to its popularity, the landmark has been working as a milestone for approaches to the Homeric poems that have been pointing to putative correspondences between its tales and the geomorphology of certain areas. Such traditions hail back to some of the earliest discussions of Homer. In fact, references to the real Strait in the Odyssey are far from specific and, rather, quite vague: the myth of Scylla and Charybdis might have belonged originally to an earlier, pan-Mediterranean oral repertoire of legends loosely attached to these seas and no one ‘truthful’ location. Still, philologists, archaeologists, biologists, historians, armchair explorers and many others have travelled to the Mediterranean or investigated it via attempts to clarify, revise or challenge associations between Homeric tales and geographical locales. These attempts range from French Homeric scholar Victor Bérard and allegedly revolutionary re-mappings (such as Italian engineer Felice Vinci’s claim that Homer wrote the Odyssey while referring to the Baltic Sea) all the way to downright fictional takes on the mythological landscape that set the poem in places such as the Rio Grande or saw it as a map of the sky.1 The interplay between geographical features and myths has worked first of all at the level of imagination and escapism. The currents and eddies of the Strait, long fabled as once much stronger and the terror of sailors, have sustained a tradition of spectacularizing this Mediterranean landmark. Projected onto the most diverse imaginative settings in such a way that Scylla and Charybdis were even relocated to the Amazon River and the Odyssey in the stars, myth-places are ascribable to fantasy and entertainment. The Strait displays what Todorov 85

86

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

defined as the ‘near-belief ’, or an ambiguous (and in this case, fascinating) relation between the fantastic and its rootedness in the real.2 At the same time, factual explanations and ‘scientific’ approaches ignited clashes between opposing disciplines, approaches and coteries over the ‘correct’ mappings in an attempt to claim ownership of the ‘facts’. In this perspective, thinking about truthful location becomes an effort to claim a dominant epistemology or ownership of none other than the birthplace of Homer. While doing research in Scilla and Reggio, I was able to experience first-hand how the local reception of Homeric geographies amounted to a deep form of affective ties with place and gatekeeping of a canon. While perusing the shelves of bookstores and newsstands one day in August, a booklet garishly illustrated with marine photography stood out in front of my eyes, its blurb purporting evidence that the environment of the Strait was the original inspiration of the Scylla and Charybdis myth from Homer’s Odyssey.3 As the volume presented it, Homer was, indeed, a citizen of ancient Reggio. While in town, I had been able to get in touch with the author of this publication. After a short drive to the north side of Reggio Calabria, I reached the site of the Museum of Marine Biology managed by the biologist himself, which resided entirely in his own flat. Brimming with specimens and fossils of the fauna of the Strait, Vazzana’s home museum lived up to expectations about the fascinating power of Homeric geography. Introducing me to drawers filled with corals and shells overlooked by hanging photos from his scuba diving sessions, Vazzana explained that he believed Scylla and Charybdis to have originated unequivocally from Homer’s confrontation with the fauna of the Strait. Proceeding to extract a small, dried up creature, prominent fangs protruding from a long, tapered body (Figure 5.1), he pointed out ‘the famous canine heads that clasped sailors, the long necks and the snake-like body, the teeth that snatched Ulysses’ companions’. ‘Here it is’, he commented, ‘this is Skylla’. Defining the Strait as a submerged Grand Canyon-like formation delving down as deep as 1,500 metres, Angelo Vazzana believes that the inspiration for the Homeric legends resided in the upwelling of such creatures. The heads of Scylla corresponded to its teeth, then transfigured into howling dogs by the bard’s imagination. He then described a rocky formation that used to exist in front of Scilla town, which he believed was documented in an etching that had supposedly been destroyed by the earthquake in 1873.4 This purportedly provided the seafront with a narrow passage where howling winds generated the impression of Scylla’s canine wails along with strong whirlpools that inspired the myth of Charybdis. For he, such natural features represented incontrovertible evidence of the local origins of the myth.

Myths of Myths

87

In my view, the scientific validity of such positivist explanations of myth is highly questionable, their value residing more in an impassionate attempt to promote the territory, an endeavour for which the former serves as a form of legitimation. The ‘Skylla fish’ is not so much ‘discovered’; rather, it looks like an existing species is being rebranded to signal its ties with the local landscape, on the basis of assuming it allegedly inspired Homer. The thesis of the pamphlet5 sounds consistently like a concoction of decontextualized sources wherein the answer to whether the Strait inspired the Odyssey is already foretold by a desire to see Homer as a fellow citizen. But these claims are also a sign of a genuine affective alignment with the landscape and the cultural capital of the Homeric poem. Harkening back to rationalism and ferried to the present through a positivist approach to mythology, Homeric geographies demonstrate the Odyssey’s power to fascinate not only as a collection of mythical tales, but also as a historical and geographical document. This reveals the centrality of the Strait in geographical approaches to the poem old and new. Several case studies present the Strait as a continuously re-emerging milestone and site of investigation for both uncompromised espousals of established traditions and outlandish new hypotheses. To begin, there is archaeologist Jean Cuisenier’s (2003) traditional endeavour to follow in the canonical tracks of Odysseus across the Mediterranean, which is consistent with the canonical body of scholarship on the Odyssey as a cultural document. Next, there is Felice Vinci’s (1995) remapping of the Odyssey in the Baltic Sea and rebranding of the Greeks as hailing from the North of Europe, which joins the ranks of revisionist geographies, popular mystery literature, conspiratorial theories and popular pseudo-sciences. In these contrasting hypotheses, the mythical Strait plays an important role as either as a centrepiece of traditional mappings or as an element inviting demolition in subversive theories. These interpretative traditions in the Strait have been received through the uncompromised espousal of traditional hypotheses by local scholars. More broadly, the Odyssey has been jealously appropriated as an emanation of the local environment and history by publishers and elements of the public, institutions and various enclaves of scholars and amateur mythologists. The landscape provides a ‘raw element’ for the projection of various expectations. Still, ideas of factual relationships between myths and geography should not be dismissed altogether.6 I do not try to forcibly deconstruct the traditional associations between geography and myth or claim that the Odyssey should be seen as entirely removed from historical, geographical or anthropological context. Still, I advocate a critical and reflexive approach to

88

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

claims of evidence and the opportunities that this entails. I do so for several reasons. Firstly, issues of geographical factuality are significant for their participation in a cultural and literary history of the Mediterranean, working to connect expertise in antiquity with broader issues of cultural alignment with the Graeco-Roman canon. Homeric geographies allow connection between broad archaeological claims and a more finely grained consideration of the interests of study communities and social groups. As the origins and interpretations of poems such as the Odyssey are disputed, they turn our attention to the motives of scholars and allow for discussion of their assumptions, interests and potential biases.7 Secondly, claims to factuality are key to many strands of Homeric localization. They generate fascinatingly recurring tropes, such as the desire to inaugurate entirely original theses; a degree of disdain for ‘official’ academics; attempts to speak to broad, popular audiences; and the tendency of some authors (who usually come from a positivistic background) to develop expertise in fields entirely removed from ancient history.8 Such attempts are often formulated with the aim of selling a spectacular past fascinatingly set in the real world (and thus with a fixation on the narrative of enticing natural phenomena). But they also intersect with broader strands of para-scientific, anti-establishment and revisionist histories. Thirdly, Homeric geographies represent a chance to delve into local and regional appropriations of the Graeco-Roman canon where affective alignments with Homer intertwine with opportunities for gatekeeping. In discussing such claims of an Odissea Reggina, I am merely scratching the surface of how local traditions recount Homer in relation to places by tying grand, dominant literary traditions to readings of the landscape. These narratives sometimes leave traces in local publications and initiatives, but their social diffusion can only be fully grasped via ethnography at a local level.9 In the Strait, Homer provides its present admirers with a canonical figure that they can use to claim a sentiment of belonging, as protagonists, to a grand, dominant literary tradition. In this perspective, the ‘real’ places of myth become sites of local pride, aggrandisement and perceived heightened opportunity (such as for tourism). Claiming Homer has also served as a form of external validation of the idea that ‘nature, I don’t know, God made this place beautiful’, as painter Stellario Baccellieri told me in front of his large painting reworking the myth of Scylla and Charybdis in the entrance hall of Reggio Calabria’s regional government office. Yet places do not possess strictly ontological traits with culture merely

Myths of Myths

89

providing a juxtaposition to their naturalness. Rather, human creation is subtended by nature, which is in turn ‘enculturated by human interaction’.10 An ever-popular signifier of Greater Greece, the figure of Homer has been co-opted in the region to claim a place in history even as ‘a co-implacement of the natural and the cultural’ continuously takes place, so that ‘each can be said to flesh out the other or give the other consistency and substance’.11 In short, the use of Homeric geographies as ‘myths of myths’12 in the Strait exposes how individuals, communities and audiences appropriated the social and cultural capital associated with Greek antiquity.

5.1 Homeric geographies: Between epos and history Homeric geographies are part of a long-standing tradition of mapping myths.13 As already noted, the Odyssey does not directly cite any exact location for Scylla and Charybdis in its apologoi (the sections corresponding to the fantastic voyages of Odysseus). Reconstructions of the ancient debate are best left to specialists of the ancient world.14 Still, contemporary scholarship generally holds that some places mentioned in the Iliad and Odyssey (such as Ithaca) could correspond at least in part to real localities, given the abundance of historical references.15 The Homeric epic reflects the cultures of the Euboean Greek settlements in Italy around 800–740 bce , when ‘newly founded western communities’ were attached to ‘a prestigious ancestry in the Greeks’ mythical past’ and its folk motifs.16 This foundation followed the earliest Greek settlers on first the Tyrrhenian and then Ionian shores of Italy today. The emergence of mythical figures such as Odysseus, Calchas and Philoctetes was accompanied by oral legends dating back to the Mycenaean era before the writing of the Odyssey, from pre-settlement interactions in these areas that formed a strategic exchange point in the Mediterranean.17 Locating such tales is a controversial task that has traditionally divided scholars. Some remark on coincidences between geography and the tales18 while others believe that Odysseus ‘leaves the sphere of Geography and enters Wonderland’ – that the work of poetry contains fantastic content and encounters with otherworldly creatures rather than being a realistic travelogue.19 Nonetheless, the overlap between historical background and fantastic content has inspired relentless searches for mythological landmarks both in academia and in popular histories.20 In many cases, these searches were conveyed in the form of maps and charts pinpointing the findings of the researchers following in

90

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

Odysseus’ tracks, expressing feedback between the identification of myths on maps followed by proposals to revise mappings onto new charts. Such endeavours still account for a fairly substantial body of travel literature, re-enactment journeys and other forms of appropriation of Homer. The motives of different scholars, explorers and historians who have set out over the past century (particularly in the past few decades) to either confirm, revise or contest Scylla and Charybdis’ traditional location in the Strait can be understood through the lens of three types of approaches: traditionalists, enquirers and revisionists. I have resorted to these categories to avoid appropriating the authority to brand them as either correct or incorrect. Some of the most influential works come from the traditionalist side, which aimed to validate or slightly amend established Mediterranean locales. Stillman (1888) saw the Odyssey as the first Western geographical document, while French historian Victor Bérard’s Les Navigations d’Ulysse (1929)21 is perhaps the most influential work (inspiring Ernle Bradford, among others) to popularize the idea of pinpointing its landmarks.22 Bérard travelled by boat to the mythplaces identified by ancient authors, confirming views that the Siren’s rock corresponded to Capri in Campania or that Scylla and Charybdis hailed from the Strait of Messina. He thus mapped out most of the apologoi on the Tyrrhenian coasts of Italy, his maps bringing together clearly outlined cartographic views with selective illustrations and embellishments underscoring the Homeric landmarks. A later book by Bérard (1933) features photographs by F. Boissonnas illustrating similarities between the landscape and the Homeric descriptions of myths. Extensively illustrated in black and white, the book provides a large foldout map of Homeric landmarks in the Mediterranean (illustrating the Itinéraire d’Ulysse). Among the photos occupying a large portion of the book, accompanied by excerpts from the Odyssey in Greek and translated in French, is one of the ‘détroit vu de Charybde’ (the Strait as seen from Charybdis on the Sicilian side), and one of the ‘rocher de Skylla’ (the rocky promontory of Scilla, depicted as beaten by waves from a dramatic perspective). Recently, the stages in this voyage on the trail of Ulysses (the ‘two men’ who ‘set sail from Marseille, loaded with crates of photographic plates’) was reproduced in the form of a website under the auspices of the Université de Genève – proof of the enduring institutional investment in the canon, although acknowledging a ‘long debate’ over the mappings among scholars.23 Celebrating a scholar who ‘built a career’ on the Odyssey by featuring interactive geolocations of his photographs and some of the original charts and documents, the new website has re-mediated and refashioned previous endeavours in

Myths of Myths

91

mythological mapping onto a digital medium where textual visual information could be explored, visualized, and interacted with.24 Most traditional interpretations, such as Bérard’s, and Jean Cuisenier’s périple, focus on the semantic and etymological elements canonically transmitted by the myths to locate a direct source of inspiration in the landscape: the presence of a rock or the howling of the wind becoming as a monster encircled by dog heads. The second group, the enquirers, try to revise established landmarks. Wolf and Wolf (1983) thought that the literary hero Odysseus met the Phaeacians in a place that corresponds to present-day Calabria. Constantly reprinted by local publishers in Calabria, editions of their books often feature expanded visual appendices and charts. Among others, Pocock (1959) localized the Odyssey in Western Sicily (where his theses are most popular). Gatti (1975) and Senior (1978) discussed folktale motifs and scattered myths across the Mediterranean. The enquirers keep alive an ongoing process of revising mythological landmarks, bringing evidence drawn through etymology, exploration, historical research or some combination of these approaches – often with the intent of visualizing ‘amended’ charts offered to the reader as though inviting them to acknowledge the now-correct places and travel to them. Oftentimes, amendments seem motivated by precise agendas such as claiming myths for one’s own hometown. When Victorian writer Butler (1897) tried to demonstrate that Homer was a woman from Trapani in Sicily, the view was largely discredited by scholars save for Trapani-based philologist Sugameli (1892) and (arguably) local scholars and the general public in Sicily. All would be keen on capitalizing from a connection with Homer. Compared to other often-shifting locales such as those of the Cyclops or Sirens, the Scylla/Scilla association remains one of the most consistent despite its revisions. French explorer Severin (1987) remapped it in Akra Skilla in the Ambracian Gulf of Greece, but Scylla and Charybdis are otherwise unanimously set in the Strait of Messina – as aptly summarized by Jonathan Burgess.25 Conversely, the revisionist side opposes traditional Mediterranean mappings in ways that can be richly imaginative. Vinci relocates the Odyssey in the Baltic and sees Odysseus as ‘hyperborean’.26 As in the other cases, Vinci fills the book with plenty of maps rich in toponymical detail, often with subcharts intended to underscore the similarities between certain geographical forms and the myths that supposedly correspond to their real-life counterparts. Vinci’s thesis is neither completely original nor the most extreme in the history of apocryphal approaches shifting the Homeric epos away to other areas or even other continents. Revisionist approaches are quite varied. Dutch

92

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

economist Wilkens (1990) suggested Troy was located in England (rather than modern-day Turkey) and that its war was fought between Celts. US-based patent attorney Henriette Mertz (1964) pinpointed Troy in North America, Scylla and Charybdis in the Bay of Fundy, Scheria in the Caribbean, Circe’s island in Madeira, and Calypso’s abode in the Azores. Enrico Mattievich (2010), an Italian-Brazilian physicist, located the Odyssey’s Underworld in South America, identifying the river Acheron as the Amazon. At their most extreme, wildly imaginative theories suggest the Odyssey and the Iliad might be found in the sky, and could be decoded as star maps.27 Across all of these theories, scientific authority and wild imagination can sometimes bleed into each other. Vinci’s theory targeted the market of alternative histories and mystery readers, but it still received endorsement by elements of academia, revealing the porous borders between the two worlds. Most share commonalities with the idea that a complete dismissal of the Odyssey into ‘nevernever land’ by ‘armchair Homerists’ would not do justice to the historical background of the epos.28 This belief seems to underpin quite varied forms of affective, cultural and social significance in diverse attempts to appropriate the social and cultural capital they associate with Greek antiquity, seeking anything from profit, fame and cultural prestige to disciplinary or individual interests.

5.2 Contested mappings: Traditionalists, revisionists, heretics Documented in Le périple d’Ulysse (2003), French ethnographer Cuisenier’s travels in the Aegean and the Mediterranean are perhaps the most recent and thorough re-examination of traditional Homeric geographies. Between 1999 and 2001, Cuisenier sailed across the Mediterranean accompanied by classicists, archaeologists and other specialists including botanists and meteorologists. He aimed to uncover empirical evidence of ancient seafaring along with geographical and even astronomical clues that could help identify the setting of Homer’s epos. The project was patronaged by the Musée National de la Marine, the Musée National des Arts et Traditions Populaires, the Centre d’Ethnologie Française and the Centre d’Études Méditerranéennes at the University of Tel-Aviv. Cuisenier’s results were published in a hefty volume with maps and charts taken from maritime guides. Rife with colour photographs that recalled travel books and popular archaeology publications, alongside documentation from Cuisenier’s own team and boats, the book was accompanied by a website disseminating the findings.29

Myths of Myths

93

Cuisenier’s journey aimed to ‘rediscover the traces of the maritime routes followed by the Greek sailors [. . .] as they are evoked in Homer’s Odyssey’ by subjecting his team to conditions similar to the ones experienced by Odysseus and his crew mates. They thus ‘rediscover[ed] the places of their top-overs and stays’ and re-evoked them ‘as precisely as possible through the views of the sites, of the natural environment, of the fauna and flora, and of contemporary social practices’.30 A navigation diary presented an explanation of the various landmarks. Cuisenier raised the problem of ‘how to decide whether or not places are real in the Odyssey’ using Bérard’s translation of the Odyssey in the light of nautical information.31 Through direct observation of the landscape and textual interpretation of the poem, Cuisenier concluded that the Mediterranean was the setting of the Phaeacian tales. Skylla et Charybde, identified in the Strait, appear on the first map in the book. Later, Skylla is traditionally explained as a pieuvre géante (giant octopus), and Charybde as a tourbillon (whirlpool).32 Cuisenier’s voyage is a telling example of his positioning as an explorerethnologue in the wake his predecessor Victor Bérard and, more broadly and implicitly, Homeric geographers before him. Posing as the new champion of traditional views, Cuisenier openly criticizes those who had tried to relocate the myths ‘up to the Strait of Gibraltar, down into the Atlantic, and even in Iceland and indeed in the Baltic’.33 In explicitly mentioning and contrasting Vinci’s Baltic theory (which echoed widely across the media), Cuisenier dismisses it as fanciful and amateurish. He thus marks his position precisely as a traditionalist within the social milieu of academia and high institutions. The core of Cuisenier’s method lies in his experimental ethnography of cultural survivals – the idea that ancient customs may still be found in current ‘folk’ practices and that fieldwork could confirm such correspondences. While acknowledging the Odyssey as poetry so as not to alienate part of his academic readership, Cuisenier rekindles views of its tales as also traces of the lives of sailors and peoples of the sea. Scylla and Charybdis are explained, as usual, as pieuvres and tourbillons.34 For Cuisenier, Skylla the skulax (a young dog or ‘bitch’) is ‘a creature of pure fiction, an assemblage that defies interpretations’ even though she resembles sharks and chiens de mer.35 Her three rows of teeth, six heads and twelve feet show that ‘the audience of Homer knew the fish, the sharks and the cetaceans of the Mediterranean’, disguised in a monster that was ‘outside of norms’.36 For Cuisenier, the creature was neither gratuitously invented nor arbitrarily mapped. Although sharks can be found in most seas, Cuisenier seems to imply that they alone could have inspired the myth in the Strait.

94

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

For Charybdis, he corroborates the ancient theory of the whirlpools by mentioning consistent references in the French Marine’s Instructions nautiques. Yet Cuisenier is forced to admit that the Strait has hardly any actual whirlpools, reporting that he had found only minor turbulences – small gouffres, which today’s sailors call garofali, and their descending and ascending currents, the refoli and bastardi (Figure 5.2). In his ethnographic diary, Cuisenier is disappointed at the thought of never actually identifying the Charybdis he knew from the poem. As many before him, he then puts forward the hypothesis that the currents were probably stronger in antiquity. As in the previously discussed case of Bradford (1966) and Kérenyi,37 Cuisenier sets out with preformed, romantic expectations of finding the mythical Charybde des Ancients.38 While Bradford and Kérenyi represented the whirlpools with stock footage (Figure 4.2), Cuisenier projects the expected exceptionality of place back into a distant past: as with Ithaca, the Strait of reality could correspond to that of mythology – albeit in the past.39 The reference to a whirlpool in the nautical guides corroborates the idea that the Odyssey communicates ancient maritime culture and its mythical transfigurations, and that Homer was well versed in the skills of navigation. In fact, the nautical instructions might have been influenced precisely by the same literary tradition that Cuisenier seeks to map on the Mediterranean. Once again, the chronotopical interpretation of the Strait as a literary landmark fixes culture onto geography while claiming the latter as the wellspring of inspiration for the myths.40 Contrary to Cuisenier’s périple (2003), Felice Vinci’s The Baltic Origins of Homer’s Odyssey (1995) is an example of revisionist approaches to Homeric geographies. Vinci’s theory belongs to the genres of historical mysteries, conspiracies and pseudo-archaeology that oftentimes openly defy established or ‘official’ scholarship as perpetuating restrictive dogmas. Vinci argues that the Iliad and the Odyssey described events and locations taking place in the Baltic and North Sea areas rather than in the Mediterranean. For Vinci, Achaean Greeks originally lived around the second millennium bce in the Baltic, and migrated after climate changes into a more hospitable homeland on the Aegean. After conquering the Minoan Cretans, his story goes, this population of ‘blonde seafarers’ seized control of mainland Greece to found the Mycenaean civilization ‘in the sixteenth century bce ’.41 In the process, Vinci purports, the Scandinavians brought with them the oral tales later written down as the Homeric poems. The Achaeans, or Danaans, were actually the Danes. While settling in the Aegean, they transposed onto a newly found geography the mythical place-names of their sagas in a way that mirrored the position of their original inspirational places from the Baltic.

Myths of Myths

95

Vinci’s book regards traditional Homeric geographies as a truth of the socalled ‘establishment’ and presents discoveries as a compelling re-writing of history.42 He alleges inconsistencies in traditional interpretations against which he suggests alternative locations, amassing an interminable wealth of putative correspondences between geographical Scandinavian locations, archaeological sites and climatic and meteorological phenomena, all provided with charts and maps. Ogygia, Vinci suggests, matches the Faeroe Island Høgoyggj. The ships from the Iliad’s catalogue, he argues, are strikingly similar to Viking ones. Homeric places, he continues, have a distinctively Northern setting because Odysseus’ sea is never as bright as that of the Greek islands. On the contrary, it is ‘grey’ and ‘misty’, consistent with a Northern context. For Vinci, the two-day, non-stop battle between the Achaeans and the Trojans in the Iliad could be explained ‘only by the twilight nights of the high latitudes during the summer solstice’.43 Vinci approaches the Strait with a bold twist, attempting to deliver a blow to an original cornerstone of traditional interpretations. No longer inspired by the tides of the Strait, Charybdis was a transfiguration of the Maelström or Moskenstraumen, a large whirlpool still active in the southernmost point of Moskenesøya (off Cape Lofotodden) where a tide ‘periodically produces an infamous whirlpool’. In Vinci’s view, the whirlpool must have been well known at the time. The British Admiralty guide, again summoned as evidence, still highlights it as a dangerous landmark. For Vinci, no comparable ‘sea navel’ exists in the Mediterranean.44 As for Scylla, Vinci still sees it as an octopus embodying ‘a sailor’s legend re-examined from a literary viewpoint’, such as the creature from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.45 Yet, he argues, the ‘real’ rock of Scylla is an oblong islet called Rödöya in the Baltic (for which he provides a detailed map), facing a narrow 160-foot wide strait that, in Vinci’s view, neatly matches Homer’s indications as a passage whose opposite ends resided ‘at a bowshot distance’.46 Overall, Vinci suggests that the Ithacan world must be set on the Danish islands, that the wanderings of Odysseus took place in the Baltic, that Troy was actually in southern Finland, and that the Achaean settlements were situated on those coasts. Likewise, the Greek word seirênes would echo Sjernarøy, a Norwegian island, and certain shoals called Sire-grunnen. A characteristic bright ‘eye’, a large, natural formation resembling a hole through a mountain, explained the myth of Cyclopes (the monsters, Vinci reminds the reader, can be found both in medieval Norse literature and Norwegian folklore). Endless quarrels between Homeric geographers about the exact pinpointing of each locality can, in Vinci’s

96

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

view, finally end. He declares that his thesis makes sense of how the Achaeans ‘preserved the memory of the heroic age and the feats performed by their ancestors in a lost homeland’, but lost knowledge of the origins of the tales over generations. In his view, the Baltic settings overturn centuries of wrong localizations in the Mediterranean. In the process, they provide a rich apparatus of charts and maps that offer themselves to the reader and invite them to correlate with the findings. Vinci believes he is opening ‘a great door, shut tight until now, to a new view of the Indo-European diaspora’, as well as to ‘the origin and prehistory of the whole of European civilization’ and ‘a new humanism in Western culture’.47 In so framing his ‘discovery’, he caters to an audience enticed by anti-establishment and conspiracy-driven narratives of history – a view confirmed by his claims to shake ‘the dogmas of conformist, established roots and received beliefs’.48 Conceding that his thesis needed further archaeological corroboration, Vinci still boasted about ‘the striking geographic, morphologic, and climatic consistency’ of his scenario.49 But in reality, such theories exaggerate or fabricate evidence and romanticise conclusions in a manner consistent with the typical claims of pseudo-sciences.50

5.3 Observations and expectations Such diverse disciplinary, professional and affective interests in Homeric geographies demonstrate the weight and popularity of Graeco-Roman antiquity in Euro-American scholarship and popular histories. Within them, the Strait maintains its standing as a cornerstone of traditional Homeric geographies. It exists at the centre of a diversity of approaches and sometimes opposite conclusions, such as Cuisenier’s research and Vinci’s speculation. Many such claims to scientific evidence enshrine clearer efforts to appropriate myth rather than pursue factuality. Both Cuisenier and Vinci seem to be motivated by specific interests. Cuisenier was supported by prestigious institutions in France, and engaged the public through websites and televised programmes.51 Vinci’s book became popular among readers of mysteries and conspiracy theories; it was translated into several languages, and his invitation to take part in a mystery programme on Italian public television channel RAI2 controversially attracted even elements of Italian academia.52 Both scholars displayed an affective investment in their claims while entering a multifaceted debate on the mapping of ancient civilizations that goes back to historical

Myths of Myths

97

discoveries such as Schliemann’s unearthing of Troy (1874) or the reconstructions of Knossos by Evans – indeed, re-enacting the attempts of those expeditions to re-write history.53 Vinci had likened himself to Odysseus and his own son to Telemachus, strolling around the new Ithaca in the Baltic regions on the tracks of the Norse bard, gaining attention under the pull of a globally renowned piece of the Euro-American canon.54 Cuisenier’s stand as the defender of traditional history seemed to try to pre-empt the effects of Vinci’s impact on French audiences at a time when Homer in the Baltic had not yet been made available in France.55 Yet, while occupying opposite factions, both employed a skewed argumentative method to support their views and theses. While presented as ethnography, Cuisenier’s break from purely textualist and literary approaches romanticizes the landscape and erases any social realities he is unable to relate back to the Greeks. Cuisenier cherry-picks elements of social practice that he presents as consistent with ancient customs from the Odyssey (such as the swordfish hunt), and accepts them at face value under a preconceived idea of what he already seeks to find. Vinci presents himself as an underdog facing the official establishment, dismissing academics as uninterested in investigation and motivated by selfish conservative interests56 – even though his unsubstantiated claims and false correspondences are little more than the unmethodical accumulation of what is only seemingly plausible. Even Edgar Allan Poe’s 1841 tale on the Maelström, inspired by the Scandinavian whirlpools,57 is ‘press-ganged’ by Vinci (to borrow Fagan and Feder’s explanation of pseudo-scientific methods) to fit a favoured conclusion. This is again consistent with the pseudo-revolutionary truths associated with crackpot science, commercial interests, a desire for fame or conspiratorial and nationalist narratives.58 Truth-value analysis is not the main goal of my study and it would be impossible to address each and every one of Vinci’s claims. Still, a few of the fallacies deserve some treatment to understand their success among certain audiences and their ability to elicit a sense of mystery and enticement. Vinci’s reception ranged from poignant and detailed criticism59 to the enthusiastic reviews by casual readers. Among his critics, Bettini questioned why the Baltic migrants who allegedly wrote down the Odyssey had preserved their memories of the Northern Seas and transposed their landmarks onto the Mediterranean only to later forget about their origins. He also notes that relating a Tojia in Finland to Troy or a Tåsinge to Zacinto (Zakynthos) is a pseudoetymological process that involves decontextualizing evidence and producing false equivalents.60

98

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

As Bettini continues, Vinci’s success among non-specialist audiences lies within a media culture perennially seeking scandals and extraordinary claims. In such a culture, the Odyssey is only interesting insofar as it begets unknown truths or if the hero Odysseus is spectacularly portrayed as a Viking.61 Bettini also notes, ironically, that many other engineers inspired by ‘factual’ interpretations of myths had already claimed to have found Troy: among these, Iman Wilkens, translating the Odyssey, interpreted the endless rain in the poem as evidence that Northern Europe was the place where Troy once stood; while Vucetic located the Homeric localities in the Adriatic.62 Inspired by Vinci, Majrani (2008) suggested that Odysseus had died in Troy, and the suitors had been killed by Philoctetes. Fowler’s claim of a localization in Canada (Kidd 2010) and Mattievich’s (2010) theories on the Amazonian Odyssey can be added to this ever-growing list. More broadly, Cuisenier’s and Vinci’s pursuits testify, in different ways, to the Odyssey’s attractiveness as a tale of journey and discovery. Scholars such as Braccesi (2010) regarded the Odyssey as an inexhaustible source of geographical interpretation and a terrain where all sorts of identity claims have been conducted. Questions about the Odyssey and its routes have been posed ‘infinite times, from the beginning of Western history’. Homeric geography represents, in Bettini’s formulation (2011), an enduring mix of reality and fantasy, a tradition of ‘myths of myths’ that has been attracting several delusional claims.63 Bettini sees Jean Cuisenier, along with Victor Bérard and Tim Severin, as passionate sailors who (not unlike their predecessors) shared above all a faithful belief in the idea of re-enacting Odysseus’ journeys.64 While reminding the reader that the geography of the poem is neither entirely mythical nor absolutely factual,65 Bettini also underscores how the premises of most attempts to map the Odyssey were decided in advance. Ultimately, both Cuisenier’s traditional mapping and Vinci’s revisionist theory are fabrications in which claims of evidence are confounded with elements of storytelling. Ultimately, they are packaged in products sporting a flair for the visual consumption of maps and charts, inviting readers to traverse those locales in person. While the historical plausibility of the Strait’s role in inspiring Homeric myths falls beyond the remit of this study, such processes are important to consider as they underpin diverse appropriations and claims of ownership of the Odyssey. Most evidence cited by such studies is either consistent with or openly critical of the ‘complex web of historical, literary, and archaeological pieces of evidence in which lie the relations between Italy and the Western Allusions in the Odyssey’.66 The mythological geographies that emerge

Myths of Myths

99

from the poem should be considered relatable not to precise locations, but to a much looser and broader network of references that probably preceded Homer (and could be matched to a great number of places in the Mediterranean and even elsewhere). While aspects of the Strait’s geography seem exceptionally consistent with the myths associated with it, there might be a lack of evidence that the Strait directly inspired the myth. Mythological toponyms can be traced back to the Greeks’ ‘Western’ Mediterranean expansion, when many other localities in the Mediterranean and the Aegean could have inspired these myths before they came to be attached to the Strait. Dozens of other places might be seen as presenting geographies of enticing passages between sea rocks, odd currents and cliffs scenically overhanging striking landmarks. These may include the rock from Palmi (Figure 4.3), which, as I discussed earlier, was favoured over Scilla’s rock by filmmakers and explorers like Folco Quilici due to its scenic or dramatic potential.67 Both Bérard and Cuisenier searched in vain for the actual entrance to the mythical sea grotto of Scylla.68 Cuisenier resorted to the theory that the rocks originally visible from town fell into the sea following a powerful earthquake.69 This theory currently earns high praise among local historians in the Strait. Historical prints dating back to before the 1783 earthquake indeed suggest the former existence of this rock as well as underwater grottos consistent with the myths – even though, once again, countless other such places exist in the Mediterranean, if one looked elsewhere.70 This realization does not detract from either acknowledging the Strait’s historical record in its relations with Homeric myths, or the fact that the passage indeed provides a suitable and striking set of dramatic features (both in lived experience and in its shape seen from a top-down, cartographic form). Yet, one would be hard pressed to demonstrate cause-and-effect relations between geography and mythology. Moreover, what can be shown for the Strait could work for countless other passages in the Mediterranean. If one were allowed to wear the hat of the Homeric geographer, then Vinci’s alternative explanation of Charybdis as the Norwegian Maelström could even be deemed plausible as nautical experience of such phenomena might have ended up being incorporated into Greek myths though pre-literary contacts established via seafaring routes. Yet, one would also discover that similar whirlpools are found in Scotland (the Corryvreckan) or, for that matter, might have even existed in the Strait after all, if one were to believe in gradual alterations of the landscape.71 Similar argumentations could be made for other landmarks. Tim Severin, in his quest for the ‘true’ Scylla, found a Mount Lamia in Greece, which he took as

100

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

further evidence to remap Scylla and Charybdis there based on a perceived continuity of mythical figures.72 In fact, mounts named after Lamia are found in several places in Italy. Grottos throughout the whole of the Mediterranean have been associated with monstrosities, myths and ritual: Lamia is a ‘speaking name’ that feminizes the geography of caves through digestive or vaginal metaphors of annihilation.73 At any rate, Severin’s alternative mapping did not have sufficient strength to change dominant, traditionalist mappings of Scylla in the Strait. Such ‘monogenetic’ explanations of myths ultimately take part themselves in mythical storytelling, reproducing existing traditions while acting as if challenging or verifying them. Their faultline, inasmuch as they self-style as science, lies in their reduction of cultural complexity to ill-explained causal processes. Paradoxically, such ‘scientific’ treatments of myth are mythographic, as their obsession with the ‘discoveries of facts’ skew assumptions and ‘annihilate natural science’.74 Most such theories are sustained not by an appraisal of the complexity of mythology in relation to landscape or the assessment of actual evidence, but by the pursuit of specific agendas, their proponents variously benefiting from engaging a notorious landmark associated with a renowned tradition and with tropes of discovery and exploration.

5.4 The viper fish and the whirlpool: Claiming Homer in the Strait These diverse strands of geographical approaches to the Odyssey provide a backdrop for how traditions of mapping Scylla and Charybdis sustain local philhellenic historiographies and theories in the Strait of real life. Homeric myths are part of a regional repertoire of typicality, crossing over from scholarly to everyday discourses together with folk traditions, local cuisine, reflections on the Southern Question and the visitors from the Grand Tour, and other political and social issues. In addition to academic studies,75 it is common for local bookstores, libraries, and newsstands to display studies on the Homeric Strait that re-appear regularly in novel editions or as supplements to newspapers.76 Benefiting from the capillary distribution of well visible newsstands, Homeric geographies represent a regional strand of publications that one can encounter in local newspapers, bookstores and other venues with ease. The earlier case of the ‘Skilla-fish theory’ on the Odyssey’s origins provides an example of how Homeric geography fuels febrile alignments with the perceived prestige of the poem.77 A biologist and physician, Vazzana manages the biology

Myths of Myths

101

museum with little institutional support and out of sheer passion. He is devoted to demonstrating the myth of Scylla and Charybdis as inspired by the geographical and marine morphology of the area, and that Homer was a denizen of the Strait. During our meetings, Vazzana reiterated the findings he divulged in his books packed with vibrant, original photographs of seascapes and marine fauna.78 A first piece of evidence presented by Vazzana is a periodic upwelling in the area of Cannitello, close to Scilla’s coast, of specimens of viper fish (Chauliodus sloani) (Figure 5.1).79 Vazzana explains how the Strait’s unique hydrodynamics, which generate tides due to the encounter of the Tyrrhenian with the Ionian, produces the upwelling and subsequent shoring up of these and other creatures thought to have inspired Homer at certain times of the year.80 For Vazzana, the heads of Scylla correspond to the teeth of this creature transfigured into howling dogs by poetic imagination. Vazzana collects scores of this and other deep-sea creatures every year (including a few bioluminescent species) from what he defines as the ‘shore of the abysses’, claiming that these processes have been known since antiquity. As he vehemently explained to me, ‘there are no interpretative ways out’ of what he sees as facts: the features of the viper fish correspond ‘exactly to what the Odyssey describes’. In addition to the viper fish, Vazzana points to the already cited theory of the past existence (prior to the 1783 earthquake) of a cliff in front of the town of Scilla thought to create a passage that corresponds exactly to Homeric description.81

Figure 5.1 A viper fish in Reggio Calabria’s Museo di Biologia Marina. Photo by author.

102

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

According to Vazzana, this is also consistent with Homer’s description of the passage as the length of a bow shot.82 The presence of the rock is finally functional to his espousal of the traditional rationalist theory that saw the canine heads encircling Scylla’s waist as a metaphor for the wind howling through the rocks. Vazzana goes on to claim that the vortexes and whirlpools of Charybdis were similarly caused by the once-protruding formations. He thus proposes to exclude from the genesis of the myth the Sicilian end of the Strait, which is usually associated with the side of Charybdis. In his view, the three kilometre wide Strait is not consistent with the original description of a narrower passage.83 From this perspective, the myth should not be associated with both Calabria and Sicily but exclusively with Scilla, which is located in Vazzana’s home province of Reggio Calabria. Vazzana also categorically excludes the possibility that the myths of Homer could be explained by other passages in the Mediterranean. As with others, he assumes that the mythopoeic whirlpools could be seen in their full glory only in the past. This ‘degradation hypothesis’ is again reminiscent of how Bradford (Figure 4.2), Kérenyi, Bérard and Cuisenier had variously fabricated, altered or constructed evidence to shoehorn real-life localities into narratives driven by Homeric expectations. Historical documents indeed suggest the previous existence of the rocky formation in front of Scilla. Vazzana and other scuba divers reported to me that the collapse into the sea of the old rock is demonstrated by the presence of an underwater ‘mountain’ of rubble. Maurizio Marzolla, a professional diver, photographer, filmmaker and environmental activist, told me the rock some believed to have originally stood in front of the main promontory of Scilla may now be a ‘granite monster’ residing underwater, covered in sea life and sloping downward for about forty-five metres.84 Yet, the existence of the whirlpool in the Strait or the idea that the rock is now underwater remained in my view more literary than factual. One might wonder why a landmark as striking as a whirlpool was not represented in the same illustration that Vazzana purports to be indicative of its existence, or in any other piece of modern cartographic or iconographic documentation. It is also unclear how the detritus was not swept away by currents, remaining in place for divers to find it submerged in front of its original location some three hundred years later. Overall, Vazzana’s resort to this explanation sounds mostly instrumental to a romantic appropriation and purporting of the myth as a local exclusive to his home region.85 Vazzana’s theses would be characterized under my classification as die-hard traditionalist, subversive and identitarian for the way their hyperlocalization of the myths’ origins in the author’s hometown goes to such lengths to dismiss Sicily as a traditional recipient of their legacy.

Myths of Myths

103

Driven in my view less by actual evidence and more by idées fixes about the geographical lore and imagined landscape of the area, these are the kinds of ideas that straddle the lines between the scholarly and the vernacular, revealing their blurry nature and the fact that market typicality drives a search for mystery themes with the capacity to lure scholars as much as (possibly more than) the layperson. Set down in culture much more solidly than Scylla’s granite ‘tooth’, the whirlpools of the Strait persist in the eyes of their beholders, even as just a hypothesis perhaps a little more believable than the nineteenth-century myth of the Great American Desert in the Great Plains, the theory of the Seven Cities of Gold or El Dorado. All of these places ‘have a durability that has stimulated protracted explorations’.86 While their existence has been disproven, their resilient geographical assumptions still hold sway over the minds of beholders.87 In the modern history of the Strait, ripples appearing on the surface of the water have sufficed to transform this visual clue into a vestigial manifestation of a once-majestic phenomenon projected onto a conveniently unaccountable past. The faith of some Homer-worshippers in a reserved place of honour for the Strait in the West’s prestigious Greek chapter sufficed for them to see any element of the landscape as the wellspring of Homer’s imagination. Imaginary geographical features, Allen notes, ‘play a dominant role in establishing goals of exploration’.88 On closer inspection, such theories sport neither scientific evidence nor a kernel of originality, collecting (rather chaotically) previously canonized mythographies and scholarship and packaging them as a fairly parochial and glorifying narrative of a home environment. Writing as if making new discoveries, such pamphlets in fact touch upon hypotheses that have been brought forward by historians, geographers, seismologists and biologists for centuries or decades.89 The Strait’s features are, indeed, no less than suggestive. They have played a part in legitimizing its association with myths over the centuries. The sunken rock, the viper fish, the currents (Figures 5.1, 5.2) and its geomorphology all provide ideal terrain for attaching mythological geographies.90 But while many have assumed that the Strait must have inspired Homer, the opposite might even have happened historically – and certainly seems to happen today. Scylla might have been attached to the Strait by the ancient Greeks subsequent to Homer’s canonization, and the bard might have elaborated on previous traditions: as Sole argues, a degree of serendipity might have played a role in this process, as the landscape created favourable conditions for it to be transformed into a place-myth in light of the enduring cultural impact and dissemination of the Odyssey from antiquity to the present.91 While the Strait was and is suitable

104

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

to play Scylla and Charybdis’ myth-place, attempting to explain it as the source of evidence for the tale appears possibly more teleological and mythographic. The motivations and even the methods behind the search for historical or geographical factuality thus reveal the investment of individuals and social groups along with the aims of their attempts to appropriate and gatekeep antiquity. The case discussed in this chapter seems to indeed abdicate scientificity, underplaying the role of received traditions in inspiring our understanding of place and mistaking cause for effect. In the heat of explanations, everything goes: the viper fish are rechristened as the Skilla92 and the Sirens are cormorants (if bird-like) or seals (if fish-like), in a mishmash of previous rationalists. The fact that many of these animals are visible in all other areas of the Mediterranean is not even considered. Claims are made at one point that the whirlpool could only be visible in front of Scilla town rather than the whole Strait and down to Sicily. Photos of the present in the booklet later contradict this thesis, claiming instead that a stream of currents that goes from Cannitello in Calabria all the way to Sicily is evidence of Charybdis. With this in mind, such forcible uses of alleged evidence should be understood in context. Vazzana’s ‘Abyss Day’ is an annual event during which Vazzana engages with the general public, promoting his theses on social networks to boast his alleged findings about this ‘universally exceptional’ landscape. Vazzana presents the Strait as worthy of becoming a UNESCO heritage site. His views

Figure 5.2 Currents in the Strait from Cannitello, a few miles off Scilla. Photo by author.

Myths of Myths

105

showcase an undeniably genuine affection for the territory. One is definitely struck by his pamphlet’s defence of the ‘uniqueness of the marine territory’ and his attempts to ‘raise awareness about its rich biodiversity’.93 Yet, in spite of his competence as a biologist in the area, this apologetic stance seems to resonate less with science or factuality and more with a small-town cult of father-figures held by more or less elitist clubs once it attempts to present a historical thesis about the Odyssey. Such explanations spin ancient myths from stories that are complexly related to geographical and historical contexts into alleged truths presented as transparent and objective discoveries. The fundamentally myth-historical matrix of some of the theories discussed above shows that the Graeco-Roman canon has provided elements of society with a way to affirm a sought-after sense of identity. Claims of isomorphism between myths and nature are mostly motivated by a desire to embed landscape into a historical canon perceived as renowned and prestigious. Unsurprisingly, some of these theories were endorsed by local philhellenes such as the local association Anassilaos, allowing their proponents to sit beside other eminent ‘gatekeepers’ of the Graeco-Roman tradition in town. These theories also connected to the theses of local philologists such as Franco Mosino, who believed Homer was a poet from Reggio,94 and who reacted with some pique – as I discuss in Chapter 7 – when asked about Vinci’s commercially successful ‘Baltic theory’ as a text that dared challenge established notions of Homeric geography. Such passionate approaches and claims of ownership should be understood in the light of broader consideration for a region in which local historiographies privilege the times of Greater Greece as its most glorious historical period. This identitarian-regionalist perspective is consistent with what Bettini has investigated as a longstanding tradition of parochial squabbles over ownership of Homeric localities, given how many places named after the same myths one can find along the coasts of Italy.95 Greater Greece works as a grand historical canon that can sustain a local-centred worldview, whereby areas that have internalized and been subjected to ideas of peripherality can regain a place in a past, glorious history. In theories such as that of Vazzana, Greater Greece is part of Southern Italy rather than Italy at large; Homer was likewise born in Calabria, and in Calabria alone. Such hyper-local, naturalized historical narratives reside, in Bourdieu’s terms, in communities’ desire to find distinctive symbols for cultural consensus.96 They also reveal deeply affecting forms of affiliation with both the landscape and an idea of belonging. Yet, undoubtedly, while presented as empiricist and rationalist explanations of mythology, these explanations sound fairly dogmatic

106

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

and almost religious in their approach. As such, they could be framed within what Halbwachs defined as the ‘mysticist’ approach to preserve a canon, one that reaches the believer through forms of personal revelations:97 in place of the dreams, visions and prayers found in Christianity, Homeric followers in the Strait stumble upon revelatory phenomena from the environment. Indeed, such theories are highly regionalist in that, while they obviously draw on the cultural capital of a grand and transnational history, they simultaneously thrive within a local context of gatekeepers. They align not simply within so much as against nationalist narratives. As such, they represent forms of affect and canonization developing within a highly regional context of heritage production.98 While Vazzana’s theories represent an obvious extreme, the imprint of such romanticization is visible even in scholarly works showcasing more awareness of this process, such as Séstito’s (1995), where the Strait is presented as ‘naturally’ predisposed to beget the Homeric myths in light of its geomorphology. In spite of the study’s self-distancing from geographical determinism, its conclusions are tinged with a brooding sense of mythological predestination.

5.5 Experiencing the sea of myths A varied body of literature written from diverse perspectives, from research to entertainment, Homeric geographies remind us of how people can combine experience with the overshadowing, ‘transcendent force of geographical imagination’ in their making sense of place.99 Neither attempting to produce geographical ‘truths’ nor feed the bugbear of post-structuralism’s penchant for reducing facts to ‘mere perceptual constructs’, the reception of the Strait by those searching for evidence of its role in inspiring Homer is ‘laid out according to preconceived images’100 and seeking to engage with the dominant ‘geographical lore of their own and earlier times’.101 The Strait’s place in Homeric geographies often gives in to ‘the illusory and fantastic’ as explorers’ aims were not ‘necessarily more rational or objective than those based on pure fiction’; rather, they were shaped by the backgrounds, ‘ambitions and particular motivations’ of those who explored.102 In some cases, the idée fixe of Homer’s inspirational setting is sustained and rekindled by intellectual conformity and parochialism entangled with localist preoccupations and affective alignments. The ease with which the solemnity of the self-appointed heirs of Homer can slip into unintended, even comic consequences is captured by a scene I witnessed in Cannitello. There, biologist

Myths of Myths

107

Vazzana was attempting to introduce the ‘Skylla’ myth to local bystanders. This particular way of referring to the local fish was unfamiliar to some who had spent time fishing in the area. When an annoyed Vazzana asked whether or not they deserved to be called citizens of the former Greater Greece, they replied no, as they didn’t know any Greek. The history that some held as most precious and glorious sounded to others like a foreign, hackneyed, pedantic reference that was neither ‘natural’ nor foundational. To me, the fishermen’s quips at the Skyllafish theory seemed almost a cry for revenge against the lingering ‘patina of superiority’ imparted to classicism and its ‘mystifying function’ as a tool of class distinction since nineteenth-century philhellenism.103 Of course, the opposite extreme of parochialism would consist in overlooking the relations that the Strait’s landscape and its myth consistently entertain with one another, both historically and geographically. Homeric myths do maintain consistency with geographical features of the Strait: from currents still blamed for ‘suck[ing] in boats’ (Figures 5.2, 5.3) to the volcanic eruptions of nearby Mount Etna; from abyssal fish (Figure 5.1) and encounters with whales to hydrogeological features such as underwater grottos traditionally associated with liminal and accursed spaces of annihilation.104 In other words, cultural traditions may sustain pre-formed expectations about landscape but the latter performs the reverse to provide resistance. These resemblances are now part of an everyday parlance. As such, they are popular mythologies that reside in the present. Thus their understanding, in terms of cultural worth, should not be left to the scholars of antiquity. The position of these scholars should also be considered in light of how their present coordinates explain the past. This ‘enculturation’ of nature reminds us that landscapes retain an unquestionable power grounded in their environmental features,105 creating a relationship sourced in traditions but continuously rekindled in the present. This form of simultaneous response to the landscape and its enculturation was evident in the words of many of my informants. Paolo, the founder of Scilla’s Diving Centre, is one such informant. When I met him in Scilla in 2014, his scuba diving school had been active for a decade (unbeknownst to myself as an émigré). The centre had been attracting international practitioners who flocked to visit the surrounding marine seascape. Scilla’s seas were unique, in Paolo’s words, providing the underwater sensation of being ‘swept away by contrasting currents’. The feature had turned it into a particularly challenging and interesting destination. This was, in Paolo’s words, ‘a difficult spot for diving, but one that provides great satisfaction because of the currents, the depth and its unpredictability’.

108

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

Of course, this was also ‘a fascinating place, a mysterious one’ because of its unique mythological references and the renown of Greek myths. Indeed, on the internet, one found references to Scilla on websites presenting it as the go-to place for ‘a feel for the ancient Greek culture’106 and living the ‘adventurous course of Ulysses’.107 It also appeared in a list of ‘Must-See Mythical Places’ and ranked number one with the ‘Cyclops Riviera’ of Sicily followed by Troy in Turkey, Shangri-La in Tibet, Loch Ness in Scotland, Mount Olympus in Greece and El Dorado in Colombia.108 For Paolo, Scilla’s environment was consistent with the mythological descriptions from the Odyssey. This ascendancy was captured in the centres’ logo, which sported a Siren emerging from the sea and embracing Scilla’s rocky promontory. Yet for Paolo, ‘the beauty of the landscape has slightly anticipated the arrival of the myths’. Bonds between myths and the sea of the Strait were ultimately sustained by the capacity of natural elements of the sea to encapsulate powerful sensations, oscillating between the sublime and the dreary in a manner consistent with the horrifying but alluring figures of Scylla and Charybdis. I discussed such relations with the convenors of the cultural association and civic-activist group Horcynus Orca. The centre (a research and development hub celebrating an open, inclusive Mediterranean and inspired by Italian modernist writer Stefano D’Arrigo’s 1975 titular novel) draws on suggestions from the environment of the Strait and its attached literatures and folklore from Homer onwards.109 Horcynus consists of two distinct hubs set at the two ends of the Strait, reproducing the duality of the mythological passage. After contacting Gaetano Giunta and Giacomo Farina, the main convenors, I visited the Sicilian branch in Punta Faro in September 2014. Located in correspondence with the mythological Cape Pelorus, the branch looked straight over to Scilla in Calabria on the opposite side. As the lights turned on in the large entrance hall of Horcynus, specks of sand that had made their way from the beach to the road outside still cracked underneath the soles of our shoes. Speakers emitted the voices of fishermen shouting and paddling from a video installation of Italian ethnographer De Seta’s film Lu Tempu di Li Pisci Spata (1954), documenting a swordfish hunt in the area. In another exposition window lay a mock barometer displaying the abyssal fish and the skeleton of a dolphin – some of the marine creatures often invoked in rationalist explanations of Scylla and Charybdis and other mythological creatures.110 While representing an important element of inscription of heritage in the landscape, of promotion of cultural diversity, and of the fostering of a

Myths of Myths

109

multicultural Mediterranean, as I argue in Chapters 6, 7, and 8, this centre would have also been my dream place as a child who liked to pass the time by consuming fantasy media or observing jellyfish and other animals at sea. Later, Gaetano and Antonio walked me to a hilltop overlooking the Strait from its Sicilian side. The wind was so powerful that it rendered the audio of my interview with them useless despite my pop filter. There, we discussed the Strait as a site of powerful natural forces that has inspired symbolic constructions through the sheer force of its current and tides along with its history of devastating earthquakes and tsunamis that have, on several occasions, brought human urbanization to its knees.111 On another occasion in Scilla, I discussed these natural forces with Rocco, a retired entrepreneur who had installed Scilla’s first gas station in the 1950s. Rocco told me that the sea was ‘wonderful and crazily frightening’. Mentioning the tsunamis that hit the area in 1783 and 1908, he recounted the vivid imagery of annihilation suggested by the historical documents he had seen and by his own experience with the sea.112 From the terrace of his building, uniquely decorated with maritime memorabilia and overlooking the town’s seashore, he explained that the basement was waterproofed against the winter waves. Indeed, floods often invaded dry land to crash against buildings and streets, occasionally generating dangerous foreshores able to overwhelm and suck in a person. Aside from such disasters, the general dangers of the currents of the Strait are well-known among local communities due to local knowledge of the sea. On a calm, clear day, one might feel almost as if they could easily swim from one side to the other. In stormy weather, the passage can become far less easy to traverse. In Torre Faro, I stumbled upon a statue erected in memory of fishermen who had died at sea in April 2008 (Figure 5.3). Among a group of elders that I met there, one explained to me that he had lost his brother in the Strait in 1958, when his boat was brought down by pounding winds and currents, taking eleven other lives in the process. Shaped to spiral into the waters, the statue was a memorial to the constant toll exacted by the sea (Figure 5.3). The statue is the work of Maria Rando, a local artist living a stone’s throw away. Having been introduced to her work by my acquaintances, I was able to meet her in person. In her home, she discussed at length how the statue was steeped in deep knowledge of real phenomena and in the trauma of people lost at sea. Rando showed some of her paintings depicting Scylla and Charybdis as allegories for the natural environment of the Strait, presenting it as a force for both destruction and fertility. Another artist, Messina-based painter and sculptor Francesca Borgia, told me that her inspiration came from hearing stories about

110

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

Figure 5.3 Maria Rando’s statue to the victims of the sea in Punta Faro, Sicily. Photo by author.

the sea and the tsunamis since her childhood, folk tales113 and encountering the statue of Neptune, Scylla and Charybdis in her hometown. Still regarded as a genius loci or protector of Messina, Neptune embodies the terrifying forces of the elements and showcases the enduring vitality of Graeco-Roman myths. Rife with anthropomorphic octopuses and feminine pregnant figures, Borgia’s art resonated with the environmental impact of a maritime culture. For Francesca, myths are inseparable from the environment. Living ‘in the scilleccariddi’, one sees the Strait on an everyday basis. Both its sensations and stories ‘seep down in your consciousness and return up when you become an artist’. A similar explanation was offered to me by Cosima Cardona, a part-time poetess whose main occupation consisted in owning and managing a highly regarded restaurant facing the sea in Marina Grande’s crowded walkabout in Scilla. Cardona told me about her poems inspired by the sea and local myths after dinner in the main hall of a place filled with seashells, paintings and marine décor. Sipping an espresso, I listened to her poetry. ‘Born in a mariner’s culture’, Cosima blended Ovid with her own imaginings of fishermen becoming sharks, Sirens mating with mariners, and people caught by the unforgiving waves much like the fish being thrown out of the water that she had been seeing since childhood. This regional form of syncretism between environment and art is notable in the work of other Italian artists, including resident writers. Myth can work as a

Myths of Myths

111

way to connect to broader audiences while exhibiting a relation with home. In his 2012 novel Scilla, Oreste Kessel Pace details a modernized and sexualized approach to the myth. In 2014, I got in touch with him on social media after finding his novel in a newsstand in Scilla town. I subsequently discussed his inspiration with him, which (he argued) included Ovid, his favourite modern thrillers and writing while in town and looking at the sea. In a fantasy tale by another Italian writer, ‘Cani d’acqua’, a horrific Scylla is presented as part of an interest in regional myth-repertoires.114 I had a chance to discuss these ideas with my informant Mauro Longo, an archaeologist specializing in Phoenician and Punic history. I met Mauro under the reproduction of the statue of Montorsoli displayed near the port of Messina (Figure 2.2), his hometown. As a writer and native of the area, he discussed Neptune as an important part of the genius loci who represented ‘some twentyseven centuries of history of the city’.115 Homeric myths are an indelible part of the town’s identity.116 For instance, the Strait was recently included in an online list of the world’s most striking marine whirlpools on Earth. The article honestly presents the Strait as perhaps ‘not the most dramatic’ of landscapes – its tides barely qualifying as an actual whirlpool. Yet, it still earned a spot on the list alongside far more visually striking whirlpools in Scandinavia and Japan. Historical narratives of environments anticipate what people expect from places, effectively constructing the landmarks culturally as much as geographically. Nevertheless, this process requires that actual features from the environment become encultured onto the landscape. So, the area of Scilla might not have necessarily inspired the Odyssey, but it does present features that are compatible with it. And while not necessarily unique to the Mediterranean, these features have certainly offered a way for tales and nature to rekindle the Strait’s enduring mythographies. For people invested in the area, this could entail the emergence of semiimaginative narratives of place, allowing one to become lost in oneself and in contemplation of the environment and its mythologies. I grew up fancying the suspension of disbelief that allowed me to imagine Charybdis in the waters when crossing the Strait on a ferry. To me, Scilla became a place both real and imaginatively mythical in its way of connecting everyday life with deep antiquity. In my eyes, the setting for the myth was both renowned tale and an everyday summer hangout with teenage friends. In recollecting the thrill of this feeling, I sympathize with those seeking evidence of relations between nature and myth and with the fabrications of evidence sustaining such a correspondence. Whether as a cornerstone of traditionalist Homeric geographies or heretic attempts to

112

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

remap the myths, the Strait has maintained its ability to fascinate audiences and to simultaneously inspire notions of pride among locals. In this historical and geographical ‘battleground of rival attachments’, both the environment and the cultural tradition have incited many ‘to validate present goals by appealing to continuity with, or inheritance from ancestral origins of myths’.117 As Bettini noted, Homeric geographies can be seen as an ‘endless pursuit of myths of myths’.118 These may be driven by affect or the search for adventure, by matters of personal gain or by disciplinary interests, and sometimes by a combination of these. Such alignments derive from the ability of natural elements to inspire fantasy, imagination and mythology. Yet they are also largely fuelled by cultural traditions. Locally, Greater Greece functions in manifold ways as a foundation myth, perceived – among other things – as an asset and identity narrative. Tourism and identity are the objects of the next two chapters of this study.

6

Materializing Heritage: Tourism in Scilla

My ethnography in Scilla (Figure 2.3) began during the summer of 2014, and my arrival was scheduled to coincide with the town’s tourist season. From the outset, my travel from London seemed bound to be framed within the literary genealogies of Odyssean travel. I was welcomed onto my first flight with the onboard magazine Ulisse, which already rekindled views of the Graeco-Roman world as Italy’s ancient homeland by means of its name as well as the idea of journeying that came with it. During a subsequent leg of travel, I found the magazine featured a special issue on Calabria sponsored by the regional commission for tourism: centring the canonical beauties of Greater Greece, the article encapsulated the importance attributed to Greater Greece by institutions in the area of the Strait.1 At the airport of Reggio, billboards sported images of the Bronze Warriors, who are typically reproduced in souvenirs and postcards (Figure 7.1), and Greek temples. Close-ups of the exquisitely cast faces of the Warriors were laid against backgrounds of vast beaches and the occasional stylized icon of a temple accompanying the travel logo for the region. The advertisements were an extension of a broader presence of antiquity that permeated social spaces: from the archaeological remains and museums across the two sides of the Strait to the 1932 statues of Athena on public display in Reggio (Figure 7.2) and the reproduction of Montorsoli’s 1554 Neptune in Messina (Figure 2.2). In the main square of Scilla town sits another statue – a modern representation of the Scylla creature, erected in 2014 to further reiterate the connections between this region and Homeric geographies. Intended as a celebration of this connection, Italian artist Francesco Triglia’s Scylla represents a piece of place marketing featured on postcards, institutional and commercial websites, and the covers of books featuring explanations of the myths of the Strait. Upon reaching Scilla town from Reggio, the imagery of ancient Greece becomes ubiquitous: statues of mermaids, signposts and mythological logos of restaurants and hotels with titles such as Calypso, Hellas and Glaucus. As my 113

114

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

research progressed, tourism remained a key topic of conversation. The town’s revolution around it for much of the year was the consequence of its attractiveness as a seaside locale, but ancient Greece was a much talked-about asset among locals. Manager Rocco promoted a recently designed Costa Viola History Tour (Figure 6.2) involving a boat trip around the coastline. A local former football player who had cut his teeth in tourism management on the nearby Aeolian Islands, Rocco appeared genuinely impassioned by the idea of using mythology as a means of sustenance and to develop tourism. In Rocco’s view, the initiative offered what he deemed as entertainment-starved tourists (Figure 6.3) a chance to visit the purple-tinged Costa Viola beaches of the area, try food specialties and encounter Greekness – in the form of Sirens played by actresses in bikinis and an inflatable Scylla monster. I was eventually able to join Rocco’s tour, where he told me that Scilla harboured beauties, traditions and mythologies that deserved international recognition. To him, Scilla was ‘a pearl’ that ‘could be the envy of the whole world’, needing only better infrastructure and connections to become a world-renowned destination. As Rocco explained, his tour aimed to ‘publicise Scilla online to tourists from all the world’ to an extent consistent with ‘the reputation that it deserves’.2 Tourism is thus conceptualized in Scilla as an untapped resource through efforts to materialize the heritage of mythology in light of its perceived international recognizability. To borrow Yalouri’s formula, the idea is one of global fame bringing local gain.3 This focus on the attractiveness of Homeric signifiers began to take place at the end of the Second World War, coinciding with the manifold gazes and fantasies of exploration and travel media that have been framing the territory within the literary geography of Homer ever since the Grand Tours. As a set of discourses and practices that support place marketing among diverse elements of society, tourism works locally to extend discourses on heritage and their relation to ideas of social identity. In other words, tourism there is not only about place marketing, or a form of ‘postmodern’ consumption of archaeology where the past is shrunk down to the size of emptied, generic signifiers. It is also not simply constructed around ideas of shopping mobility or the re-constructed past of a shopping mall and a theme park, which are not to be found unless by moving elsewhere in the region, to Rossano’s AcquaPark Odissea 2000.4 While Rocco’s tour echoed an attempt to package mythology as entertainment, his initiative simultaneously partook of a history of tourism and local policies in the area as an attempt to express notions of authenticity, roots and identity, tapping into a normalized idea of factual descent from Greater Greece.

Materializing Heritage

115

Working as a ‘contact-zone’ and a ‘site of identity-making and transculturation’,5 tourism almost inevitably becomes the setting for selective formulations and the cherry-picking of local histories to create space for the articulation of identities and the performance of what is deemed worthwhile to remember – and what is implicitly forgotten. Underscoring how the internalization of external philhellenic gazes into local historiographies has had an effect on the long-term local sense of place, this chapter shows how mythology and history are instrumental to tourism marketing. At the same time, they engender a broader social narrative of origins. In tying an exaltation of the local landscape to the perpetuation of dominant histories,6 tourism goes beyond a merely instrumentalist approach to the recognizability and ‘sellability’ of place; it also reflects and reinforces a ‘banal’ form of identitarian discourse that, in the guise of nationalism,7 sustains a narrative of linear descent from a selectively glorified past. In town, inscriptions of mythology play diverse roles. Seen in terms of their aesthetics, their renditions of ancient myths and related imagery – the maiden Scylla turning into a monster; Sirens; a man’s bitter but tormented fight with a swordfish, which is a source of sustenance – explore forms of relations with animality and states of Otherness. Art forms embellish place while capturing Otherness, transformation, gender and sexuality beckon to observers as representations of deities, monsters and animals.8 Moreover, statues and other urban elements affirm ownership of Greek myth. Reggio-born Italian sculptor Francesco Triglia’s post-classical Scylla (Figure 1.2) has been the most visible element in recent years. Commissioned by the affluent Capua family and entrusted to the municipality, the art captures the moment of transformation of the maiden into a monster. Glancing over the Strait, it almost seems to look for Montorsoli’s statue of Neptune in Messina (Figure 2.2) on the other side. Yet even the humble sign of a tavola calda café named after Calypso contributes to the monumentalization of the Greek past. Likewise, the logo of a café may espouse an idea of local identity that happens to coincide with the renowned view of Hellas as the bedrock of the ‘West’ (in what Herzfeld defined a ‘global hierarchy of values’).9 Tourism also exists as a problematic field, a perennially ‘missed chance’ in light of the seemingly inescapable backwardness of the area. It frequently attracts lamentations about both the lack of major infrastructure, transport lines and accommodation that would allow mass tourism along with the absence of forward-thinking policies focused on cultivating a smaller-scale, non-seasonal and ‘quality’ industry. Either way, views on tourism evoked different perceptions

116

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

of whether heritage might be said to have the power to attract visitors. Yet the role of mythology is relatively marginal in Scilla’s seasonal success as a seaside locality, with national and international visitors representing – at the time of my ethnography – a small part of the intake compared to local vacationers. This is true despite tour manager Rocco’s views of the renown of mythology and even as YouTube videos viewed several million times list Scilla among the world’s top mythological locations alongside Loch Ness and Stonehenge.10 In principle, such numbers would lead one to believe that lists like these reflect a potential for mediated representations to attract tourism to semi-legendary places. As the Greek-themed monuments, statues, urban décor, merchandizing, branding and tour boat operators seemed deprived of their hoped-for global audience, the global renown of myth as an attractor for tourists infatuated with the ancient Greeks still appeared a relatively marginal phenomenon. As restaurateur and activist Francesco told me, most international tourists have long been unaware of where Calabria is (a situation partly changed by the Internet and social media). Most tourists in Scilla are local holiday-makers coming from the surrounding province for half-day trips. As national and international tourists mostly only traverse Scilla fleetingly (Figure 6.3), as part of larger inter-regional tour packages with other main destinations in mind (Tropea, Taormina, Agrigento, Syracuse), the pessimists lamented larger structural causes for Scilla’s lagging development. The more optimistic, such as Le Sirene hotel manager Gesualdo, believed myths could become key assets for the area if sustained by improved infrastructure. It would be hard to argue that Greekness has ever actually worked as a significant driver for development in town. Instead, tourism in Scilla has been a complicated and sometimes meaningful or advantageous force to different strata of the population. As Francesco notes, untapped heritage could be seen as a symptom of the area’s broader lack of achievement as part of the underdeveloped ‘South’. But for Francesco and most of the other entrepreneurs, Greekness still represented a highly recognizable asset even when diversely summoned in relation to often contrasting conceptions of tourism (from supporting niche, non-seasonal literary tourism to aligning with larger seasonal flows). This chapter begins by looking at the inscription of heritage and myth in the Strait before highlighting a history of tourism in Scilla that focuses on different expectations and ideas of development based on perceptions of the Strait as a larger-than-life, mythological, mythopoeic landscape. It then discusses heritage as an underlying, dominant narrative based on received notions of the cultural record of the ancient Graeco-Roman world. Finally, it looks at how tourism

Materializing Heritage

117

partakes in ideas of exceptionalism in the area, drawing from both the mythopoeic environment of the sea and Mediterranean identities.

6.1 Symbolic accretion and pervasive heritage The special 2015 issue on Calabria in Ulisse, the Alitalia magazine that entertained me while flying to Italy from Heathrow airport,11 was part of a regional tourist campaign. Presented through a Mediterraneanist combination of attractive beachside, slow-paced living, food specialties and Greek remains and mythologies, Calabria has customarily stood for the land of Scylla, Charybdis and the Bronze Warriors from Riace. National attention on the Bronzes peaked around 2014, when they were ‘returned’ to the Museum after years spent in restoration. Billboards with images of the statues appeared in the baggage claim area of the Reggio Calabria airport, enticing visitors as part of a plan to stand for the region as a whole. Valentina Longo, an acquaintance and tour guide from Florence, once told me that in the grand narrative of identity, to each their own. Rome has the Colosseum, while Pisa has the leaning tower. Florence has the Renaissance, and Calabria has the Greeks. In the Strait, symbols such as the Bronzes became some of the insignia of a ‘cult of the past’12 rehearsed as a form of an everyday, public philhellenic narrative. Attempts to make mythology an immaterial asset, noticeable to external gazes and consumable by visitors, materialize at both ends of the Strait. Aside from the museums and mythological statues found in regional capitals, other prominent landmarks include the National Archaeological Museums at both ends of the Strait that emphasize their Graeco-Roman collections to cement the canonization of Greek heritage across the region. The ‘long-awaited’ Horcynus Orca development centre, with two administrative hubs at both ends of the Strait, further parallels a continuity between the two sides that has often been called the duality of the scilleccariddi.13 Perhaps nowhere is such a process more visible than in Scilla town, where Hellenic imagery and names pervade the branding of hotels, restaurants and other enterprises. On the whole, the urban environment of the Strait seems to reflect a ‘textual attitude to place’, a way of reading place via elements drawn from literary canon.14 While Triglia’s Statue of Scylla (Figure 1.2) is one of the most recent representations of this process, one can find examples dating back decades and centuries in town. Town emblems are modelled after ancient coinage and reiterated as modern embellishment on the plastered walls of modern architecture.15 One

118

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

subtle tribute to Homeric monsters is an arch-shaped monument with the inscription ‘Scyllae Civitas’ that faces the local church consecrated to San Giorgio. Designed in the 1930s, the arch resembles an open maw, its centre hosting a stone head of a nymph (Figure 6.1). More recent landmarks include a

Figure 6.1 Mythological arch and statue ‘Scyllae Civitas’, Francesco Jerace, 1935, in Scilla, Calabria. Photo by author.

Materializing Heritage

119

high-relief rendition of mythological Scylla and a statue of a Siren in the narrow main ally of the harbour section of Scilla, Chianalea, the ‘Little Venice’ (Figure 2.4). The definition of ‘symbolic accretion’ formulated by Dwyer (2004) captures how the stratification of such representations amounts to the channelling of certain cultural myths and national values.16 In the Strait, the process involves anything from statues and boats named after Odysseus that ferry commuters and tourists to postcards, mythology books, guides, tours, souvenirs and the branding of accommodation, food and tourist services after the likes of Calypso, Ulisse, Magna Graecia and Hellas. Branding often employs visual markers of style associated with Greek art, such as meanders and frets or associated fonts. Overall, this lingering, Hellenicist symbolic field is a continual reminder of Greater Greece as the undisputed historical marker for the area. Statues, edifices, logos and mythology books in newsstands partake of an everyday, banal reinforcement of the affiliation with Greekness, performing a localist identitarian reinforcement at an everyday level. Given the strength of the tradition of reading Greek myth as inspired by the landscape, the performance of Greekness also amounts to constructing what Azaryahu and Foote (2008) call ‘spatial narratives’ (or when the environment itself becomes grounds for the performance of tradition and identities17): a visitor in town is struck by landmarks that point to a historical descent while pointing to the sea as the mythopoeic element. This symbolic accumulation ties in with the Scillesi’s perception of their town as part of a larger landscape of grandeur within the mythological geotoponomasty of the Odyssey. A romantic narrative enshrines such mythological associations and amplifies them by exalting the marine landscape and recalling its myth-inspiring beauties. Local narratives of the Strait as an exceptional landscape include its unique site at the meeting of the Tyrrhenians and Ionian, its strong currents, past tsunamis, mythological (albeit never fully evidenced) whirlpools and other phenomena, such as enchanting mirages of the Fata Morgana.18 Even lucid socio-economic analyses of the area often indulge in impassioned, positive forms of Mediterraneanism that celebrate the ‘sensuousness’ and ‘sensory overload’ of the landscape, deemed rife with ‘perceptual qualities’ lost on us ‘moderns’; and focusing on elements such as the striking sunsets, the mythological panorama with the Aeolian Islands in sight, the ‘embrace of the sea’, the smell of iodine, the roaring of waves, the music of the wind and the salt and sun on the skin.19 Ancient myths thus bind heritage and environment to create a Homeric landscape where the Strait is often proudly discussed as part of a whole alongside

120

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

the Aeolian Islands and Mount Etna. Evocations of such qualities echo among locals for whom, in a perfectly predictable form of local pride, the renown of mythology and beauty of the landscape represent two sides of the same coin. For hotel manager Gesualdo, ‘Homer narrated [the landscape] faithfully’ and when the scirocco blows ‘one has sensations that remind of the Sirens and Ulysses tied to the masthead’; ‘there’s an attraction to this place, its clashing seas, the energy of nature: it’s like the Triangle of Bermuda’. These almost mysterious qualities were in line with the views of Paolo, the founder of Scilla Diving Centre whose logo sports the image of a Siren. Paolo told me that the Centre’s success was owed to Scilla’s seabed, which was ‘among the most interesting ones in the Mediterranean due to the challenges it posed and its association with Homeric tales.20 Maurizio, a scuba diver, marine photographer, documentary director and activist likewise remarked how divers are ‘stricken with awe’ by the currents and provided with a chance to fantasize about the place’s mythical ascendancies. For Paolo, Scilla is ‘an Everest of the Mediterranean, a difficult spot for diving, which provides great satisfaction because of its currents, depth and unpredictability’ – a description that again matches Scilla’s inclusion on lists of ‘mythical places’, straddling the line between legend and reality.21 Rocco, the local former football player who developed a mythology-themed boat tour with actresses as Sirens and an inflatable Scylla, draws on similar premises. His idea of materializing myth to draw international tourists turns its lingering but immaterial presence into something tangible.22 On the boat, populated by myself and a dozen tourists mostly from the rest of Italy, Rocco’s ‘entertainment’ re-enactment of Odysseus’ meeting of the Sirens and Scylla was inaugurated with citations from Homer, Vergil and Dante. He continued with a presentation of Scilla’s ‘Rock of Ulysses’ (part of its larger promontory jutting out to sea, including the ‘Rock of Scylla’ (Figure 4.3)), and a ‘natural underwater grotto characterized by a pocket of air that scuba divers can find by diving ‘8–10 metres deep’. Rocco’s is just one example of a place marketing approach to Greek heritage in the area that is both very context- and time-specific, and consistent with a much more stratified tradition of a locally institutionalized and transnationally popular reception of Homer. As the boat sailed away into calm seas at the peak of summertime heat, breaking the waves along the coast of Chianalea (Figure 2.4), and further north to the coast that got its name from the reverberations of the sea’s violaceous hue, we came to discover, in Rocco’s words, ‘the troubles of Ulysses’ that ‘we all know’. As we moved around the main hilltop, actresses

Materializing Heritage

121

Figure 6.2 Actresses in Scilla playing as Sirens and a Scylla monster inflatable. Photo by author.

appeared (in fairly objectified form) in the guise of Sirens with mermaid tails crouched on a rock by the sea, smiling and saluting the cheering crew while pandering to the male gaze. Scylla’s simulacrum (an inflatable ‘bought in America’) also made its anticlimactic appearance as a deflated, shapeless object sitting to one side of the cliff. Whether these projects have succeeded depends on the perspective. Rocco’s audience appreciated the tour. Yet there were no international tourists onboard with me and I saw no evidence for Rocco’s claim that ‘tourists from America are keen to mention Scylla and Charybdis as soon as you meet them here’. His commendable hopes that mythology might attract audiences from ‘the whole world population’, providing a ‘source of rich for this tormented region’, remained as such. The willingness to conceive the global renown of ancient Greece as a direct driver of tourism was difficult to understand in the light of how even tourists from Italy didn’t quite remember the myth. As an Italian couple told me, they ‘sort of recollected it from coming here in the first place’ and had not thought in the slightest about Homeric references while picking Scilla as a destination. Research has pointed out the role of literary, screen and heritage tourism in bringing the spotlight to tourist destinations – from Game of Thrones locations in the United Kingdom to crime fiction Commissario Montalbano in Ragusa, Modica, Scicli, and other places in South-East Sicily23 in the Italian national

122

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

context.24 Tourism based in Scilla entails possibly even greater expectations than the visitor intake generated by screen productions discussed in the field of filminduced tourism:25 one would think that no less than Homeric mythology would generate a possibly stronger interplay with its reception in the media. But fieldwork in Scilla revealed that theoretical assumptions or strategies should be considered in light of the specificities of different contexts. Field research allows the researcher to break away from purely hypothetical assumptions about the potential of mediated representation to popularize places. My experience showed that the town’s main attractiveness continued to reside mostly in its beaches, culinary specialties and summer holiday culture. In fact, Scilla (part of a complex of coastlines called Costa Viola, a term that romantically describes the colour of the sea as the light is reflected by the seabed) has been sought after for its welcoming beach front above all, both locally and nationally, and for larger provincial capital Reggio (proximity: thirty kilometres) and its cafes, bars and restaurants.26 It is perhaps both humbling and to be expected that mythology was arguably not the best selling point in town. Moreover, Scilla is, to my experience, mostly ‘touristy’ in summer, when it wakes up from a winter slumber to reap seasonal income from visitors. While only few restaurants, cafes and fisheries in the marina remain open during winter, mostly to attract diners from around the province, an average summer day sees the alleys overcrowded with local tourists flocking via regional trains, the expressway or the slower statale motorway that connects the urbanized centres of the area. Sunbathing, sipping beers and espressos, eating gelato and granita, local vacationers desperately look for parking spaces, congesting the small town until heading back home. The sight involves parasols, beaches, scuba divers, people in paddle boats and the odd rusty tyre at the corner of a less well-kept beachside. Of course, mythology does add up to typicality. The small alleys of the Chianalea quarter, projecting directly into the sea (Figure 2.4), have been increasingly punctuated over the past decade with souvenir shops where statuettes of the Bronzes are side by side with local produce, postcards, small selections of popular books on myths, and pottery souvenirs mass-produced in Sicily and shaped after fauns, satyrs, Sirens and medusa heads.27 Yet most people will associate its mythological aura with the rest of its landscape imagery reproduced in postcards, websites, social media and photography, which revolves around the bright, scorching sun reflected on the surface of the sea. The visual narratives found on postcards consisted mostly of images of the Bronze Warriors and occasional references to Scylla and Charybdis. These were accompanied by

Materializing Heritage

123

a large number of shadowy silhouettes of sunbathers and parasols at dawn, views of the setting sun, and vistas of Mount Etna and the Aeolian. Social media is saturated with views of Scilla’s rock against the sea as well as Mediterranean/ist typicalities: the old Christian church, an old apecar scooter, chilli pepper conserves, cafes serving arancini rice balls and a flyer for the ‘Miss Scilla e Cariddi’ beauty pageant. If tourism is about breaking from routine and sensual pleasures, then the half-dilapidated houses and old moor of Chianalea (Figure 2.4) provide a backdrop for visitors after grilled swordfish served with lemon and chilli. That is indeed enough for them to frame the town within the dimension of the summery carnivalesque28 without the need to theorize how places, customs or recipes harken back to the Odyssey. One could even argue that the potential for wedding backdrop could prove a more attractive resource than Homeric landmarks, as the town’s boardwalks, sea-brushed alleys, boats moored in the small harbour and views from its castle are mainstays of couples and photographers. While tourists may be familiar with Greek mythology, most of them seek a relative change of setting to temporarily escape their everyday routine. A group of visitors from nearby Sicily engaged with me on whether the province of Reggio offered comparably tasty granita and arancine. Most foreigners, on the other hand, only paused in Scilla fleetingly on their way to other destinations. While it was not uncommon to see flocks herded along the seafront by tour guides, they mostly hopped back on buses back to their hotels in Taormina or Tropea. The major determinant to their presence was not a geography of myths but rather one of financial flows, leisure and flight connection networks.29 Local visitors took cars from nearby centres. Tourists from major European cities often took advantage of low-cost airlines taking them to Lamezia Terme, some one hundred kilometres northeast of the area. Yet such a realization does not suggest we underplay the pervasive presence of Greek-themed statues, plates, the friezes, signposts, ads and businesses in town (Figure 6.3). The Bronze’s postcards and souvenirs (Figure 7.1), decorative details in the shape of gorgon ocelli butterfly, businesses branded as Glaucus, Krataiis, Antares, Le Sirene, Olympia, Calypso and Vortice inevitably communicate to visitors sooner or later. Nora and Lorenz, newlyweds from Germany, told me that they ended up in Scilla hopping off a Ryanair flight and exploring ‘interesting seaside places’. They half-remembered a ‘local saga’ of ‘a kind of evil creature’, eventually recollecting the Homeric myth. As they told me, they were there ‘because the weather is lovely, and [. . .] in Germany it’s all grey and twelve degrees’.

124

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

Similarly, a couple of Italian tourists from industrialized, Northern Lombardy told me of their ‘vague recollection from classical high school’ rekindled by its presence in town. Both couples told me of how fascinating the old, dilapidated houses of Scilla looked, but also of their impression that the place suffered from unemployment and underdevelopment. Nora found her own way of transfixing the town into an ahistorical narrative of clichéd decadence and romance by referencing picturesque boats and fishermen by a moor rigged up with pulleys, lines, and the smell of dried salt and fuel; Cinquecento cars parked by the rusty gates of an old church by the sea; twisting alleys leading to balconies: it was one of those ‘shabby, old, little villages in Italy’ capturing the imagination of the ‘average tourist’, although ‘it’s probably not easy to live here’.

6.2 Tourism in Scilla town Overall, my direct experience with tourists signalled that the presence of GraecoRoman heritage was hard to relate directly to any indicator of development. Such an impression clashed with a long history of expectations about heritagedriven tourism in town. In Scilla town, ideas of tourism as a development driver have been long entertained. The willingness to do so is underpinned by a perceived environmental and historical exceptionality. Rocco and Gesualdo’s belief that Scilla should live up to its Homeric fame is in line with a history of debates on how to fulfil the ‘natural’ vocation and potential of the town. In Scilla, attempts to attract visitors rely on the assumption of a perceived exceptionality of the place rather than the simple opportunity of the circulation of mediated images of place. The theory that Scilla should attract tourism is widespread even in scholarship. For sociologist Pieroni, ‘one would expect a locality invaded by tourists’ due to the ‘uniqueness’ of the town, both in its ‘environmentalnaturalistic aspects’ and ‘what pertains to human creation’: in this view, Scilla is ‘naturally’ renowned, and made even more attractive by its mythology and history, inspiring ‘travellers, poets, and literates’.30 Yet, international tourism ‘has not yet found a model able to attract and retain a valued flow [of visitors]’31 for reasons that include infrastructure, travel connections and other structural socio-economic variables. This inability fed, in other and more mundane analyses that I heard from people met in Scilla, a narrative wherein the Scillesi are useless due to their inability to capitalize on such an obviously exceptional asset. A few times, locals articulated this complaint while casting themselves in contrast to ‘the English or the Germans’ who ‘have

Materializing Heritage

125

nothing, and yet they can market everything’. This adversarial stance, no doubt a form of Southernist and Mediterraneanist self-bashing, echoes in the dismay of many of the Scillesi who saw Scilla as failing its assets – a failure all the more burning as they assess the town in contrast to more successful nearby locales for tourism such as Tropea in Calabria or the Sicilian Syracuse and Aeolian Islands. While a broader-scale analysis of tourism and heritage in these locales and South Italy at large falls beyond the scope of this study, it suffices here to underline how the town has been disproportionately protected thus far by its geography – a small village, sitting on a hill jutting over the sea – and infrastructural issues – a relative inability to connect to the circuits of mass tourism. These factors have diluted ambitions that this place, boasting a welcoming weather and the Homeric aura and functioning as a unique ‘balcony’ on Mount Etna and the Aeolian Islands, should harbour ‘an economy of beauty and pleasure’.32 This latter view has been sustained by cultural factors, social and historical forces, narratives of place as touristable, and political initiatives. Discussions on how to attract local and international tourism in the Strait began in post-war Italy, when the so-called South had only scarcely begun to reap the fruits of the ‘economic boom’ of other regions in Italy, and lamentations concerned its economic and infrastructural lag compared to the more affluent North. Tourism thus emerged as a perceived driver for the South, seen as ‘naturally’ ideal for this practice. Discourses around tourism developed in Scilla town around the 1950s and 1960s as transport and communications lines improved nationwide. At this time, some with stakes in politics and public administration began to conceptualize tourism in town as a correlative to urban work that exalted Graeco-Roman heritage as a viable expression of a local canon and memory that communicated both to the local community and ideally to outsiders. The postwar decades saw the installation of many of the statues and architectural and urban references to mythology that still decorate the town as part of much larger infrastructural developments. At the time, mayors such as Pietro Panuccio and Ernesto Minasi oversaw connections with main regional transport lines as much as street furnishing, which included the seawalk of the Marina Grande.33 Nationwide transformations were particularly important for Calabria, as the railroads and autostrada shattered the ‘centuries-old isolation of the region’. Transformations also permanently changed its local economy and relations with the environment, with the sea turning from the main source of physical sustenance to an attraction for townsfolk.34 In 1956, mayor E. Minasi’s speech saw tourism as an ‘intrinsic concern of local economy and culture’, inaugurating

126

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

the ‘tourism vocation of the splendid reality of Scilla’ as ‘a cornerstone of scillese politics’.35 As President of Scilla’s Club per l’UNESCO36 Franco Porcaro told me, the 1960s saw an improvement in the local quality of life as well as ‘the flourishing of an elite kind of tourism’, almost in the guise of an extension of the Grand Tour as visitors were ‘attracted by Scilla’s literary aura and discreet location’.37 But further development was stilted by the absence of state support and an entrepreneurial class. The marginality of the area in national politics confined it to reconfirming the old stereotypes of a backward periphery. Tourism remained largely insignificant from an economic perspective until the 1970s. Scilla remained ‘a destination for the few isolated, often cultured, but overall sporadic visitors that come here for short periods of time’, while ‘families and youth from the province, and especially Reggio’ represent the main summer crowd.38 Local tourism was supported by modernization and tertiary development, but connections remained insufficient for it to become a structural and year-round source of wealth.39 Lagging development was further halted between 1976 and 1992 by ‘fragmentary politics’, ‘financial instabilities’, the stagnation of local administrations, and broader, nation-wide political ineffectiveness that coincided with the ‘failure of the goal, which had become a part of the shared hopes of the Scillesi since the 1950s, of making of Scilla a large tourism destination in the Costa Viola’.40 Scilla echoed the way in which Calabria ‘deployed its beauties while paying the price of isolation’.41 In the following decades, state- and EU-funded projects (urban refurnishing, the restoration of the Ruffo Castle, public exhibitions, heritage initiatives, national and international art exhibitions, a public library) came and went imparting a fleeting impact due to the persistence of chronic infrastructural disadvantages. The town still suffered from relatively inefficient regional and national connections. International tourists had to fly into Italy via Rome or Milan and then connect to the airport of Reggio only to face missing or poorly advertised connections to smaller centres such as Scilla. Poor airport connections, lacklustre inter-regional train services, hard-to-navigate infrastructure, an inadequate number of hotels and hostels, and ineffective plans and strategies for tourism persist to the present day. Such areas of underdevelopment are partly due to parochial intra-regional competition, aversions and disagreements. The pursuit of immediate advantage against ‘rivals’, or a beggar-thy-neighbour approach, prevents the whole region from thriving. In very recent years, the boom of low-cost flights and the rise of B&Bs have partly changed the situation.42 Over the past years, Reggio Calabria also began to benefit perhaps more effectively from the international popularity

Materializing Heritage

127

of the Bronze Warrior statues, which were relocated to the Archaeological Museum after years of restoration and received media coverage on national and international broadcasts (Figure 7.1). Notably, these developments occurred alongside transformations in globalized media ecologies that included the widespread availability of cameras on smartphones and the increasing pervasiveness of social media working as new echo chambers for place, heritage and even food marketing. Such factors have rekindled discourses on the Strait’s strategic place in the Mediterranean and the unique attractiveness of places such as Scilla, where local place branding and marketing continues to revolve significantly around Hellas (Figure 6.3)43 as well as food specialties and the sea. Evolving conditions for tourism industries and considerations for national and international transport inspired different approaches among different strata of society. For those in heritage-related professions or local scholars invested in the territory, ‘the future’ of Scilla town lies in ‘quality tourism’ or its so-called non-seasonality: the idea of attracting a limited but steady flow of visitors all year round, ones who are willing to spend to visit ‘world renowned’ myths and enjoy (while contributing to the economy) the ‘unique climactic conditions, gastronomic riches, and environmental affordances’ of the place.44 Such views

Figure 6.3 Tourists in Scilla town, overlooking the Strait and Sicily. Photo by author.

128

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

take into consideration, as Francesco the B&B manager told me, the peculiar geography of Scilla clasped around a hilly cliff and unable to cope with mass tourism. As he argued, the town could only provide limited accommodation suitable for non-intrusive policies aiming to preserve the place’s ‘pristineness’ or the way that ‘nature has painted the place up’ in order to avoid ‘any disequilibrium in the environment’. In a way, Scilla has largely remained the shabby, desolate, marginal locality of the ‘off the map’ Mediterraneanist tourism cliché. In local restaurateur Francesco’s view, this model of development would turn an apparent disadvantage in a point of strength, exalting Scilla as an eminent example of the ‘enduringly archaic reality’ of the South. Such views of the area as rich in folk traditions and best if traditional or ‘frozen in time’, as well as preoccupations with the potentially disruptive effects of mass tourism and loss of pristineness, resounded with the positions of visitors such as Ernle Bradford, Folco Quilici and Giuseppe Berto, which I have previously discussed. At any rate, tourism discourses generated by local elements of politics and entrepreneurship seem to be not at all preoccupied with views of the place as a site of consumption in itself. Rather, they were concerned with the modalities of this commercial exchange. This point was crucial. For Francesco, Scilla would work perfectly for ‘quality tourism’, attracting international visitors interested in an appreciation of the territory as opposed to the dreaded local vacationer and holiday-maker deemed to be environmentally disruptive and have a predatory approach to place for the seaside and gelato, without making any real contribution to estate or hospitality. Yet, in rejecting ideas of seasonal, ‘predatory’ tourist flows and advocating ones of ‘quality’ tourism as a year-round source of steady revenue, harnessing the landscape as an element of a cohesive plan for long-term development, most of these views did not challenge the very premise of Scilla as a place ‘made for tourism’. In other words, the idea of a place deemed almost (if not completely) destined for an economy of pleasure and landscape consumption was hardly ever put under scrutiny. Most of my interlocutors accepted relations between the place as ‘touristable’ and its hoped-for consumers, never reflecting on the premises of this relationship. They focused instead on economic factors, analysing the concerted political action that could be needed to fulfil such a vocation.45 This seems to imply that certain areas of the country cannot be understood as other than consumables, or sites for small production rather than industry or services, on the basis of their natural features. In advocating a small-scale, elite

Materializing Heritage

129

model of the ‘hotel-village’ based on the extraction of historical heritage and tertiarized traditional professions rather than the ‘industry of mass tourism’, Francesco exalted traditional manufacture and artisanship residing in cottagelevel industry, gastronomy services, local produce and accompanying tourism and accommodation. As part of Italy’s ‘South’, Scilla has thus largely been constructed by discourses on tourism as residing – for better or for worse – with nature, pristineness, peripherality and ahistoricity. At best, it resides with the traditional and local produce as opposed to urbanity, industry, connectedness, development or any place outside of a large exchange market within which it was characterized as an economic colony. Another often-overlooked factor in the analysis of Scilla was the gentrification of urban spaces. As a privileged site of summer residence of wealthy homeowners who had bought the most sought-after properties, Scilla has been characterized (especially with the emergence of Airbnb) by increases in estate value pushing out less well-off residents in line with national trends. As Francesco recounted, tourism had also impacted on local residents, especially ones from the ‘little Venice’ Chianalea neighbourhood (Figure 2.4) who had traditionally been involved in fishing activities. Often conceiving ill of tourists and gentrification, he provided an example of social divisions ‘spatialised as geographic divisions’.46 A counter-narrative to the neoliberal discourse of development was thus rarely considered, as well as tourism’s asymmetrical premises and effects within an industry of signs.47 The idea that entire areas should give up ambitions other than being touristed consumables has, overall, rarely even been contemplated within larger political and ideological terms.48 The dangers of these processes has been pointed out by historian Placanica’s lamentations about locales in Calabria49 that, ‘once sun-stricken and deserted’, had then turned into ‘human anthills’ owing to the ‘terrifying increment’ of tourism and ‘persisting scarcity of space’.50 For Placanica, such ‘hordes’ facilitated a very narrow part of investors while broadly damaging the environment and society through intensive exploitations of the territory.51 Overall, views of Scilla seem thus to reflect the post-unitary construction of a ‘backward South’ of Italy, with little or no chance for autonomy and selfdetermination outside of a symmetrical relation with its overarching order. Discourses on tourism in the area reflect a broader way of looking at these regions as romantically archaic or idly beautiful, fuelling a sense of nostalgia for an idealized past and reflecting longstanding geopolitical differences that are often presented as ‘natural’.

130

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

6.3 From the ground: Expectations and disappointments In spite of the possible discordance over what kind of tourism should be developing in Scilla, many locals viewed Scilla’s ambition as a tourist landmark as unfulfilled. While allowing me to gauge perceptions of tourism ‘from the ground’ and in an everyday life context, field research also allowed access to a multifaceted view of what tourism entails in terms of heritage and what Greater Greece means to locals and visitors. The idea of an unfulfilled vocation of the town sometimes inspired lamentations about local society’s inability to defy structural inefficiencies and capitalize on a prestigious asset. For those occupied in accommodation, such as Francesco, one of the main shortcomings had to do with the poor transport connections (both at an intra- and inter-regional level) that prevented Scilla from engaging in a virtuous exchange with other localities in the region and nearby Sicily. The lack of hotels and hostels along with congestion and viability issues are often cited as general problems, as well as the need for a long-term strategy to attract and accommodate. In this perspective, mythology could not work as a silver bullet: Homer has not yet done for Scilla what The Lord of the Rings did for New Zealand.52 Sievim Beudin, a tourist guide, confirmed this impression from her perspective, which also focused on a silver lining. Scilla was ‘special [. . .] because the tourism here didn’t corrupt too much the town’. Yet, that meant the town would remain a short-stop destination for organized trips as her clients resided in Tropea. While well-known for ‘Skylla, Charybdis, [. . .] and Circe’, as well as for the Chianalea neighbourhood (‘the little Venice from Calabria’) (Figure 2.4), most tourists only had a chance to visit Scilla in the form of a brief stop along a tour of the province that included Reggio’s shopping streets and the Museum of the Bronze Warriors. In a few hours, Beudin’s tourists would travel on to Puglia, to the ankle of Italy opposite Calabria’s boot. Within this stop-and-go, quick-bite model of tourism,53 Scilla was confined to the margins of tourist circulation compared to the more developed Sicily or Costa degli Dei in Calabria, which includes Tropea, Capo Vaticano and Pizzo. For Beudin, perhaps tourists in Scilla ‘don’t even know that they could stay here; there is not enough publicity about it’. Beudin’s mention of the Bronzes hit on an important point about the difficulties of creating virtuous, concerted networks of interconnection at regional and province levels (and even to nearby the metropolitan city Reggio). Tourists confirmed this to me time and again. A group of French visitors based in Tropea had stopped in Scilla for a few hours before heading on to visit Reggio’s museum before night – their itinerary almost uncannily recalling the Grand

Materializing Heritage

131

Tour, which had stopped in Rome, Naples and Paestum and, finally, Sicily via Calabria. After mentioning their acquaintance with the Homeric myths, they lamented that they had not been able to find in town any ‘interesting publicly exposed information’ about the Homeric myths or documentation about landmarks and monuments in any language. The general situation seemed to confirm some of the least optimistic thoughts that Rocco, the mythological boat tour manager, had previously shared with me. In his view, most of the Scillesi had met his promotional ideas with ‘indifference or at best curiosity’, and did not ‘care at all, or even know, about classical mythology’. On the other hand, foreigners mentioned the myths and ‘demanded content-rich experiences’. In Rocco’s view, a structural lack of policy-based, state-funded accommodation and hospitality strategies placed the entire burden of excursions, visits and events on the shoulders of a few enterprising subjects. Such shortcomings were not exclusive to Scilla, but hampered tourism development across the whole area of the Strait. A stark example of the destiny of tourism in the area can be seen through the lens of the Bronze Warriors statues displayed in Reggio, supposedly a magnet for visitors propelled by recent national and international coverage, even though most of the tourists that I met queuing at the entrance at the time only did a stop-and-go in Reggio, prior to returning to the most popular destinations. In Riace, where the statues had been retrieved from the sea, a signpost discoloured and withered by the elements celebrated the Bronzes in the form of an ecomostro – an unfinished building originally meant to become a large hotel. A testament to the corruption, political ineptitude and stilted development cursing the region, this romantically ruinous signifier signalled the region’s inability to function to its potential. Unfinished buildings also confirmed the worst Mediterraneanist commonplaces of Calabria as a land of archaism and backwardness.54 Monasterace, the ancient Kaulòn and home of a precious stone pebble mosaic depicting a sea creature (‘u ddjragu’), is largely dilapidated and its museum perpetually closed for restructuring. In town, I was welcomed by a janitor who mistakenly referred to the mosaic as a carpet. To reach excavation sites, I was told ‘pigghiàti a hjiumara’ (proceed along the riverbed). Heading onto a dirt path overlooked by raised train tracks and filled with the burnt remains of garbage, I reached an archaeological site devoid of any conceivable form of presentation to the public save perhaps the decadent lure of the remains of a deserted former temple ravaged by time. Francesco, the manager of a B&B in Scilla, remarked how the province’s troubles started with ‘an airport in disarray’ (traditionally associated with

132

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

troubled national carrier Alitalia, and lately suffering from the competition of the nearby Lamezia terminal, attracting low-cost airlines), suboptimal highways and the general ‘disconnect of most locales’ – again a result of the historical rivalry and beggar-thy-neighbour political culture in the region. Homer may be renowned and yet, for Francesco, ‘many people don’t even know where Calabria is situated’. This stood in contrast to their knowledge of Sicily, which he realized while working with tour operators and customers. Faithful to the narrative of the South’s backwardness and notwithstanding modern connections, Calabria was still deemed to enjoy little renown. Faith in the redemptive potential of immaterial heritage for tourism thus clashed with larger and more complex realities. While suffering from regional ailments, Scilla presents similarities to other locales, including in Sicily, where large, tourism-intensive places such as Taormina and Syracuse also contrast to smaller towns reminiscent of Scilla’s disconnect and failures. In Aci Trezza, in the province of Catania (Figure 2.3), I met Antonio Castorina, a historian promoting local heritage as the President of the town’s Centro Studi. Sipping a typical lemon and soda seltz drink served by the seaside, we discussed the main tourist attraction: the Faraglioni, a series of tall, pointy volcanic rocks of contiguous formation with Mount Etna that were associated with the myth of the Cyclops. These distinctive landmarks had inspired the local branding of place in much the same way as Scilla had since the Grand Tour.55 Yet Aci Trezza had similarly remained outside of the most renowned tourist routes, suffering from infrastructural issues, a tertiarization turning traditions into ‘folk’, an inability to compete in the internally colonizing national (and international) markets and a volatile hospitality industry. In a way that reminded me of Gaetano and Antonio in Scilla, Antonio remarked that ‘other places in the world would have done a lot with our breathtaking environment and heritage; we haven’t yet’. Lamentations about chronic and underlying issues with development coupled with frustrated expectations about tourism, despite a landscape and heritage deemed exceptional, traversed the entire Strait. It would be fair to identify a pattern in lamentations about the untapped potential of these areas and for perceptions of failing to harnessing the perceived global renown of Greater Greece and its heritage. For impassioned activist Franco from Scilla, chronic corruption and a deep-seated, underlying ineptitude in valuing local resources, both locally and nationally, was to blame. In his view, ‘we should have been motivated by the will to administer beauty’ and the ‘timeless gift that has inspired Homer’. Slipping into a patriarchal metaphor, Franco told me he believed the

Materializing Heritage

133

Scillesi have had to act ‘like a destitute mother who has a beautiful daughter and wants to marry her to a well-off groom’. Similarly, hotel manager Gesualdo described Scilla to me as ‘a beautiful woman who has had to remain closed in her home, where nobody has been able to know her and appreciate her beauty’. Outside of this machoistic trope, Anne-Marie Lockheed, a tour operator manager who had resided in Italy for sixty years and worked all over Europe, described Scilla’s issues as those of Italy’s South at large. ‘Far less organized’ than other areas of Italy, in her view this area of Italy did not make it easy for tourists to discover its ‘fantastic potential’, including ‘the marvellous ruins of Magna Graecia, the excavations, which are not looked after’. This was ‘a shame’ as one often had ‘to look at things under the grass’ due to the lack of basic tourist accommodation policies.56 Lockheed placed the blame on the general undervaluing of rich archaeological and immaterial heritage, with hard-to-reach or empty museums and policies for development often flaunted but never attained – from broad interventions to in-field practices of tourism planning. Hotel manager Gesualdo, whom I met in an office filled with picturesque paintings of folk marine practices, miniatures and a large painting of a swordfish smashing through a hunting boat, insisted on the need to create a receptive environment for tourists who ‘do not wish to experience problems’. Scilla’s failure in capitalizing on its renown was a shame as ‘everybody knew the myth’. Like Francesco before him, Gesualdo described a broader issue with how Calabria had been marginalized and under-represented politically, as ‘the earliest calls I had with national and international tour operators did not know where I was calling from, and assumed at best I might be calling from Sicily’. For Gesualdo, Scylla and Charybdis ‘had remained in myth’ rather than being actualized due to the historical disadvantages of the region. In this view, the heritage of Greater Greece harboured a key potential for regional development. Gesualdo had optimistic views: Scilla was set to have ‘a tremendous tourist development in the next five–ten years’, with the ‘rise of accommodation facilities and improvement in services’ – provided infra-regional connections were improved. Yet, some of the locals I spoke with were more pessimistic and fatalistic when discussing the region’s chances for development. Commenting on Rocco’s mythological tour boat, some defined it as second-rate, amateurish and pointless. On the contrary, I had appreciated Rocco’s playful and ironic attempt to liven up entertainment activities in Scilla, as quixotic and ultimately powerless as it looked in the face of the windmills of general idleness. As Gesualdo told me, some people in Scilla had ‘essentially pioneered or improvised forms of tourism management and infrastructural planning in the

134

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

complete absence of any concerted support’.57 Yet larger problems had to be tackled if Scilla wished to capitalize on its natural beauty and heritage. My own impressions as a returning local were steeped in these contradictions. When I was beginning my research, Scilla’s tourism office never picked up my calls from Reggio. The information page on the town’s official website was blank.58 Reggio’s train stations connecting to town were run down or downright dysfunctional, with no information points and broken ticket machines (sometimes bearing scribbles such as ‘it steals the money’). As I eventually found a way to buy a ticket for one of the old, small regional trains connecting to Scilla, which then quickly filled up with commuters and youth seeking to reach the beachside, I was managing to navigate the obstacles. But would the average tourist, I thought, as dysfunctional services and barren landscapes of burnt ground and unfinished buildings, all bearing the promise of the wonderful, mythology-inspiring beaches of former Greater Greece, welcomed them to Europe’s ‘Far South’.

6.4 The canon and the environment In turning to mythology as a branding asset and simultaneously exalting the landscape, discourses that see tourism as a driver for development conceived of the Graeco-Roman world as a prestigious and globally recognizable canon. Graeco-Roman is thus employed as both local and hoped-for global signifier. Their recognizability results from a concomitance in the dominant record of the ‘classical’ world and its transmission and adaptation in a capitalist economy of signs.59 While presented as a set of symbols of local identity, Greek mythology may often reflect little to nothing of locals’ everyday lives. As Gaetano the fisherman noted, references to a swordfish hunt in the Odyssey, cited by local politicians in election periods or by the likes of Cuisenier (see Chapter 5), have little bearing on everyday life or keeping traditional activities alive. Mostly, these allusions are the product of an alignment with an external, dominant canon that is espoused both romantically and opportunistically. Yet, Greek signifiers have undoubtedly provided the town with visually attractive signposts for tourism and are an element of local development that has become increasingly important throughout history as the area becomes subject to peripheral tertiarization. Greekness characterized emerging discourses on tourism in Scilla during the post-war period, at a time when communities still relying on sea-based activities were gradually displaced by national and global capitalist markets. In this order, the marine element – including its traditional

Materializing Heritage

135

association with the Odyssey – persisted as a resource for tertiary activities, tourism and the creation of folklore. The projected image consisted of a blend of ‘folk’/popular cuisine, produce and customs and the ‘art’/highbrow legacy of Greater Greece: believing that the Odyssey described swordfish hunting as it still takes place in Scilla amounts to not only a survivalist view of ur-myths and the denial of coevalness,60 as I have argued, but also to packaging a blend of the highbrow and the popular. Symbols of Greater Greece such as the Scylla statue have provided, rather prosaically (as restauranteur Francesco told me), a chance for the tourist to ‘see it online’ and wonder where the place is as well as post photos of the statue on social media. But perhaps unlike other experiences with literary landmarks, the narrative has simultaneously offered the town a ‘place in history’.61 While aligning with expectations about South Mediterranean localities as a tourist consumable in the guise of the tropics, the inscription of Homeric myths on the urban fabric and its contributing to place marketing62 are nevertheless underpinned by a broader and genuine affection for traditions. Even within a global framework of consumption that seeks to ‘sell the past’,63 Greek mythology intertwined with ideas about the landscape and history to become an insignia of ancestry and territorial identity. My ethnographic research has highlighted the complicated relations between mediated, ‘globally’ circulating images of Greekness, their relation to notions of place, their actual impact on society and their reception by locals. While the rhetoric of development and its trickle-down economics clash with the realization that tourism benefits certain segments of society above others, Homeric myths (as prominent symbols of Greater Greece) tourism works to perpetuate and rekindle such affiliations. They contribute more at large to an everyday, banal ideology of localism inscribed in the urban memory. Elements such as statues do not necessarily imply a hegemonic or normalizing effect on society – or a uniform reception of the traditions and values they embody. But they do contribute to maintaining a shared sense of identity. Overall, field work revealed that the symbolic permanence of the Graeco-Roman world in a town such as Scilla should neither be overlooked nor overestimated. The weight of the Graeco-Roman world on today’s communities is far from being dismissible as amounting to nil, while debates on tourism represent a problematic field that implies a discussion of the very premises of tourism development in the area. In the Strait, tourism has so far amounted to elements of society – particularly those involved with the preservation, gatekeeping and uses of the past – leveraging

136

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

the perceived prestige of the Graeco-Roman tradition and its marketability and resonance within an international proscenium. The effective results in terms of the actual development of this hoped-for ‘pull factor’ of mythology in Scilla have remained highly ambiguous. At the same time, received philhellenic traditions and imagery steeped in a highly selective, Greek-centric understanding of the area’s heritage have contributed to a construction of typicality that presents what is historically supra-local as local. In other words, the Strait is not so much linearly related to Greater Greece as, rather, the recipient of a tradition that has pushed a selectively magnifying view of a certain history upon the territory. Consistently, discourses on tourism extending from such a tradition also present an idea of a landscape that naturalizes its purported uniqueness as part of a much broader geopolitical narrative of difference (in which the South is ‘naturally made’ for tourism). In this process, larger geopolitical and historical dynamics become internalized at a local level. Scilla’s relation to Greek mythology is presented as emerging from the very forces of nature that are thought to be exceptional in place and transfixed in art form by Homer for the rest of the world to hopefully enjoy. In fact, this is a largely hetero-directed narrative. It is the result of very historical (rather than ‘natural’) processes and exchanges. Quite often, ideas of past Greek greatness have offered a utopian, romantic narrative of redemption from a perceived marginality in a larger political order. Ideas of exceptionalism in the Strait have thus become a potentially dangerous social narcotic offering a consolatory and absolutory self-assessment of present issues. Self-complacent narratives of past grandeur and its redeeming qualities may contain a utopian kernel, but their parochial deformation may prevent local society from addressing grave structural issues that hinder development and affirmation, sustenance and survival. Whether implying a predatory process within the asymmetries of international capitalist markets or a possibly utopian element of self-affirmation policies, heritage tourism cannot be understood without interrogating its intersections between local, regional, national and transnational planes of cultural, financial and social relations.64 Perceptions of the sea – one of the main physical, symbolic and mythopoeic resources of the area – provide an example. The rhetoric of the Strait as an exceptional, mythology-inspiring landscape has sustained credence in a wild, pristine environment that defied the potential for humankind to affect it. This fatally flawed faith in an element deemed untarnishable has left many to believe that the sea would remain pollution-free thanks to the alleged ‘cleaning effects’ of its currents. This superstition bestowed an almost magical quality to the place.

Materializing Heritage

137

But it crashed, mercilessly, with recent evidence that the seabed of the Strait is a vast expanse of plastic and trash in no less tragic of a state than the rest of our Mediterranean (and the planet at large). One wonders whether the monsters of the Strait will eventually have to be replaced by new tales of protean plastic horrors inspired not by natural whirlpools but, rather, by the blindfolded sleepwalking of small-town views into an abyss of irrelevance. Involuntarily dooming the putative exceptionality of their landscape, such views demonstrate at best a region’s ultimately subordinate place and powerless role within a larger order of capitalism that condemns not only this passage, but every bit of our seas and oceans to collapse. In the area, one can find perhaps a disconcertingly contradictory example of how a longing for uniqueness may ultimately lead to a form of self-complacence that contributes to selfannihilation, contradicting any assumption of timelessness. Overall, discourses on tourism tend to perpetuate a rhetoric of timelessness and local exceptionalism as well as a sense of place for the area – one in which it is presented as uniquely descending from a ‘golden age’ that can provide a privileged antidote to the unfulfilled hopes and expectations of the present. In this light, tourism can be understood as a crossroads for a ‘local-global nexus’ in which the marketing and encapsulation of identities has amounted to the parallel construction ‘of landscapes of memory’ and ‘increasingly populist’ forms of consumption of historical themes.65 Tourism has the capacity to co-‘construct naturalness’ in the relations between people and places or, in other words, to present fixed, naturalized views of both the environment and history.66

6.5 Monumentalizing antiquity If landscape is, as Tuan reminds us, a ‘personal and tribal history made visible’, then tourism also reveals what elements of society want to project of themselves.67 In the Strait, this process has amounted to reinforcing a sense of collective identity drawn from identifying as the descendants of the people who resided in the area at the time of Greater Greece. Commemoration, heritage tourism and historic preservation reveal ‘how we imagine ourselves in the present’ while remembering the past.68 The statue of Scylla by Francesco Triglia offers an example of how tourism can be analysed as consistent with a larger discussion of social memory. The artist explained that the statue had been commissioned by an affluent local family who ‘had at heart the idea of making a piece of art for their beloved Scilla’. Bestowed with the approval of the municipality, Triglia

138

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

imagined the statue ‘at the heart of town’ and presented his work as an expression of his professional background gained at Reggio Calabria’s art-based high school. The Liceo Artistico had strong connections to local classicists and the activities of the Archaeological Museum. The sculptor was ‘keen to reconnect’ with the ‘local environment and sea’, which he felt close to, as well as with local mythology and history. As Triglia told me, ‘we all know about [Homeric myths] from studying, from saying, from doing’. His chosen technique for the Scylla statue consisted in lostwax casting. The author remarked that, in his view, this was the same technique used by the fifth- and fourth-century bce bronze makers of the ancient Rhegion, which he defined as ‘the most skilled and refined’ of antiquity. To this, he added, ‘I do as the ancients’. This statue and the explanation of its development demonstrate how art installed in the urban fabric is the product of traditions that are larger than simply ‘local’ and delve deep into more widespread, supralocal, institutionalized canons. While reproducing these canons, art further propagates them. In packaging the immaterial heritage of mythology in art form, the statue simultaneously facilitates the communication of such canons for tourism – soon emerging as a new mainstay in postcards, websites and the local and international catalogues of tour operators. Heritage and tourism as forms of its expression thus ultimately contribute to narratives of Greater Greece as ‘natural’ to the Strait, ‘local’ and amounting to the highest expression of the region’s history. In a way, Triglia’s statue (Figure 1.2) is the visible counterpart of less materially traceable attempts to promote place at the political level. Many of my local informants involved in tourism, politics and heritage advocated for the inclusion of Scilla on UNESCO’s list of heritage sites. Such claims were usually sustained by ideas of the natural exceptionality of the landscape and further emboldened by references to Greek history and heritage. Immaterial heritage such as mythology worked to uphold continuity with Greater Greece as a perceived cloak of legitimization in the eyes of a global milieu and audiences.69 The fact that Scilla was not a UNESCO heritage site was met by my informants with either dismay or a sense of persisting hope. Such longings to identify with Greater Greece through a concomitant glorification of the landscape testify to the complicated place of the Greek past in the region. On the one hand, its unquestionable historical grandeur is believed apparent in the wealth, complexity and cultural richness relayed by archaeology and historiography. On the other, the belief also problematically entails a hegemonic historical presence that carries the danger of an ideological

Materializing Heritage

139

simplification of history. In addressing tourism, this chapter also introduces the following discussion of the political danger lying in the ‘fostering of identitarian or ethnical policies that veer potentially towards reactionarism’ – a process that finds in tourism one of the ‘most ennobled’ carriers of ‘fabricated folksiness’.70 Aside from operating as a form of place marketing, tourism also re-inscribes the past though selection and memorialization. It situates the Greek past in ‘monumental time’,71 reinforcing a banal identitarianism that pervades social routine through habits and everyday symbols.72 As the next chapter argues, this process of selectively remembering some elements of history has been implicitly accompanied by forgetting and excluding others from public consideration and recognition. Viewed here from the standpoint of tourism, this memorialization of Greater Greece in the Strait has often had the effect of turning the focus of public histories away from a more nuanced view of the region’s complex and multi-ethnic history. In the process, Greater Greece has thus provided terrain for problematic ideological appropriations and contested ground to sustain fantasies of ethnic descent from an imagined Golden Age.

140

7

Denizens of the Odyssey: Greater Greece in the Strait While perusing a second-hand bookstore in Reggio Calabria, I stumbled upon a comic book version of the ancient history of the city that included original illustrations of the Scylla and Charybdis monsters.1 The publication featured scenes of ancient sculptors at work on what looked like the Bronze Warriors, the globally renowned treasures at the heart of the city’s Archaeological Museum. Its introduction further suggested that Reggio’s legacy was forever bound to the ancient Greeks and that the Reggini were, in fact, their heirs. Developed at a time of rekindled interest in ancient Greece after films such as 300 (2007), and presented with a visual style that recalls Frank Miller’s 300 graphic novel (1998), the comic book presented itself with an emphasis on war-centric mythologicalhistorical episodes and the masculinity of the soldiers. The book aimed to educate local youth about their ‘true origins’, suggesting their direct historical and even ethnic continuity with ancient Greece. This publication looked at the Greeks as a civilizational peak compared to the low of ‘barbarian’ hordes. At the same time, it suggested looking at Hellas as a form of resistance against the invasive, homogenizing forces of globalization, and implied a resistance against generic ‘invaders’ of the homeland. More or less overt ethno-nationalist supremacist narratives (such as the idea of ‘Spartanness’ drawn from 300) have been informing a tide of global comic book and filmic popular cultures.2 In this publication, these narratives have been appropriated to put forward the idea of authentic local culture as ‘corrective’ to globalization. Scylla, Charybdis and the Bronzes have been made part of a discourse on commonplace Hellenicity, articulating a Hellenicist narrative of collective memory and identity. The comic book history was edited by a local scholar, the proponent of an interpretation of the Bronze Warrior statues that sees their origins in his hometown, Reggio Calabria. While researching in local libraries, I also encountered the theory of Homer as a poet from Rhegion, the ancient Reggio. 141

142

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

The late Reggio-based philologist Franco Mosino spearheaded such ideas as an historical investigator of the Homeric Question,3 arguing that the geography and history of the area provide ample evidence of a local origin of the epic poem. I then met with Mosino to discuss his claims of Homer originating from his hometown, which would have inspired the images and tales of the Odyssey, realizing that the Greek heritage of Reggio and nearby Messina across the Strait takes the form of a ‘vehicle of identity’. It reminds not just local or national society but the entire world that their local custodians are ‘the legitimate owners of a global heritage’; this reminder is invoked in the veneration of symbols ‘gifted’ to the present that need protection for posterity.4 Mosino’s work contributed to a local canonization of the bard. These examples demonstrate a widespread narrative that encroaches on the broader, popular reception of antiquity, scholarship and cultural canons identifying Greater Greece as the most illustrious past of the region. In this chapter, I assess the cultural record of Hellas in the Strait and its emphatic praise by local scholars and publishers, their consistent support of histories centred on Greater Greece, and their playing a role in perpetuating a hegemonically Greekcentred history of the region. These examples work as intersections between expert and popular, everyday receptions of ideas of belonging to Greater Greece. Both enable and support discussion of the ‘politics of the past’ in local historiographical narratives,5 exemplifying how public histories, textbooks, media, institutions such as museums and professional historians assume a role in setting a historiography agenda that is closely focused on the Graeco-Roman world and which reverberates through the broad public domain. Such discourses unfold between official/institutions and public/vernacular histories, showing the porous boundaries between them.6 Looking at how the local ‘politics of heritage’ summon Greater Greece,7 I focus on two intersecting planes of the consequences of appropriations of Hellas. First, use of ancient Greece as a tradition implicitly serves to elevate its origins as foundational, provide ‘a place in history’8 for the region and redeem it within a present narrative of relative peripherality and marginality. In other words, there is a demand for the global acknowledgement of the region as a supposed part of glorious Hellas – whether or not as the putative wellspring of ‘Western civilization’. In glamourizing localist histories of the town, such narratives made use of popular, globalized images of antiquity, or relied on the global renown of Homer. They can thus be understood through the lens of Hellenicism, modelled after Dietler’s Celticism: a construction of ‘ethnicised forms of collective memory and communal identities’ that are both ‘territorially bounded’ and disseminated

Denizens of the Odyssey

143

by globalization (while ‘ironically, at the same time, frequently being motivated by romantic reactions’ against it9). Consistently, there is an expectation that the local population ‘forget not’ their supposed descent from such a prestigious history. This is consistent with the ‘South’ of Italy as a traditional Other-within, ambiguously torn between a formal affiliation with Europe and categorization in Southernist and Mediterraneanist terms as culturally and socially at the fringes of the continent. Greater Greece allows longing for a Golden Age in an area now traditionally seen as politically irrelevant in national and international geopolitics. These Hellenicist forms allow their proponents to situate regional pride in distinctive terms against competing neighbours (such as other localizations of the myths) and an overarching national power. A second consequence of the appropriations of Hellas is that the tendency to pose as Homer’s heirs and the Greek-centric histories of the Strait have effectively sidelined the historical narrative of every other ethnic group and civilization that existed before, alongside, or after the Greeks. At a social level, this erasure of a much more complex story of the region has had the effect of underpinning and legitimating colourist and racialized perceptions of local identity. In other words, the lack of a diverse and complex view of the region’s historical and ethnic makeup has resulted in Hellas being sometimes appropriated within contemporary narratives of ethnic supremacism,10 in turn interweaving with either broader Euro-Atlantic hegemony or other forms of xenophobia in this Mediterranean area.11 The idea of descent from Homer has been linked to deep-seated essentialist views of the homeland and nativist ideas of social and ethnic identity emerging within fears of globalization and migratory flows. The Greeks have become ‘Us’, and the migrants have become ‘Them’. The political reception of antiquity and its enmeshment with ideological frameworks of exclusion is particularly evident in the projections of toxic masculinity and xenophobia that ooze out more or less overtly of the comic book’s pitting the Greeks against the ‘rabble’, which I examine in this chapter. But I also discuss this ideology by drawing on ethnographic evidence, discussing how these art masterpieces have been used in the area as correlatives of a purported ‘tanned’ Mediterranean kind opposed to both ‘Northern’ pastiness and an utterly othered and racialized blackness. Navigating this context, I examine the meanings behind claims of Greater Greece in the Strait as a purported Golden Age (around which revolve claims and expectations),12 looking at antiquity as a narrative marshalled to serve forms of external validation of localism, political readings of identity issues and racialized projections. While

144

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

focusing on a limited set of examples, this exploration still highlights a banal and diffuse form of identitarianism, rooted in perceptions of the cultural record of ancient Greece, and cascading over manifold appropriations, including constructions of Hellas as homeland.13 Such ideas seep into a region, like Calabria, which even hosts a Greek-speaking minority, whose provenance is far more recent than ancient Greece, and which nevertheless – in embodying a focus on myths of Hellenitude, intended to recast diasporic identities into an imagined common ancestry – feeds a broader narrative of the region as transfixed in Hellas. Naturally, this is far from an allencompassing ideological cloak. Political appropriations of the symbols of Greater Greece range from far-right-wing elements glorifying militarized views of Hellas that Other the body of migrants to progressive elements reading the history ancient Greece as one of pan-Mediterranean intermingling and multiculturalism sustained by notions of philoxenia and hybridity. There are also varying frames of value within which the Graeco-Roman tradition can be received and responded to. The theory that Homer hailed from Reggio may burn in the eyes of local philhellenes, amounting to an existential platform that supports ideas of autochthonous ‘roots’. It may amount to a compelling narrative for people involved in heritage professions or the field of politics. Or, it could amount to little more than background knowledge that is taken for granted. Yet, this does not detract from the situation of the presence of Hellas in the Strait. Rather, it contributes to a form of everyday, banal identitarianism in which symbols of participation in a common idea of local ancestry are accrued by means of the everyday, not excluding the mundane reinforcement and replaying of references to Greater Greece in museums, monuments and other inscriptions in the urban fabric (Figures 1.1, 6.1). In the Strait, a ‘soft’ but powerful form of identitarianism stems from being surrounded by pervasive references to a selective history: the Hellenicist myth. The myth can be approached as a field of ‘historicity’ in which versions of the past take shape in relation to present and ‘available cultural forms’.14 Greater Greece in the region collapses the distance between the present and the past to construct ideas of identity.15 One of the consequences is that the memory of Hellas creates a bridge over to an imagined Golden Age while simultaneously exposing those who subscribe to it to unfulfilled hopes for a ‘return to relevance’ or a Southernist mantra of not being worthy of the past. Harkening back also implies characterizing the region as if plunged into decadence. Consigned to a ‘monumental time’,16 Hellas allows for local identities to resist dissatisfaction in the present. Yet it also creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of disappointment.

Denizens of the Odyssey

145

At the same time, the diffuse and often essentialized historical and cultural record of Hellenic heritage in the region undoubtedly poses the danger of being appropriated into reinforcing ethnocentric historical assumptions and even an ethnic false conscience in the region, whereby imagining the Greeks as one’s ancestors entails subscribing to a xenophobic and deceptively whitewashed view of both ancient Greece and one’s place in the Mediterranean today.

7.1 The Greeks and the ‘rabble’: Popular histories of the Strait The comic book Storia di Reggio a fumetti presents the history of Reggio within a broad format illustrated volume featuring articles and comic strips.17 It begins with a preface written by Giuseppe Scopelliti, mayor of Reggio Calabria at the time, which underscores the prominent role of the city in the Mediterranean during its 3,000 year old history. This role ‘begins’ with the Greeks and sees the city flourish ‘except at time of oppression’ by unspecified ‘foreigner occupiers’ (presumably, any population presented as non-Greek). The introduction, penned by the then-head of the council of cultural heritage,18 emphasizes Reggio as ‘the city of the Magna Graecia, of Scylla and Charybdis and the Bronzes’. Greekness is presented as the city’s ‘calling card for the whole world’, and Reggio as a place ‘at the crossroad of the Mediterranean’. In this view, the city absorbed ‘cultural contributions from the Orient and the West, from Africa and Continental Europe’, aspiring to the role of cultural mediator as a ‘melting pot of knowledge’. Finally, Reggio is presented as ‘an elective place where the Greek and the Latin, the Muslim and the Christian’ intermingled, with a history of interethnic and inter-religious dialogue as well as ‘brotherhood between peoples’. Yet the multi-culturalism of the comic book’s preface contrasts with the main body of the work, which verges more ambiguously towards an autochthonous, nativist stance that renders the publication ideologically self-conflicted. For author Castrizio, a numismatic,19 this ‘history for the Reggini’ is a tale of 3,000 years that harkens back to ‘the founding Fathers’, defying the ‘slovenly homologation’ brought about by ‘perhaps “global”, certainly barbaric’ cultures; the comic book declares its aim to defy ‘the inferiority complexes that too often have instigated our youth to despise their own homeland and seek fortune elsewhere, making instead the fortune of the places where they migrated’.20 This history is encapsulated in a series of exceptionalist views: environmental (Reggio was ‘a terrestrial paradise’ to the Greeks); geographical (‘an extraordinary

146

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

position’); historical (‘traversed by most notable characters of ancient times, from Odysseus to Augustus’); cultural (‘a beacon of civilization and culture’); and geopolitical (‘the crossroad of all routes, from [. . .] the Orient [and] Africa to the frigid North’. Autochthonous roots are presented as resisting the pernicious fluxes of becoming. Ethnic permanence counters ‘the oblivion of a culture that consumes everything and retains nothing’.21 In this view, the Greeks ‘invented history’ by shaping it out of the myths of the ‘dark times’; such myths are presented as foundational tales: Hercules gave Italy its name, while Scylla and Charybdis embodied the unique environment of the Strait.22 Together, they contribute to an idea of Greekness as ethnos, which – together with Christianity – is implicitly seen to define the identity of the region. Myths serve the purpose of identitarian narratives even when representations appear to have other influences. For example, Scylla is influenced by the popular media aesthetics of bio-horror and sexualized monstrosity of recent decades. The monster appears early in the story as a signifier of Greek presence, along with the same ancient Hellenic coins whose reproductions appear on the front of Reggio’s museum. Representations of the Bronze Warriors in the comics and the choice to accompany them with other representations that recall Spartan military imagery can also be attributed to films such as 300 and the early-2000s resurgence of Greek fascination in popular transnational media. In the nativist narrative, the Bronze Warriors work as a point of reference as lost, ‘localist heroes’ who have finally ‘returned home’; they are thus able to embody and showcase regionalist and localist ideas of ethnicity and citizenship.23 This formulation reflects Castrizio’ scholarly hypotheses suggesting that the Bronzes were sculpted in ancient Reggio.24 Overall, the book’s male-centred power fancy interprets ancient sources to glamourize the Greek arrival in the region as a legitimate invasion: the foundation of the city is presented as preconized by a prophecy with the Greeks ravaging ‘indigenous’ settlers. From that moment on, Reggio’s beauty is seen as blooming with arts and civilization. Standing in stark contrast to its preface, the book’s main content maintains that all those who came before the Greeks are ‘indigenous’ – a view that seems to reflect nineteenth-century Eurocentric assumptions of the primitive nature and supposed inferiority of ‘Othered’ civilizations.25 In this narrative, the ‘cultural aristocracies’ of the Greeks are presented as invading the ‘indigenous’. Yet, the invasion is implicitly excused as they are also said to have inaugurated ‘one of the most fecund phases of Southern Italy’, leaving a ‘profound intellectual mark’ on the region. The art tradition of Reggio is presented as then ‘able to compete’

Denizens of the Odyssey

147

with ‘motherland’ Greece, with a philosophical and historical tradition that included Pythagoras of Samos and Theagenes (the ‘earliest Homeric scholar in history’).26 Further, the poleis of Greater Greece are seen as independent states rather than ‘mere colonial subordinates’ (and therefore an inextricable part of the same fabric of Greekness). This account, and evocation of traditional iconographic elements, such as Scylla and more recent modern symbols such as the Bronze Warriors, amounts to establishing them as badges of nativist origins.27 The visual rendition of statue-making in the region consistently presents the specimens as looking exactly like the Bronze Warriors, contributing to the depiction of the Greeks as the ‘true’ inhabitants of the region. Whether explicitly or by implication, other populations and ethnicities are presented in these reconstructions as inherently underdeveloped and irrelevant. This is the case for both pre- and post-Greek peoples. The Bruttii, for instance, are presented as a ‘rabble’. Those that follow the Greeks are a ‘muddle’.28 In this Greek/Others binary, the former term amounts to civilization – a view that perpetuates the ancient Greeks’ selffashioning as distinct from ‘barbarians’.29 While ancient history falls beyond the remit and competence of this study, its presentation in these works deserves some attention due to its foundations in current views of civilization, history and their political meanings in present-day Calabria. Induced by arguably ‘globalized’ and Greek-centred grand history, this reductionist story falls short, first of all, in seeing Greater Greece as a singularity. It overlooks the complexity of the encounters between the Greeks as a complicated set of poleis, centres and factions with indigenous societies from Iron Age Europe and their consequences.30 But this is all the more crucial, as this chapter will argue, for how views of the past are shaped by present ideologies. The publication’s views appear shaped by complacence about a Hellenicist idea of Calabria where symbols of ancient Greece in the Strait are made to work as a metanarrative that sustains xenophobic mythologies of alleged ‘foreign invaders’ at a time of Europe’s so-called ‘refugee crisis’.31 Overall, the publication’s ideological alignment is ambiguous as the book presents a conflicting set of theses. Its preface exalts Reggio as an ancient ‘harbour for the trans-shipment between Orient and the West’ and ‘from the Tyrrhenian down to the Gauls’, glorifying the Greeks (‘Us’) as a bulwark against ‘the barbarians’ (‘Them’). Once the Greeks fall in turn, they leave the land to more ‘rabbles’ and new invaders. The preface’s assumption of the Greeks as ‘globalized’ ante litteram clashes with their depiction in the rest of the book as a bastion against presumed bastardization.

148

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

Broadly speaking, this narrative highlights a distinctive, problematic aspect of local historiographies in the Strait: their tendency to exclude, belittle or obscure those who came before, besides, among and after the Greeks. This is partly due to the difficulty of turning reader attention away from the undeniably rich history of Greater Greece in Calabria, the magnitude and remains of which have contributed to a comparative marginalization of other peoples and periods.32 But it is also due, as Dietler notes (2010: 43), to the lack of a potentially ‘radically different picture of the ancient Mediterranean’ if we could rely on texts from the Etruscan, Phoenician, Celtic or Iberian societies of the era.

7.2 Greece and its Others: Dominant historiographies Traditionally, the study of antiquity in the region has impinged on the centrality of Greater Greece and its literary and archaeological remains. This story has worked to connect Calabria to classical heritage with little consideration for everything in between.33 Contemporary processes have recently and historically worked to make Greater Greece a dominant history, selectively memorialized to the point of being perpetually rekindled as a form of everyday plebiscite summoned for present ideological views. Scholars of antiquity have – here as elsewhere – worked as gatekeepers, perpetuating these uses of antiquity and their shaping of largely held public beliefs, often at the expense of those ‘on the periphery of the citadel’.34 In this historian-focused perspective, Greek heritage has been made into the region’s ‘prime symbols of collective identity’ both in the eyes of locals and external observers’.35 Historian Placanica reminds us that ‘as a rule of thumb’, Calabria is inevitably presented as divided up by the Bruttii and the Romans in the North, and by Greek ‘colonies’ in the South.36 This Greek/Others binary informed the ‘ideological topoi’ of a ‘harsh, primitive, insular’ Central and North Calabria and a ‘sun-stricken [. . .] land of utmost civilization and culture’ in its Greek South. The latter harboured the ‘republics of Greater Greece that stretched along its sea’: opulent Sibarys; Kroton and its καλοκαγαθíα;37 and Reggio ‘reflected on a sea [. . .] still populated by monsters and Sirens, overseen by Scylla and Charybdis’ and ‘entrusted to the inventiveness of the literates’.38 The record of Greater Greece’s splendour is partly based on how historians and archaeologists assess cultural and artistic development in relation to the economic, social and demographic complexity of the ancient Greek poleis. The record has consistently suggested views of that era as incomparable to other

Denizens of the Odyssey

149

periods, contributing to the relative marginalization of pre- and post-Greek cultures from the region’s canonical histories. After the Greeks, Calabria is usually described as chronically relegated to a peripherality subjugated to foreign dominations and stricken by the ‘endemic spectres of malaria’.39 In his history of Calabria, Placanica aligns with this dominant frame of history in which the Greek colonies (despite their rivalries) enjoyed unsurpassed sophistication in contrast to the far less splendid accomplishments that followed – mostly a history of foreign invasions. Classical historiography and archaeology have tended to obfuscate other periods and cultural presences in the region by framing them as absolutely exogenous, in contrast to an endogenous view of Hellas. Yet, admixtures and encounters took place between peoples in the region before and after the Greeks. The Greeks themselves engaged with the former in long, gradual and complex processes of ethnic, commercial, political and cultural hybridization.40 As Placanica argues, exchanges between pre-Greek peoples and the Greeks were complex, and their cultures may have become the site of intimate exchanges and connections in spite of traditional, compartmentalizing views. A bias involving traditional archaeology of the area is that this has tended to favour artistic remains over everyday objects, looking at civilization from a ‘high art’ perspective with appreciation for the literary and aesthetic. This approach has been challenged by critical archaeology’s more nuanced perspectives on culture as a manifestation of not only sophisticated techniques and large-scale demographics, but of all forms of habits and values – including the mundane. Yet another bias consists in characterizing life in Greater Greece as ‘all skies, sea, sun and poetry’.41 This romanticized view pits the Greeks against purported misery and depicts others as brutes, omitting how Greek societies (not unlike any other) also relegated parts of their populations to ignorance, misery and exclusion.42 While partly glorifying Hellas, Placanica’s history of Calabria evidences many of the problematic aspects of dominant, Greek-centric approaches. On the other hand, less sophisticated analyses present more vividly exceptionalist and essentialist political appropriations of the Greek past. In Violi’s 1999 history of Greek Calabria, the ethnic complexity of the region is formulated as a series of tightly compartmentalized ethnical substitutions. This follows the Eurocentric bias towards the erasure or overlooking of Greece’s location at the intersection of the continents of Asia, Africa and Europe, which was widely exposed by Bernal.43 Violi presents pre-Hellenic settlers such as the Umbrians, Tyrrhenians, Iapygians and Peslagians ‘from Africa’ as less civilized than the ‘more evolved’

150

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

Greeks, who replaced them with ‘the splendid culture known as Magna Graecia’ and its ‘indelible’ traces. The pre-Hellenes are presented through a visual formulary of primitiveness associated with agricultural, nomadic and ‘traditional’ culture. The Greeks are thought to embody the exclusive ability to develop a Mediterranean ‘network of commercial exchanges’ and sophistication.44 Violi follows Strabo in acknowledging a cultural identity for the ‘autochthonous’ while still seeing them as ‘less advanced’ than the ‘higher civilization’ of the Greeks.45 In his account, the Greek civilization was ‘so great’ that the region would only eventually succumb by force of reciprocal rivalry, ensuing disaggregation and the inability to cope with Roman penetration.46 Presenting the original splendour of Hellas as a Golden Age, this history suppresses a more complex view of the region’s multi-ethnic mingling.47 The framing of this issue is notably different from more recent professional work in archaeology and public history published on and in Calabria. For instance, recognizing the issue of conciliating the weight of Greater Greece in the archaeological record with a non-hegemonic and non-essentialist view of civilizations, Mollo’s recent and ponderous public archaeology volume underscores the countless contacts between the Greeks and previous occupiers.48 It notes a ‘lack of evidence’ to establish any hard ethnic distinction based on categories such as ‘Brettian’ or ‘Greek’. While ultimately succumbing to ‘militarily superior invaders’, populations such as the Enotrians, Ausons, Sicels, Samnites, Lucanians and Brettians interacted frequently over time with the Greeks (and later, the Romans). They may have often affirmed their identity and control over parts of the territory.49 Mollo’s review and framing of the issue along the lines of contamination and frontier history summarizes a more liberated public make-up of a region usually seen from a dominant, nineteenth-century, Euro-American philhellenic paradigm of ‘classical’ studies and its accompanying antiquarian focus on ‘high Greek art’.50 As Dietler notes, one should shift an understanding of the ‘institutional landscape’ of archaeology to realize that such traditional approaches are often pre-empted by deep-seated literary and historical canons. Archaeology in Calabria has been driven historically by the likes of the Magna Graecia society, a local expression of a Euro-American philhellenic milieu.51 Archaeology has established a Greek record underpinned by a system of geographically interrelated sites and icons. In contrast, a hybridity paradigm aims to go beyond the hegemonic approach that has been shaping the history of the region since modern philhellenism (supporting ‘teleological assumptions of inevitability’52), with erudites looking at Greek vestiges through toponomastic

Denizens of the Odyssey

151

identifications driven mostly by mythology and mythistorical narratives.53 A non-hegemonic approach would not neglect outstanding factual elements pertaining to the Greeks’ occupation of the territory, their large political influence, the influence of their literary and art cultures, the amount of archaeological remains (filling up 500 pages of itineraries in Mollo’s book) or the decadence of the region in subsequent eras. Rather, it would recognize such evidence while avoiding hegemonic biases and essentialist views of ethnicities that have traditionally predetermined the gaze of the researchers.54 Finally, views of different human groups as ethnically watertight compartments and of Greeks as the ‘winners’ are ideologically dangerous because of their availability for political hijacking to sustain ideas of ethnic and genetic insularity and nativism in the present.55 The idea of Greeks as ancestors can be approached via what Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) defined as ‘invented traditions’ as much as with Bernal’s calling out of Euro-American appropriation and whitewashing of Graeco-Roman cultures in history.56 Homeric geographies often contribute to a larger narrative of an imagined homeland in which ‘pure’ identity57 inhabits a territory, illustrating its idealized supremacy with a Golden Age. Through canonization of the figure of Homer and a quasi-religious cult of icons such as the Bronzes, the case of the Strait presents an opportunity to discuss processes in which problematically selective ideas of historical, archaeological and literary evidence sustain essentialist views of autochthony and ethnocentric formulations.

7.3 Foundational fathers: Homer in Reggio The historiographical hegemony of Greater Greece in the Strait partly consists of the quasi-sanctification and local appropriation of elements associated with that tradition. In a region often described as politically and economically marginal, the ‘discovery or rediscovery of foundational authors or canons’ reminds us of how ‘religious myths and stories’58 can offer existential, cultural and sometimes even poetic responses to anxieties about identity, origins and destiny. The Homeric question, or the centuries-old debate around the genesis of epic Greek poems, is an example of how the idea that Homer was a real person was largely replaced by consideration of the bard as a quasi-mythical figure behind whom may have stood several authors at different points in time. For this study, the Homeric question is relevant inasmuch as late classicist and philologist Franco Mosino maintained that the Odyssey had been single-handedly written in the

152

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

ancient Rhegion – effectively re-branding Homer as an actual personality from his hometown.59 I had the chance not only to read Mosino’s passionate thesis, but also to meet him in Reggio. When he welcomed me warmly in his home, I found his library predictably filled with Greek and Latin textbooks, with the odd Batman toy popping in front of literature and mythology studies. Presenting himself as the discoverer of a new Homeric theory, Mosino entertained me with a long discussion of the history and role of ‘classics’ in tradition and society. Then, reading the initials of the first lines of the Odyssey poem from top to bottom, he presented his theory claiming that an acrostic in the poem revealed the name of its real author. In his view, the first hexameter (beginning with ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ) revealed Appa from Reggio – what Mosino believed to be the nom de plume of Homer, ‘the real auctor or grapheus’ of the Odyssey.60 He further saw this evidence as corroborated by ‘obvious historical facts and relations between the territory’ and the Iliad and Odyssey. In his view, the Greeks of Rhegion were Calcidians, and Appa was among them; the Odyssey’s relation with the landscape of the Strait was therefore ‘certain, inscribed, [and] ratified in the toponyms of the Aeolian Islands, Scylla, and Cape Pelorus’ – an example of how territorial affiliations can corroborate theories of homelands based on the canonization and appropriation of foundational figures. In addition to his philological case, Mosino aligned with traditional theses from Homeric geographies and rationalist views of myths locating the howling dogs/skulakes at Scilla’s rock and locations such as Polyphemus in Sicily or Scylla and Charybdis in the Strait. Mosino also presented Reggio as ‘undoubtedly, the poem’s capital’ in light of ‘geonomastic correspondences’: in his view, ‘a sailing boat would take two days [. . .] to go from Reggio to Ithaca’.61 In response to Mosino’s deep-seated claims, I mentioned the theory of Felice Vinci and his Baltic hypothesis, a text that – as I have discussed in Chapter 5 – had generated heated responses as an intentionally controversial attempt to attack established notions of Homeric geography. Visibly irked, Mosino deemed such views as ramblings devoid of factualness and berated them as a marketing stunt. Such reactions are easy to understand when considering the genuinely affective and identitarian frames of value locating Homer in the area of the Strait, where elements of Greater Greece are ubiquitous and newsagents frequently display old and new editions of traditional studies in Homeric geography as local cultural canon (Figure 3.3).62 Beyond any consideration for the factual basis of Mosino’s claims, his affection for Homer demonstrated how Greater Greece worked in the Strait as a grand

Denizens of the Odyssey

153

historical canon affectively sustaining a local-centric worldview.63 More broadly, the cultural weight of Greater Greece in the region might have created opportunities for some to ‘articulate their claims’ of relevance ‘on an international stage’ as subjects who may perceive themselves in opposition to external foci of power, or even as geopolitically ‘disenfranchised people on the fringes of Europe’.64 Similar to what Herzfeld observed in Crete, the appropriation of Homer in Reggio amounts to taking a stance ‘not simply within the framework of nationalist discourse’ (claiming ownership of a canon deemed relevant to Italy’s history). It is taking a stance ‘at least as much against it’ by underscoring the hyper-local affiliation of that canon to a specific area of the country against any other possibly competing claim.65 The illusion of autochthony that unfurls though the appropriation of Homer loosely corresponds with what Herzfeld defined as the longing for ‘a place in history’ – the necessity of complying with a historical past that is externally sanctioned. Largely heteronomous, the idea of Calabria as the former Greater Greece is fabricated by a ‘Western’ order. In this order, the ‘South’ can be compelled to acknowledge its imperfect ‘Europeanness’ and familiar Otherness as the onetime cradle-of-the-Greeks.66 Mosino effectively corroborated a geocultural inscription of the Odyssey as a manifestation of heritage embodied in the landscape and its imagined literary counterparts. He thus contributed to the narrative of his Hellenic homeland as the consummate philhellene who sanctified Homer’s position as the originator of the people of Reggio. But in the process, notwithstanding his flaunted Mediterranean patriotism, he implicitly almost subscribed to a Euro-American canon that was as much implicitly and globally prestigious as it was explicitly identitarian and hyper-localized.67 Mosino’s impassionate defence of the theory of Homer in Reggio also intersected with discourses revolving around Calabria’s harbouring of a Greekspeaking minority officially recognized by the Italian state, the Grecanici.68 Mosino – reciting verses from beloved Greek poet Giorgos Seferis, touchingly evoked the ties that he believed existed between the Hellenes of Megale Hellas and the Bovesia, a rural area situated between the valleys of the fiumara of the Amendolea and the area of Bova Marina facing the Ionian south of the Strait. There, communities can still speak a surviving variant of the Greek language.69 To reach the place, one can follow the motorway on the Ionian coast heading from Reggio towards the south and then eastward, the scenery punctuated by increasingly bleak vegetation and unfinished dilapidated buildings. At the right spot, one would steer north from the coast to the hillside in an ideal line that crosses from sandy beaches, old train tracks and rows of prickly pear cactus to

154

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

hilly pastures with increasingly green vegetation and the occasional herd, somewhat confirming a quaint Mediterraneanist cliché – or even a darker one as a road sign rears its head screened with bullet holes. Eventually, a placard welcomes visitors to Bova or Chora tu Vua in Greek. Other signs point back to Righiu tis Kalavrìa or Reggio Calabria.70 In a town that has become the epicentre of Grecanici conservationist initiatives, signs sport both Italian and Greek, and a local community of scholars and politicians regularly convenes to discuss preservation of the endangered Greek heritage of the area. At a conference on such themes in Calanna, a village southwest of Reggio, experts discussed tourism as a potential asset for the area, lamented poor support from the region and state, and reminded the audience that the Greek spoken in Athens, Cyprus and the area of the Bovesia share ‘a common ancestor in ancient Athenian’, even though the latter ‘preserves [. . .] archaisms and Doric inflections that other areas [. . .], including Athens, have lost’. Studies by Stavroula Pipyrou have focused on how these Greek-speaking minorities, whose origins hail back to the twelfth century ce , mythologize their folk origins and alleged linear descent from ancient Athens.71 As an actual minority, the Grecanici apparently share little with Mosino’s appropriation of Homer as a kind of literary canonization of the Graeco-Roman tradition in the area of the Strait.72 The case of the Grecanici may sound quite different from the more generic claims of Hellenicity put forward by media industries and authors. Yet the Grecanici of the Bovesia showcase what one might define as a longing for a recomposed Hellenitude intended to transhistorically connect diasporic communities. The two cases shroud ancient Greece within a mythical construction of the homeland and nostalgia for a foundational Golden Age. Whether they purport cultural or ethnic origins from Hellas, both views are underpinned by a perception of the latter’s recognizable place in history. Both are also steeped in a perceived Otherness and marginality (either as part of the Italian South or as a minority) within the national history and cultures of post-unification Italy. For Mosino, Hellas was simultaneously ‘far from’ and ‘entirely like our home’ – a consonance that he found to be based on environmental and linguistic similitudes between the two regions.73 Identitarian discourses in the Strait thus partake in a peculiar historical make-up involving a mixture of local and heteronormative historiographical myths. These intersect with oppositional or subaltern self-representations of the region in relation to its mother (or step-mother): national culture. Associated discourses may be overtly philhellenic and bordering on xenophobia, as with Reggio’s comic book history, or ambiguously torn between nuanced

Denizens of the Odyssey

155

historiography and the romantic glorification of Hellas.74 This banal identitarian lay myth of Greekness sustains efforts to rework and rekindle existing traditions into novel discourses and media, including views of landscape as the geographical equivalent to ethnic or cultural autochthony. Alongside the Strait, other landmarks are associated with mythology. Mount Elia, a hilltop locality overlooking the Strait from a distance and often defined as its ‘natural balcony’, is traditionally related to the mythical Orestes. Writer Oreste Pace, a preservationist and author of historical fiction and novels inspired by local legends, elaborated for me on how writers and scholars often become ‘excessively patriotic’, boasting appropriations of tales and blowing rationalistic explanations for myths out of proportion, or competing to pinpoint legends and history in their hometowns. Pace’s 2012 novel Scylla was inspired, as he told me, ‘by Ovid’ and ‘written in town by the sea’. The author also remarked on paying homage in his writings to Calabria’s ‘often forgotten’ populations, such the Ausons and Pelasgians whose traditions have been blotted out by the aura of Greater Greece. This harkening back to an imagined homeland, where local scholars may act as gatekeepers, can be conceptualized as a para-religious cult of heritage consistent with identitarian claims.75 Similarities can be drawn to the naturalization of Homer as Reggio’s illustrious ancestor and the local Grecanici’s canonization of the Anonymous Bovese, the author of a manuscript that mythologizes Bova’s roots and places them in ancient Hellas. There is, indeed, a quasi-scriptural process in how the Odyssey is made into an ur-text almost as if relating truths in allegorical ways through the patron ‘saint’ Homer, the hero of a chosen demos.76 While I am not claiming that such mythistorical narratives77 equate with religious experience, gatekeeping practices related to Greater Greece in the territory are at least conceptually comparable to religious practice, and sustained by subscriptions to absolute truths by agents such as publishers and communities, or even otherwise markedly secular and non-religious thinkers like Franco Mosino. Besides, in Scilla, signifiers of Greek mythology rub elbows with Christian churches and sanctuaries. Some like to fancy that Poseidon controls the sea in much the same way others more seriously believe that the Holy Mary and the Saints oversee mariners and drivers. Distinct in the way they provide meaning and cultural capital to different social groups, and yet sharing urban spaces, they pertain to different spheres but sustain a sense of belonging. Profane in subject but sometimes para-religious in its eliciting of emotion, and often framed via a positivist faith in pre-emptively established historical or geographical facts, the Strait is almost a Homeric equivalent of Jerusalem for

156

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

those invested in the idea that, as countless people have told me, ‘we come from the Greeks’.78

7.4 Banal identitarianism: Hellas and contested politics The landscape of memory constructed by Homeric geographies in the region is also populated, both physically and symbolically, by outstanding heritage items including the superlative Bronze Warriors of Riace. Canonized in postcards, books, regional histories and items of all sorts in addition to reproductions that punctuate various seaside localities, the statues have become part of the visual, cultural (Figure 8.2) and even ethnic repertoire of Calabrese typicality alongside historically less recent markers such as Scylla and Charybdis or the Bronze Warriors. Regrettably, the latter have even been made to align with ethnocentric receptions of ancient history and to equate to the local masculine body, in opposition to racialized Others. The comic book history of Reggio discussed earlier in this chapter79 showed how the Bronzes’ are used both as graphical signifiers of Greater Greece heritage and as symbols of a purportedly ‘pure’ ethnicity wherein the time between past and present is collapsed. Reggio’s comic book history further illustrated how the Bronzes are firmly entangled in political fields of discussion, converging with evocations of xenophonic fears and responses to the ongoing migrant ‘crisis’ as seen from Italy as a confine of fortress Europe.80 By suggesting that the Reggini were the heirs of the Greeks and presenting the Bronzes as heroes ‘returning’ to defend the homeland from new barbaric hordes, Reggio’s comic book history reflected what Laroux called the ‘autochthonous dream’. It also echoed Tuan’s warning about patriotism feeding on ‘the rhetoric of the classical period’.81 This process has also been supported by an implicitly white-centric and Occidentalist tradition that perpetuates itself under the moniker of the ‘classical’ through formal education and institutions in Italy. Formal education in Italy and the institution of the Liceo Classico have certainly played a key role within a larger process of accumulating and intruding on discourses generated at the intersection of ‘classics’ with public histories, dominant historiographies, European philhellenism and the ‘Western’ canon.82 Such factors have produced the nation-wide canonization of Graeco-Roman cultural, philosophical, artistic and literary traditions. This underpins the very fabric of the construction of national identity and political unification – as well as of other moments, such as Renaissance, that are instrumental for its modern rediscovery of Greece.83

Denizens of the Odyssey

157

Deeply rooted in Italian culture and public institutions, the Graeco-Roman tradition has been made to match ‘high culture’ as an essential element of national consciousness as much as the colonial experience has been erased from public memory.84 Since the South has been made to align with this tradition as the area preserving most of the physical remains of Hellas, it has become the ‘setting par excellence’ for this part of the national canon, whereas Calabria is otherwise ‘systematically marginalised’ in national historical discourses.85 Consequently, Hellas is ‘still perceived as essential and defining for this region’ both at a national and local level.86 The comic book history of the Bronzes as ‘Us’ in contrast to ‘Them’, the ‘rabble’, exemplifies how this historical process underpins the transformation of the statues into racialized signifiers. In a historically symbolic coincidence, the Bronze Warriors were retrieved from the sea in front of Riace, a small town in Calabria that recently attempted to formulate a model of social inclusion for migrants attempting to reaching Italy through the Mediterranean.87 Yet, scholars, political parties and the public have fetishized the figures and made them metonymically stand for the local masculine body. Often hailed in everyday discourses as the ‘sun-tanned’ epitome of Mediterranean Western-ness, the Bronzes have been marshalled to idealize symbols of the region that also signalled a particular complexion – perhaps as a variant of the ‘classical’ appropriation of other, conveniently whitewashed

Figure 7.1 Postcards of the Bronze Warriors in Reggio Calabria’s Archaeological Museum. Photo by author.

158

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

ancient statues. As a result, they have been contrasted by some against the body of Othered migrants, and fiercely protected against any perceived threat to engrained and fragile notions of gender, identity and ethnicity. This has been the case with an informant of mine, whom I shall call Giuseppe. In my informer’s words, the ‘tanned’ Bronzes emerged in the midst of a discussion over their value as distinct from both a perceived ‘Northern pastiness’ and from blackness. As a ‘Southerner’, Giuseppe aligned himself with the Bronze’s ‘tan’ to recount how ‘Northerners’ had instead defined ‘us from the South’ as Africans – a term sadly used in the country as a derogatory, racialized slur.88 Asked what he thought about this, he explained to me that maybe he was ‘a little’ but certainly not like ‘those others’, proceeding to enumerate a list of xenophobic stereotypes. Aligning all the time with the Southern ‘tan’ supposedly embodied by the Bronzes, Antonio could take the racial slur as an insult or half re-appropriate it into a form of positive Southernism, but this never happened past the level of irony. The ‘Southerner’ then reaffirmed his distance from the racialized, Othered black migrant, firmly realigning with whiteness (albeit a ‘bronze’ one) and its claim to legitimacy.89 The self-appointed ‘Mediterranean’ switched conveniently and hypocritically from appropriating the attribution to distancing himself from it, both wearing a tan and preserving his white mask.90 Giuseppe (and other locals) ironically ascribed me to a Northern-‘tainted’ pastiness. Aligning with the Bronze’s ‘tan’, they reclaimed his local, Southern identity against a supra-regional one. Blackness remained utterly othered and stigmatized in their account. It is worthwhile noting that while contrasted to the ‘pasty Northerners’, Giuseppe’s tanned ideal of a Mediterranean type partly and complacently self-ascribed to whiteness as a putative shade or variant of the latter. For him, the Bronzes thus stood distinctively for ‘Southern’ beauty and complexion while not giving up racism. This colourist formulation of identity took place in a country steeped as much in Hellenicist fantasies of washed-out Greek statues as in a systemic erasure of its colonial past and structural legitimization of racism. Yet in the same country, the narrative of opposing ‘North’ and ‘South’ sides to the nation has often characterized the Italian Southerner as the country’s Other.91 So, the racialization of migrants by my informant occurred despite the way ‘Southerners’ have fallen victim to racialization by ‘Northerners’ within a series of nested racialized discourses involving different others, both internal and external.92 The history of whitewashing Greek art must have certainly played a role in shaping Giuseppe’s internalization of a ‘white other’ complex and the reception of the Bronzes as a Mediterranean complexion type. His adverse characterization

Denizens of the Odyssey

159

of migrants can also be associated with a broader background wherein symbols of the Graeco-Roman past are mobilized to support white supremacist ideas beyond any historically or philologically sound level of accuracy.93 Among such examples, which are far too numerous for comprehensive analysis,94 are farright, xenophobic groups such as Generazione Identitaria. This group employs the stylized ancient Greek lambda, a sign said to have been painted on the shields of the Spartan soldiers at Thermopylae. Similarly, the logo of far-right political party Casa Pound draws inspiration from the Roman ‘testudo’ formation, and its leader runs a music label named after the Tarpeian Rock in a clear appropriation and decontextualization of a fantasized ethnic continuity with antiquity. For a long time, this alignment with received ideas of Spartan prowess and the Roman military machine has fed on far-right fantasies of ancient history in a masculinist and xenophobic key. These fantasies are rekindled in films such as 300, which presented an attractive and highly recognizable – in fact, globalized – set of memorable scenes.95 In addition to such cases, it is not uncommon to find representations of the Bronzes on social media pages from Reggio, its province, and other areas in Calabria as symbols of ‘roots’. Such mobilizations are consistent with how farright groups all across Europe employ Graeco-Roman symbols to invoke ideas of white racial heritage and simultaneously utilize fascist-era racist caricatures of black people that portray them as barbaric, animalistic and unwanted.96 Among such groups, ideas about ‘Western culture’ are entrenched in white supremacy and racist views of Europeans and ‘Westerners’. Symbols traditionally associated with Europe’s heritage thus amount to distinctions between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’. Xenophobia and racism should also be seen in relation to dominant views of gender. The machismo of 300, and its constant pitting of normate male bodies against the Othered, effeminate or monstrous ones of the Persian multitude (starting with Xerxes) is consistent with the Bronzes’ reception in Reggio as symbols of heteronormative masculinity. In August 2014, French photographer Gerald Bruneau queered the Bronzes in a photoshoot by dressing them up in veils and fuchsia feather boas. His subversion was met with fierce media and popular backlash against an alleged defacement of the icons. On the internet and social media, violent reactions ranged from condemnations of an act deemed barbaric, shameful and shocking to incitements to mob violence. Save for a performance pièce de résistance by collective Je Suis Gerald Bruneau, animated by artists Angela Pellicanò and Ninni Donato, the perceived ‘defacing’ of the Bronzes was equal to, in the eyes of a dangerous many, defacing a presumed masculinist Calabrian identity.97

160

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

Perceived as ‘natural’, the constructed cisgender masculinity of the Bronzes stood metonymically for an entire ethnos – actively symbolizing identity in contrast to Scylla’s traditional embodiment of Otherness or the Sirens’ passive, sexualized femininity. Turned into carriers of toxic masculinity, the Bronzes provided disgruntled and embittered local elements with the embodied, heteronormative, just-about-right-coloured manifestation of what they could see as their elective homeland and citizenship – a citizenship whose dark shadow is projected onto the excluded and the marginalized. While based on an observation of Calabria, the conceptual takeaways here could be applied to other contexts. The Strait could be considered a laboratory for examining ethnocentrism, intersectional aspects of normative and exclusionary structures, and toxic identitarianism in fortress Europe.98 Evidencing the impact of mythologies of the past on everyday ideological and political structures, the region is particularly significant for Europe in light of how Greece – and by extension Greater Greece – has been long conceptualized as the cradle of the ‘West’. Right-wing alignments with these perceptions of ancient Greece, the mythologies of a direct ethnic relation with imagined ancestors, the sanctification of Homer as a lost ‘father’ and the essentialization of a mythical geotoponomasty represent a highly local ideological field, which converges with broader, supralocal views of antiquity to create a powerful, local and global mythistory.99 Yet, while exclusionary and xenophobic appropriations of antiquity represent a long-standing issue in Italy and elsewhere,100 they do not encompass the entire political spectrum of the reception of Hellas in the Strait. The far-right coaxes history to underpin a blissful disregard for diversity and to serve a segregationist rhetoric that erects barriers, walls and borders even as left-leaning discourse summons Greek antiquity to exalt hybridity and admixtures of cultures past and present. Indeed studies such as that by Consolo remind the reader that ‘were our Strait a time machine, a photographic plate bearing the impressions of all of the shapes it has seen, we would see in it countless boats, sails of every shape and kind, soldiers and merchants of all races – we would read an infinite story’.101 Likewise, for Caterina Pastura, Editor-in-Chief at Messina-based publishing house Mesogea, the Sea-between-Lands should not divide. Rather, it should bring people from those lands together. I met Caterina in Messina at the publisher’s headquarters, which was housed in apartments replete with high-reliefs, pictures, symbols of the Trinacria and Sicily, and editions of the Iliad and the Odyssey alongside essays and contemporary fiction from the broader Mediterranean. For Caterina, the geography of this sea

Denizens of the Odyssey

161

is able to both divide and unite. The Strait has been, in Caterina’s words, ‘generated by a primordial fracture, a cataclysm in an orographic system’ that separated areas of a continent while not precluding ‘the ability to let flow, to open a passage’.102 Thus, the Mediterranean had to be reconceived as ‘a pluriverse’ made up of a multitude of cultures deriving from the Arab world to the Balkans and beyond. Such views were also maintained by Giacomo, one of the convenors of the Horcynus Orca centre. Giacomo believed in the ability of the Strait to act as a catalyst for a transregionally and transnationally interconnected Mediterranean. In front of the palm-lined Messina harbour and then from the ‘Charybdis side’ of Cape Pelorus, facing Scilla in Calabria, Giacomo described the meeting of the two seas as a possible symbol of positively chaotic turmoil and vibrant intermixing. For Giacomo, geo-cultural dynamics brought down distinctions between the two sides. ‘If you live here, you always go back and forth, both physically and psychologically’, he observed, allowing one to conceive of the sea not as a separator but as a bridge between peoples.103 Another more ‘centrist’ appropriation of Greekness includes the provincial branch of the political party Partito Democratico (PD). At the time, the PD included as part of their visual branding the profiles of the Bronzes and Athena Promachos, whose statue (Figure 7.2) is displayed on the city’s seafront walk alongside wind turbines and other signifiers of industrial and tourist development. In this light, the PD – as well as the mayor of Reggio Calabria, Giuseppe Falcomatà – conceived of Greekness as both cultural and economic capital – a prestigious moment in national and European history that also entailed its use as an asset. The opposite perspective sides with the region as the neglected ‘South’ of Italy, framing it within what looked like an ‘anti-Atlanticist’ or Mediterraneanist geopolitical order. For representatives of Reggio’s local Club UNESCO branch, Greekness did not define the Strait in the way a ‘classicist’ might think. In their view (mirrored in their club’s pamphlet), their hometown Reggio aspired to reclaim a central role in the Mediterranean as ‘a bridge between Europe and North Africa’ – albeit not through ‘European culture as having its origins in Greece’. As these informants noted, they did not mean to undermine the importance of Europe. Rather, they intended to shift emphasis to ‘a Mediterranean pride’. While steeped in a parochial exaltation of their hometown, such views recall Mediterraneanist perspectives on the need for the ‘South’ to unshackle itself from the cultural and economic subjection and negative, Orientalist portrayals to which it is relegated by ‘Atlanticist’ or Eurocentric geopolitics and discourses.104 Reframing the Graeco-Roman canon within a different perspective and seeing

162

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

the Mediterranean as a place of intermingling and multi-ethnic enrichment, such views might have displayed what sounded to me like a peculiar form of parochial cosmopolitanism that aligned with a self-centred Mediterraneanist appropriation.105 In this frame of value, the Graeco-Roman record is an element of an ‘Atlanticist’ order that stands in the way of the Strait’s multi-ethnic history and future. Overall, the variety of these examples illustrates the importance of GraecoRoman tradition in the landscape of political appropriations of the past within the area of the Strait, while also serving a specific agenda of political identity and positioning. Prestige associated with the symbols of Greater Greece, while varying in degree and scope (and whether positively received or defied in different discourses) might still be understood as a banal form of identitarianism due to its pervasiveness in any political discourse, regardless of the value assigned to Magna Graecia.

7.5 Heirs of Homer: Local hide, global pride The Graeco-Roman landscape of memory in the Strait has provided different elements of society with narratives of historical legitimacy, establishing views of what and whose past should be remembered. Landscapes of memory thus work as a form of social and cultural capital, reinforcing the particular historiographical viewpoints of those who seek to align with it. In response, specialized scholarship can provide neglected histories with public acknowledgement and visibility, especially in light of how the quasi-religious canonization of Greekness in the region and its misconstruction as a monolithic, ‘pure’ ethnos has led to trivialization of historical complexity and to appropriation by reactionary elements and exclusionary ideologies. As a geopolitical entity, the regions of the Strait are contested as the site of origin for Europe or the ‘West’, or, vice versa, repositioned as the rediscovered navel of a multi-ethnic Mediterranean. Yet another level of complication unfolds in how everyday forms of philhellenic identitarianism in the region intersect with the broader process of the reception of Graeco-Roman antiquity in Italy – a country so steeped in this tradition that references to the former provide a constant platform for political analogies, journalistic refrains, and everyday sayings either to signify traditions or to elicit the status and literary penchant of a speaker. Philhellenism in the Strait seems therefore ambiguously but firmly nested in a ‘daily plebiscite’, as Ernest Renan worded it, to discuss the nation.106 At

Denizens of the Odyssey

163

a regional level, the plebiscite works as a more locally specific formation of ‘places of memory’, binding residents to a past by constantly reminding them of ‘who’ they are and what ‘we’ need to remember.107 Still, a certain caution in assessing the weight of these narratives is required. This identitarian dynamic is systemic, but it is also neither ‘universal’ nor exactly applicable to contexts other than the one examined here. Moreover, one should avoid attributing to it a more pervasive or ‘structural’ role even when considering the Strait as a region. Neither a religion108 nor a cloak of ideological uniformity, the everyday appreciation of Hellas in the Strait can vary from paramount to nil based on the individual, circumstances and social groups. In the Strait, a soft ideology does constantly remind that ‘we are the Greeks’. Even so, this ‘we’ needs to be problematized and unpacked, acknowledging its possible contingent and circumstantial role in an everyday perspective. But it would be hard to deny that Greater Greece has largely defined the terms of historical discussion in the area of the Strait, structuring the intellectual landscape in a way that it has to be accepted by every area of the political spectrum. As such, Hellas by and large entails a retreat into a taken-for-granted affiliation with selectively ennobled ideas of ‘roots’. As the most readily available narrative of past glory in the region, it has been elevated to the level of a historical mystique. In the process, people in the Strait have often looked at the Greek past as ‘a yardstick which has always been there reminding them of what they should be’.109 This process can be disappointing. Sandra and her husband, the migrants returning to Scilla after sixty years in the United States, lamented the ‘chaotic, financially inept, and politically useless’ paisani who were ‘sitting on a goldmine and they don’t know it’. Such a use of antiquity as a model, or even as a warning, echoed the explanation that the mayor of Reggio, Giuseppe Falcomatà, gave to me about the role of the statue of Athena Promachos. The statue is displayed in the city in a modern, iconic, sea-facing arena that pays homage to the Hellenic history of the town (Figure 7.2). Rather than facing outwards towards potential enemies, as was the intent of Phidias’ original, the reproduction in Reggio’s amphitheatre uncannily faces inwards – towards the population. The mayor explained his view of this choice from his office on the city’s main high street. For him, the memory of Greater Greece stood as a way to ‘recover and rediscover local pride for identity’. Greekness amounted to a lost ‘sense of beauty’ of which present-day Reggio needed constant reminder. Its glory as ‘the cradle of the classical civilisation’ and a ‘hub for classical culture’ were apparent in its Greek remains and Roman excavations, which ‘still today, nonsensically, lack an official

164

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

Figure 7.2 Replica of Phidias’ Athena Promachos by Antonio Bonfiglio (1940s, resting on a 1932 pillar), in the modern Anfiteatro Anassilao (Arena dello Stretto), Reggio Calabria. Photo courtesy of Loredana Guinicelli.

endorsement by UNESCO as places of heritage of mankind’. The statue of promachos, ‘She who fights in the front line’, faced inwards at a time of political disarray, serving as a reprimand against the inability of the indolent Reggini to stand up against corruption and regain their place in history. By monumentalizing Greater Greece, the ‘South’ communicates its distinct and distinctive place within and compared to the rest of Italy. In its extreme forms, it may take the form of marketing operations in which the Bronzes (or other figures associated with Hellas) are printed on the packaging and merchandizing of traditional products. This can include food produce from the territory – mushrooms, chilli, bergamot – that one can find on high street souvenir shops in Scilla and Reggio, emblazoned with names related to mythology or Greek history. While specialties like local specialty store Pizzimenti’s ‘Zaleuco’ package have nothing to do with ancient Greece, their product management merges with notions of ‘folk’ and ‘high’ typicality to sustain territorial product branding.110 Yet the Strait is neither Greater Greece nor

Denizens of the Odyssey

165

modern Greece. This rhetoric ultimately amounts to a far shallower process of Mediterraneanism. Naturally, very few have ever tasted a Greek spanakopita, no matter how they might fantasize about local swordfish cuisine being found in the Odyssey. Local-based alignments with antiquity should be understood in relation to both a national dimension and the global proscenium against which Calabria may be presented as the former Greater Greece within-Europe. As a consequence of such a process, the aforementioned biologist Vazzana’s attempt to discuss the Greek etymology of what he defined as the ‘skylla fish’ was met with puzzlement and ironic distancing by local fishermen. The Introduction to this work pointed to similar forms of ironic distancing by citing fisherman and fishmonger Fortunato and Antonio, who presented me with a pragmatic view of the ‘fables’ of myth and jokingly defining themselves as the heirs of Odysseus before proceeding to cynically distance themselves from a tradition that they equated with the ‘high’ and ‘political’ self-aggrandisement of either fables or a distant reality. For others, an ‘ancestor-cult’ could actually mean a heartfelt and genuine feeling for the place and sense of being ‘not worthy of their ancestors’.111 For local preservationist Franco Porcaro, the Greek past presented an immanent tradition in folk practices and a chance for redemption: Scilla was a sacred place, but people lacked resources to ‘administer the beauty’ of what he defined as a ‘veritable pearl’. In his view, such beauties (as well as ‘the hotchpotch of peoples and myths and histories’ of Scilla) were sadly unbeknownst or irrelevant to its inhabitants. Chaperoning me enthusiastically through town, Franco enlisted alleged cultural survivals, traditions and etymologies. For Porcaro, the Scillesi knew ‘nothing about the myth apart from the names that they use to call their restaurants and bars’. While stopping to diligently cleanse places of rubbish and clean up a statue devoted to dramatist Ettore Luigi Morselli, vandalized by obscene graffiti, Franco proclaimed that ‘this people has lost their culture, their history’ – echoing the mantra of the ‘paradise inhabited by devils’. The Scillesi were blind to their ‘true heritage’: folk practices retained uses sacred to the Greeks, such as pre-marital processions (an ‘unconscious continuation’ of ancient bridal rituals), fishermen customs (the ‘scuzzetta’ applied to the corpse of the fish as a sign of respect) and votes to the sea (to the Holy Mary at present; to Poseidon, the ‘ancient God of the city’, in ancient times). In Franco’s view, ‘belonging to myth’ meant ‘to remain forever in the history of mankind, until this place will stand on earth – which is no small feat’.

166

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

In the Strait, the ‘everyday fiction’ of Greater Greece – a result of local and supra-local, national and supra-national Mediterraneanist narratives – constructs what for some is a deceptively impermanent, quasi-scriptural map of heritage that needs to be framed within a broader understanding of the socioeconomic and geopolitical realities of the South.112 Appropriations of Hellas have worked both as a conjunctive element (with hegemonic histories) and as one of disjunction and distinction. This heritage further intersects with infraand international frameworks of exclusion. Appropriations of the Bronzes as a model of ethnos hailing back to an imagined Golden Age of pre-hybridity and the accompanying canonization of the Odyssey and Homer as signifiers of Hellas converge in an essentialist and segregationist conception of the landscape, people and ‘home’ within Italy’s unprocessed colonial past. Conversely, territoriality and identities can be understood in terms of more complex and nuanced intersections of peoples and places. Political forces and elements of society have also mobilized the legacy and history of Greater Greece, its archaeological remains, and mythological signifiers to suggest inclusive views of citizenship.113

8

Conclusions: (Re-)Imagining the Strait

The Strait of Homeric geographies is a site of intersections between the real and the imaginative in which literary, cultural and historical traditions have impacted on perceptions of place in everyday life. Sublimely dystopian as a setting of marine monsters, tides and tsunamis or romantically utopian as a nostalgic homeland, the Strait has provided a heterotopic and heterochronic setting for a variety of endeavours under the aegis of a renowned cultural and historical canon. While a setting for the mythical, the nostalgic and the wondrous in the projections of literatures of travel – including those enticed by the lure of demonstrating the ‘actual’ places of the Odyssey – the Strait as a topos of exploration also provided local inhabitants with a fertile platform for the construction of ideas of homeland and the election of putative forefathers like Homer. This passage evinces the ability to sustain emotions such as nostalgia and excitement, dimensions such as exoticism and adventure, and the attentions of armchair, mediated and real-life travels and tourism. The reception of the Strait has ranged from wandering among the ruins of past grandeur by early modern philhellenes to explorations of its turbulent waters and environmental features by biologists and explorers. For the philhellenes, this place represented cartographic imagination and mythological landmarks on erudite maps. For modern travellers, it inspired attempts to play-act Odysseus’ journey in mediated and first-person perspectives. Sometimes a utopian and nostalgic return to a fascinating chronotope of Hellas, other times a landscape associated with nature’s dreadful powers, the Strait has often been portrayed as environmentally exceptional or removed from the mundane. Its memorable cartographic placement between the Italian peninsula and the island of Sicily – a mythical land that one could experience in real life, allowing for the imaginative to infect reality – is one possible reasons for its success as a visual and conceptual topos. The South of Italy likewise extends from Hellas, the putative cradle of Europe and one of its modern borderlands. This extension has haunted the Strait by inspiring forms of denial of its historical coevalness among visitors, tourists or 167

168

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

scholars, fancily travelling almost as if through time as well as space.1 Situated at the borders and politically marginal, the Strait is both part of the continent and political entity of Europe and an Other-within. In this context, Homeric geographies support local ontologies and foundational myths that have taken hold of people’s sense of place and identity as associated statues signalled a broader discourse on the Strait’s rootedness in ‘native’ Greater Greece. The meaning of visual representations has thus been investigated here not only as a reservoir of imaginative tropes ripe for the arts, but also as signifiers of a larger cultural tradition of Hellenism. The Strait’s relations with Homer, whether imagined or factual, inspirational or contested, have disseminated notions and expectations about the Strait of real life. While issues of philological and archaeological factuality can be left to specialists of antiquity, the Strait nonetheless provides a setting for explorations of supposed historical factuality and evidence of the relations between literary landmarks and real places. These relations continue across different areas of knowledge, scholarship, imagination and real life. Jealous appropriations of Homer by local elements of society point to the weight of the cultural capital of Hellas in orienting affective relations with the landscape and the territory – and the dangers of ethnic localisms that ensue from canonizing imaginary Golden Ages. Elements from in-field experience provide a corrective to the idea of a hegemonic effect of historical traditions on people’s perceptions of place. This history may be, at this point, one that is saturated with tired metaphors, unoriginal images and trite narratives. In the words of one of my informants, ‘I am so fed up of hearing about the Greeks all the time!’ Even with this caveat, though, the mythological (and hence imaginary) Homeric Strait has impacted deeply on its Real equivalent. While providing the setting for a semi-legendary landmark in the vein of a Troy or Stonehenge, the Strait of real life was simultaneously set in a South most often represented as an underdeveloped, semi-forgotten, geopolitically irrelevant Elsewhere that would be mostly remembered for the ancient myths it putatively inspired.

8.1 Mythical lands and historical mirages Visitors responded to first-hand experience with the place based on their expectations derived from the Graeco-Roman mythology and Homeric myths. Grand Tour travellers selectively looked at mythological toponyms and quaint

Conclusions

169

realities, tending to overlook social analyses. Such views were reflected in local tendencies to exalt the remoteness and pristineness of their own ‘South’ and to subscribe to self-southernizing historiographical narratives (often by incorporating travel literature into their local canons). Filmmakers were disappointed at not finding visually striking equivalents to the mythological descriptions, and ended up fabricating visual landmarks. Local philhellenes obdurately fabricated evidence of their local geography inspiring Homer’s Odyssey. Artists used the real Strait for its ability to evoke the imaginative in the real; their images have contributed to vast visual genealogies that have ‘returned home’ in the forms of urban inscriptions in town. Cultural histories may exert a profound impact on places, connecting them symbolically and economically to supra-local networks. Tourism is a key dimension through which to address these processes. As a part of a view of the Mediterranean as static, ancient, small and quaint, the Strait has worked historically as the opposite of other traditional mythologies, such as – for instance – that of the United States of America as dynamic, novel, vast, inbecoming.2 More specifically to the Strait, such notions have both reproduced and disseminated ideas of its landscape as ‘naturally’ exceptional landmark. Its place in history is locked in antiquity. Its major asset is a blend of ahistoric nature and fascinating mythology, which sustains longstanding views of heritage tourism as the ‘natural vocation’ of the area and particularly of a town like Scilla. Moreover, tourism in the Strait reveals that what has been written and divulged about a region such as Calabria, ‘whether by Italians or foreigners, or the Calabresi themselves’, can become ‘a part of the history’ of the region.3 Indeed, people in the Strait have adopted Hellenicism as a way to align with expectations, think of antiquity as an asset, and even upturn the historical Mediterraneanist prejudice of backwardness by appropriating and glorifying its timelessness and its landscape. In addition to its symbolic assets, these are conceptualized as primary assets for an economy of symbolic and environmental consumption. While often presented as autochthonous, constructions of place are typically externally validated. The view of the ‘South’ as caught between Homeric geographies, as a place of ‘ancient marvels and slow decadence’ and as the ‘glorious crown’ of Magna Graecia followed by the ‘never-ending centuries of byzantine Middle Ages’ owes to the impact of narratives harkening back to early European modernity. While integral to people’s ‘earnest search for a heritage essential to autonomy and identity’,4 the politics of the past are best understood by observing them as processes both locally rehearsed and performed for external observers.5

170

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

Relations between globally circulating ideas of place and their effects on the landscape highlight the importance of bringing together historical documents and ethnography to understand social reality. Hirsch and Stewart underscored the ‘common missions’ of the two disciplines, reminding how they both operate at various (albeit often distinct) scales of observation when it comes to relations between time and space. This present study has consistently focused on the ‘social past’ and on ‘ideologies of history’ as ‘cultural proclivities that lead to certain kinds of historical consciousness within which such histories are meaningful’.6 The examples provided by this study show the importance of weighing grand histories in the real contexts within which they shape place and identities. My ethnography represents both an invitation to assess such effects in-field and long-term and a warning about the dangers of generalizing the effect of grand, popular histories as uniform. There is a wide array of professional, affective and existential responses to the relevance of the Graeco-Roman world in the Strait. These range from invested gatekeepers to those for whom such heritage amounts at best to background or low-intensity social narratives. While looking at a range of more or less conscious and ambiguous views of historical traditions, heritage and a putative Hellenicist identity and ‘regional character’ in Scilla and the Strait, I propose considering public histories of antiquity as a banal and diffused (but not inappreciably powerful) form of identitarianism.7 Discourse has the power to construct the Real, define its narratives and shape its ambitions. Scilla’s reality as a town with historical and sociocultural specificities cannot exclude the role of Greater Greece and its signifiers. Both have influenced ways of conceiving the Scillesi economy and ideas about the town’s ‘place in the world’. The impact of images and narrative may not amount to a uniform cloak on the social context, but their long-term and layered accretion carries an everyday impact on institutional policies of the Strait’s grand, ‘inescapable history’.8 This history is presented as eminently specific and local, even as it is based on much larger ‘global hierarchies of values’.9 No matter how irrelevant it may seem to some, and although it traverses the highbrow and the vernacular, the specialist and the layperson, Greater Greece in the Strait nonetheless allows people ‘to embrace a romanticized version’ of identity10 that inevitably portends to politically and ideologically contested appropriations of the past. Representations are neither generated in a vacuum nor are substitutes of facts. Rather, they are culturally tangible objects. Representations of Homeric myths in the Strait are consistent with the material and intellectual remains of

Conclusions

171

Greek civilization. While selectively heightened, often to the detriment of other eras in the history of the region, the record of Greater Greece is sustained by its immense cultural and artistic legacy. Interrogations as to whether or not the Strait actually inspired Homer’s Odyssey, along with the geographical and historical consistencies between the mythical tales and the real place, are often conceived as extensions of an established fact: that South Italy coincided with the location of the Greek poleis in antiquity. There are extensive debates on purported coincidences between certain localities and fictive elements of Homeric tales (sometimes situated in the hometowns of the researchers). These seemingly trivial manifestations of disciplinary and territorial parochialism can be used as a measure of the ability of scholarship to essentialize its claims to factuality, particularly in the area of so-called ‘hard sciences’, which often seemed to grasp at straws for evidence once dealing with mythology as a complex historical, social and cultural phenomenon. The presence of Greater Greece can neither be underplayed nor selectively sustain the hegemonic and exclusive cult of certain canons, the ‘guardians at the gate’,11 and their cultivation of forms of cultural distinction. These forms quite often essentially appropriate a by-now discredited, whitewashed, and ethnocentric view of Hellas as the cradle of the so-called ‘West’. Entire eras of the Strait’s Mediterranean history have been exiled from collective memory as a result of an almost exclusive fixation on the hegemonic presence of Hellas. The exclusion of other eras gives rise to ideological and political dangers. In addition to informing inexact narratives of what Greater Greece has actually been, they have been (and may be further) used to legitimize nativist views of a ‘Western’ identity, imagined ideas of uniform, ethnic localism and the foregrounding of the Mediterranean as a place of racialized divisions and frameworks of exclusion.12 In this standpoint, the visual iconographies of Hellas in the Strait have done more than represent their immediate content from ancient tales or signalled locally harboured and externally validated social ideologies. Ideas of identitarian uniqueness or ethnic purity clash with an understanding of the cultural, intellectual and ethnic diversity of the area both in the past and the present.13 Perhaps more relevantly for this study, they impact on how somebody might decide to fashion themselves as an ‘heir’ of the Greeks today – forgetting a much more complex set of relations with the parts of the Mediterranean that have been excluded from this West-centric notion of Hellenicism. This study cannot exhaust a fuller discussion on the historical trajectories of ethnic exchanges between the ‘Rest’ of the Mediterranean,

172

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

including the African continent, and today’s South Italy and nation at large. But in suggesting that the legacy of Greater Greece in the region is not incompatible with re-thinking the hegemonic frames of its representations, I am pointing to the dangers of the ideological appropriations of the past in public and popular histories. These dangers arise from the way that simplified views of the past may be used to preclude a nuanced understanding of the peoples who have lived or live in the Mediterranean. A re-imagining of the Strait and the Mediterranean (and indeed of our world) entails acknowledging that traditions can work as foundations for our lives – but they can also work as cages, walls, barriers and exclusionary narratives. We have ways to produce what Foucault defined as ‘discursive ruptures’ in the dominant order of things.14 There are ways that communities and industries engage with the idea of challenging the past to anticipate possible futures. The past can thus be re-imagined in its utopian and redeeming potential. Greater Greece could be reappraised outside outdated models of European/Western exceptionalism. A new approach to the Strait should hopefully recalibrate it within the whole history of Mediterranean art, culture and customs, its plurilinguism, and what has been marginalized and erased beyond the ‘constant mythographies’ we are used to reading.15

8.2 Deconstructions and reconstructions My presence as an estranged native of the Strait put me in an advantageous but simultaneously challenging position as a researcher. Sometimes, I fell prey of an affective alignment with some of my interviewees even as I lucidly disagreed with them. Aware that Homer had not really been born in the Strait, I still sympathized with this fancy. While I knew that the marine fauna of Scilla, purported to have inspired the myths of the Odyssey, can be found all around the Mediterranean, I liked to believe that it exclusively belonged to the town. Even if only at the level of entertaining perspectives, I sympathized with the redemptive – albeit mythographic – qualities of the belief in a foundational mythology. One particular moment during my fieldwork provided a starting point for observing how representations can prepare us to acquire ideas of place. While in Scilla town, I met with Santina, a Scillese who had migrated to the United States. Santina, her Italian-American husband, and their children had travelled to Scilla for the summer holidays. Over the course of a conversation about the town, her teenage son Vito mentioned being happy to visit his parents’ hometown and a

Conclusions

173

setting for Greek mythology. Asked what he knew about myths, Vito explained that he knew Scylla and Charybdis from media, such as Percy Jackson (2013) and God of War (2007), and also from a school module on mythology. Vito’s relation with the town had indeed been shaped by media journeys of the Strait, but also by a sense of a genealogical, affective bond with the territory. Speaking with Vito allowed me to reminisce about myself as a child playing fantasy games, the excitement of walking through the sands of Scilla and the sensation of being one with those stories. Stepping down from my parents’ car on a sunny summer afternoon, I would notice signs on bars and restaurants spelling out names such as Calypso and Ulysses. Upon my next encounter with these mythologies, in high school, the associations became a sense of local belonging. Nostalgically, I would turn my mind to the beaches and Mediterranean shrublands where I used to observe animals in the sea and bushes while daydreaming about sailing the waves, meeting wonders of the seas, drawing and writing about them before jumping into a tall wave that could become a tsunami in my imagination (Figure 8.1). Matching the scales of a lizard that I had briefly caught with a dry stalk and the tentacles of a jellyfish seen underwater, Medusa, Scylla, Charybdis were ‘my’ myths, ‘our’ myths. My recollections went back to how, years before moving abroad, I would spend some time in these places and imagine my life there in the future. As nostalgia threatened to shake away my perceptions of finding home abroad, a sense of conflict emerged as I became aware of the dangers of approaching my

Figure 8.1 A child lifted by a tall wave in Scilla’s turbulent waters. Photo by author.

174

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

study with an overly sympathetic bias. Was I developing a holistic cultural critique of the place, informed by both critical distance and insider knowledge, or was I (as historian of the mezzogiorno Placanica warned) turning a frustrated attachment into an apology of place?16 Was I using my perspective on the region as a migrant, ab extra, to thinly conceal a grudge towards the ‘land of my own remorses’?17 Was I deluded in thinking I qualified as an external observer, or was I actually so far removed that I looked at this place through the eyes of a patronizing foreigner?18 These self-transferential and counter-transferential investments and their way of embodying what could seem as purely theoretical matters became a haunting, first-hand realization of the fact that even though constructions may dominate people’s lives, deconstruction is a method. The lucid and iterative writing of my identity could not blot out a deep, underlying affective imprinting. My fear of not being able to construct boundaries between an etic and emic perspective on place led me to problematize how I navigated it. Efforts to avoid both external judgements and internal complacency also entailed questioning whether my impact on place would be transformative – or simply extractive, as I walked in the shoes of the very diverse people that I spoke with, whose views sometimes ranged from self-glorifying ones of place and identity to self-bashing and defeatism due to internalized stereotypes of backwardness.19 Inevitably, such positions resounded with an ambivalence on my side, as a researcher and a native who had left the place many years before to live elsewhere. In wavering on whether I should have left or was better off for having done so, I still carried the marks of the sense of place – its positives and negatives – that had been imprinted on before turning to their critical study. Personal events represented milestones of such ambivalences, tossing me into and outside of different frames of value. One day I traversed the autostrada siding the Tyrrhenian coast from Scilla to see, some fifty miles north, the evocative rock of Palmi (Figure 4.3), which many have used to illustrate the rock of Scylla (for locals, this is the Rock of Orestes (Figure 4.3)). Joining two locals on a small boat, we headed to the centre of the Strait (Figure 8.3). While circling around the rock, a pareidolic sensation made it seem as if the rock were staring at me as I heard stories about underwater grottos and folk tales. Myth beckoned me profoundly, innervated by both a poetic quality to the environment and my own predisposition and affection for the place. In another circumstance, environmental realities lashed back more viciously at my social-constructivist views of landscape. During a day off on a boat with friends, we stopped for a swim far away from the coast. Underestimating the

Conclusions

175

currents, I was swept rapidly away and struggled to return to land, luckily getting stranded on a nearby beach. After recovering from exhaustion, I still could not cover the few yards that separated me from the boat. Powerful currents, visible from the surface (Figure 5.2), alerted me to their not-entirely poetic or fictional origins. Was I finally re-enacting Odysseus – not at his most glorious but, rather, in his most fragile confrontation with the sea? Was it fiercely punishing me for my sceptical deconstruction of geographical essentialism? Such events intersected with larger political events that left a mark on my identity both as a researcher and individual. Brexit coincided with the final writing phases of my doctoral studies, creating a sense of disenfranchisement and a partly unconscious emotional retreat to my home country, tapping into concerns about ‘not fitting in’ that I had buried deep for decades. Arguably a foreigner in both worlds – the ‘pale Londoner’ to the landlord in Scilla, and ‘white other’ on official papers in England, where I was addressed as a citizen of nowhere – I felt inclined to sympathize more with the places of my upbringing. Yet, while not rose-tinted, my story was still that of a privileged economic migrant, legitimized in traversing the political space of Europe. My relative Othering in Brexit Britain further cemented awareness of my privileged place in fortress Europe. Albeit Othered, my whiteness and Western-ness meant that the sea appeared as a frightening element mostly in mythological storytelling, unlike what the refugees crossing the Mediterranean have to face. No matter how significant for me, my uprooting was not remotely comparable to the exclusion, prejudice and violence suffered by those who are forced to seek asylum by the legacies of European colonialisms and then denied the right to cross national borders that enforce exclusion. In spite of my displacement from home along with the liquefaction of cultural identity, I benefited from an enduring privilege associated with whiteness, which made this work possible in the first place. Guilt gradually crept into my choice of the angle of my study, making it feel irrelevant in the light of grave tragedies. While focusing on some of the ways in which traditions entailed the indirect support of systemic racism or the explicit weaponizing of nostalgia,20 I questioned my ethnographic work as unable to provide voice to the voiceless, such as the refugees and migrants, people denied of citizenship and exploited in the Scilla labour market as beachside sellers – and more systematically and elsewhere, discriminated against and relegated to seasonal agricultural work, cleaning jobs and other exploitative and heavy duty jobs in a lack of any semblance of fair pay, representation or rights.21 All of these people have been enduring utterly incomparable levels of suffering to most Southern Italians and their still overall convenient alignment with Euro-Atlanticism.

176

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

Unfortunately, during my stays, I had rarely been able to break diffidence and get insights into their life conditions and perceptions of systemic racism within a place where Graeco-Roman symbols have been used to contribute to racialized and colourist myths of identity, whose shadows are projected on minorities in the country.22 I also failed at the time in systematically liaising with local activism groups. On these terms, the ethnography reflected here is incomplete and still underway. At best, my work has produced a struggle against ‘its own origins’, my failures in this area showing the work that is direly needed.23 As a minor result, my identity as a ‘white other’ in the United Kingdom and interest in decolonizing the idea of the ‘classics’ in the region enticed me to approach first-hand the issue of whether I, a native, could be deemed a descendant of the Greeks. With this idea in mind, I used it as a chance to sceptically approach one of the then-novel DNA ethnicity test kits available to the public. Such items promise to extrapolate cell DNA and reveal one’s ethnic make-up after comparing it with scientific databases on the population. My test gave me a supposed 57% Greek heritage. Among other ethnicities, Italian followed the Orientalist clump of the ‘Middle East’ label and ‘North Africa’. Shelley, the English Romantic poet who had never visited Greece, wrote in 1821 that ‘we are all the Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts have their root in Greece’.24 Having dedicated my research to dismantling Eurocentric Hellenicism, a seemingly ‘scientific’ test now purported my ethnicity as Greek. Yet what does ‘Greek’ mean and how was this notion constructed as separate from the ‘Middle East’? While packaged as progressive and liberating tools, capable of crushing ideas of racial purity by exposing intrinsic genetic admixture, these tests rested upon problematic assumptions. One limit consists of the fact that their ways of conceiving ethnic groups are opaque.25 Popular DNA kits do not reveal the geographical and temporal coordinates of their capture. They merely present somebody as ‘Italian’ without considering the variance within the term itself, reinforcing West-centric labels such as ‘Middle Eastern’. Quite the representation of Calabria’s complex ethnic make-up, the results simultaneously affirmed me as a purported Greek and reinforced whitewashed notions of what ‘Greek’ should mean. If anything, such tests appeared to re-ontologize race under an apparently good-willed attempt to deconstruct ideas of racial purity: while portending one should wear more than one ethnical ‘mask’, the test nevertheless invited me to acquire a pre-set package of such masks presented in familiarly Orientalist forms. Ultimately, a self-reflexive ethnography allowed me to construct an even stronger rejection of nostalgia-driven essentialism of either place or identity. I

Conclusions

177

chose to not entirely reject empathy with the local reality: as Placanica wrote, ‘the pure and extraneous scholar will be missing in warmth’ when assessing culture.26 I also chose to avoid a radical extolment of the potential of GraecoRoman history and its mythological landmarks as a means of development and self-affirmation of the region. However, I also rejected feelings of identitarianism, embracing the unfinished position of an interstitial subject. Neither truly at home again nor simply a visitor, I was at least able to bounce off the temptation of believing in a past homeland and simultaneously appreciate their potential utopian values – provided that such utopias were projected to an imagined future as opposed to a romanticized past.27 This process was neither pleasurable nor heightening in any way other than in providing an iterative appreciation of identity-making. The price to pay for the rejection of trivial essentialism is that re-constructionism may, in some cases, not offer chances to replete an identity hollowed out by a ‘loss of innocence’. Rather than resembling a blank slate that one could wipe and re-write at will, identity can be shaken and complicated as much as reinvigorated or renewed. While rationally liberated, my identity was deprived of elements of its imprinting that I discovered I had never given up. Rather, they had dug deep into me. More specifically, my perception of the landscape and its supposed exceptionality were forever altered. Once put in perspective, the beauty of the Strait could still be appreciated even though, from that moment on, this appreciation would be forever outside of that half-conscious, satisfying delusion of its purported uniqueness. The Strait looked less magical and less inspiring as a sense of liberation from fantasies of descent from Homer was accompanied by a blow to the spontaneous, mythopoeic relation with landscape of my earliest experience of place. Ultimately, such high stakes were counterweighted by the intellectual and existential gains of consigning one’s imagined roots to a perhaps less romantic and enticing but more lucid spotlight.28 A ‘salutary antidote to hegemonic stereotypes’, critical theory provides intellectual integrity at a sometimes high cost, holding no assurance as to whether or not people will find a new place in the world. But in the end, it also provides the freedom to re-create such a place.29

8.3 Places and bodies: Inhabiting history While this work has focused above all on a history of representations, their cultural implications, and their geopolitical situatedness, it has hopefully

178

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

managed to also put forward a call for a necessary transformation in historiographical research and communication into or about this area. Long torn between Europeanist and Mediterraneanist claims, the Strait still carries the potential to develop an ‘inconclusive future’30 in the form of self-representation that avoids both a white-centric philhellenism or forms of essentializing Mediterraneanism. The Strait needs provincializing in the sense suggested by Chakrabarty (2000), which would allow us to appreciate its history of Greekness as much as everything else that has been going under the radar. Entrapped for too long in an image of the landscape of a lost glory and of an imperfect witness to the cruel testing of time against ideals of whitewashed ‘development’, this area of the ‘South’ and the Mediterranean should re-imagine itself as a place of open encounters, commensurate development, environmental preservation and peaceful intermingling. Given the importance of antiquity for beliefs in social identity, scholars have an obligation to examine the consequences of their work. As part of the Mediterranean, the Hellenic Strait can finally be conceived of in terms of a ‘historical region’ that exists not within the insiderist and self-referential framework of a ‘past colony’ of the Greeks, but as part of a rich tapestry of societies and cultures. This tapestry is woven within the Mediterranean as a site of transitory zones with shifting borders outside the exclusionary politics of fortress Europe.31 With few exceptions, the Strait lacks initiatives centred around Hellas and aimed at fostering a geographical form of imagination open to possible futures rather than simply a selectively imagined past. Yet the Strait also has the capacity to re-think respect for, rather than exploitation of, nature as a site of mythopoeic beauty. It can conceive of passages and geographies as places of continued encounters rather than barriers. The Strait, the ‘South’ of Italy and, more generally, the subjectivities that inhabit our shared places of existence in the world need scholars conversant in the opening up of the black boxes of homelands and the exclusionary notions of selective kinship. If the Strait has indeed been a ‘place on the margin’32 so far, then its future needs to promise a change in its dominant narratives. Maybe, in accordance with the theme of travel, new narratives can become ways of encouraging travel as a transformative experience and a celebratory stance towards the crossing of borders. Scholars can also begin to look at the Odyssey while focusing critically on its powerful delivery of themes relating to both the geographical imagination and identity. Emerging forms of reading the Homeric texts are challenging their traditional translations and interpretations, which often amplified misogynist

Conclusions

179

notions inscribed in the treatment of the monstrous-feminine and the Westcentric tradition of the male perspective. Odysseus embodied the views of the Greeks, as opposed to others such as barbarians, as well as discussions through the lens of philoxenia. The hero’s journey has been seen as encapsulating both adventure and homecoming. My study has unwillingly ended up resembling an Odyssey, cherishing the forays into the unknown made possible by this tale of travel while simultaneously discussing notions of homelands through my own experience. Regardless of its ultimate entrapment in the cliché of playing Odysseus, this research has ended up neither as a homesteading nor as a homecoming. I hope it will remind us how studies in geography have geographies – geographies that impact on the formulations of scholars. This is an invitation for local and external eyes to reconceive their reception of Greekness in relation to this area and the Mediterranean at large.33 Ultimately, we should regain a capacity to disown and re-own place. The glorification of Greater Greece in the Strait has entailed a dangerous form of acquiescence towards the West-centric and whitewashed views that dominate the milieu of ‘classicists’ and other elites. We can renounce connivance with such a selective and politically exclusionary mutilation of history. One gain for the loss of a privileged tradition is freedom from a quasi-religious, mannerist celebration of a sought-after pedigree. We should not hesitate to give up views of Greater Greece that might amount to sterile, archaic excuses for unacceptable views of the present. In the Strait, Greater Greece acts as a gilded cage of imprisoning nostalgia34 that stifles attempts to observe other cultures as paradigms of possibility. A cult of the past has produced the ‘typical illusion of parochialism’, the idea that one’s culture is the only possible culture.35 ‘Progressive classicism’ is not the way forward. The nomenclature of the ‘classical’ embodies a peculiar oxymoron that espouses the remit of postcolonial discourse while still replicating its insiderist and exceptionalist assumptions. While good-willed, attempts to ‘democratize’ are part of an unfinished epistemological deconstruction and failure to hold the discipline fully accountable. ‘Official’ or highbrow traditions may not amount to an utterly hegemonic and totalizing cultural field, but they are still responsible for presenting history in hegemonic form: ‘classicists’ should give up the signifier of this enforced privilege at once and conclusively. In the Strait, the impact of selective histories on landscape cannot be underestimated either as a symptom or as an echo chamber of historiographical dominance. Geographers have devoted considerable attention to the role of heritage, memorials and monuments in legitimizing hegemonic discourses

180

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

about national identity.36 These discourses enact important ideas about who belongs in normative society. They also have important implications for the selective narration of minority histories and the excluded.37 Underscoring the inherent bias of hegemonic views of the past, this study hopes to advance further efforts to dispel their ‘exclusivist precepts’, allowing for the discovery, emergence and articulation of marginalized histories and erased subjectivities in the present. It seems the semi-official cult of Greater Greece in the Strait has, somewhat bleakly, failed to produce any hoped-for transformative and developmental changes. Tourism policies and ideas of Greekness as a ‘place in history’ have produced little more than a form of complacent acquiescence to the idea of providing the ‘West’ with the exotic and timeless locality for the mediated or insitu consumption of the landscape of the ‘South’. Nowhere is this form more visible than in the romantic fantasy that a town like Scilla shall live, as one of my respondents claimed, ‘forever in myth’. In this view (which should not be equated with a positive-Mediterraneanist ennoblement of ‘good’ locals against ‘bad’ foreigners), the South is hardly more than what Neapolitan writer De Luca

Figure 8.2 Advertisement for the MArRC (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Reggio Calabria) in one of Reggio’s train stations. Photo by author.

Conclusions

181

defined as ‘a nuanced shading of the reach of Western capitalism’.38 It is torn between negative and positive Mediterraneanist clichés, and between opposing narratives of an irreparable inadequacy (and internal colonialism) and the acquisition of a historical platform of relevance from subscription to an external and Othering Euro-Atlantic history.39 In this view, the South is little more than the re-enactment stage of a fantasized history in Küchler’s words, an aide-mémoire that works as an imprisoning assumption.40 The very idea of a place ‘naturally’ predisposed for tourism (an idea that has, moreover, scarcely been accomplished) has led to a failure to conceive of places such as Reggio city as more than an ideal consumable in a dominant economy of signs. Meanwhile, a whitewashed notion of ‘classicity’ has sometimes legitimized a false ethnicity for local ‘white others’, driving them to guard continental Europe from supposed ‘invaders’ and contributing to conceptions of the Mediterranean Sea as a boundary or death-bringing frontier. So far, Greater Greece has probably damaged the South more than it has helped it. Its signifiers support a quietist alignment with geopolitical ideology that has dragged on the region rather than uplifted it. In its worst manifestations, the chauvinistic populism that underpins the cult of Hellas has promoted ill-fated hopes in the invulnerability of a gratingly impoverished environment, belief in the generous hand of predatory customers and an internalized repression of the ethnic diversity of the inhabitants of the area.41 Ideas of populism have been supported by so-called ‘classicism’ through essentialist views of place. As abstract space is made into an encultured place through human intervention. Attachment to ‘native soil’ has been summoned as a reaction to perceived threats of ‘the global’ as a force that promotes featurelessness, makes everything ‘indistinguishable and interchangeable’, and promotes ‘homelessness’ as a symptom of ‘modernity writ large’.42 Such mythological views of native soil often amount to an inward-looking view of localism supported by a flawed grand narrative of world history. The stubbornly internalized idea that ‘we’ (the Scillesi, Italians, Europeans, Westerners) derive ‘from the Greeks’ hails back to views of civilization that saw it as proceeding linearly not only in time but also in space – from the Tigris and Euphrates to Greece and Rome, the supposed ‘cradles’ of continental Europe and the Atlantic ‘West’. This flawed geopolitical ideology has longstanding roots in positivist views of myths as narratives of origins dating back to the nineteenth century and encased in persisting forms of Mediterraneanism.43 As Bettini notes, these sustain ideas of ‘roots’ that explain who ‘we are’ in the present. Such views often produce

182

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

insularity and self-referentiality though myths of a ‘dream autochthony’ and its subsequent ‘inevitable downfall’, yielding little more than decadent and passive nostalgia for an almost entirely imaginary, lost, golden homeland.44 One should perhaps treat such mythistories as the degeneration of an affection to land that Tuan called geopiety, and which Sthrelow defined as the ‘land ethos of a conservationist, treating the homeland as a ‘living, age-old family tree’.45 This relation can overlook the discursive, genealogical and disorderly matrix from which traditions arise (there are no pre-cultural forms of attachment to the environment). But even for Tuan, ‘compassion for the vulnerability of one’s native soil’ can fall prey to the ‘exogenous imperial cloak’ of patriotism.46 Geopiety could thus lead us to conceive of the act of deconstructing history as one that entails potentially very different meanings. It is much-needed roots for some and a suffocating yoke for others. But at all times, it is an arguably metaphysical construct. A forward-looking view of history should encourage diversity, providing an anchor for those who seek it and freedom of choice to those who wish to break away from it. Crucially, ‘compassion for our native soil does not preclude love for other lands’; on the contrary, it speaks of love for the Earth as ‘a fertile speck floating in the ocean of space’ and ‘precious stone set in the silver sea’.47 In this light, attachment to land can defy a geopolitical perspective through which historiographers of the Strait have complacently aligned with views of an inferior ‘South’ or forms of insular self-congratulation, rather than attempting to liberate its political constituencies for ‘clearing space for non-hegemonic politicointellectual thought’.48 In a historicized and truly globalized perspective, one that acknowledges all cultures as merely pieces and palimpsest within the much broader dynamics of humanity, claims to grandeur obtained via basking in the light of Hellas may appear little more than small-town skirmishes, small-town lamentations and temper-tantrum delusions. They are a retreat into narrow mindedness, pettiness and complacency rather than any sensible claim to centrality.

8.4 The Strait and the Mediterranean Even unshackling the complexity of the Strait’s history can amount to a form of sterile Mediterraneanism inasmuch as it supports fancy views on the South’s ontological difference, natural beauty and exclusive predestination as a series of sunny beaches punctuated by images of marine monsters from Homer’s Odyssey.

Conclusions

183

Indulging in dangerous forms of political self-complacence and idleness, such ideas can also align with an eternally re-enacted fantasy about a foundational myth. As social narratives, myths are often regarded as ways to project social identity and defy the passage of time. Historian of religion Mircea Eliade saw myth and religion as alike in their yearning for timeless origins, providing existential redemption in the face of historical adversity. Myths were images of moments in which history ‘first took place’ that also reinforced ideas of belonging. We can probably use Odysseus’ travels as a narrative through which we might metaphorically read the very reception of the Strait by local and external eyes. Discussing Melanesian tales, Eliade explained how stories of long sea voyages became exemplary, providing blueprints for all subsequent travels. ‘Where a captain goes, he personifies the mythical hero’ to thus be projected into the moment of the original voyage.49 As a metaphor for adventure and expansion, this story recalls what Odysseus has meant to the many travellers discussed in this study. But as Stewart notes, the continuous re-enactment of the past is also ‘a compelling experience’ through which foundational narratives may be reactivated.50 From this perspective, Odysseus’ travels in the Strait are a continuous rehearsal of heritage and historical capital. Affective responses to the Strait are, in a way, utopian literature; they reflect a deep sense of loss whereby a return to an imagined descent from the Greeks is the answer that defines past, present and future. Greater Greece provides the mould that casts imaginings of identity, just as icons such as the Bronze statues model ideas of masculine identity and colourism. But existential redemption in the face of historical adversity risks becoming a worn-out copy of an imagined Golden Age. Greater Greece is both a beacon and a spotlight for the Strait, its blinding light and powerful glare cancelling the possibility of developing a broader perspective on history and the future. It is perhaps more fruitful for those who wish to inhabit the Strait to aim for change, utilizing knowledge about how the Strait has been produced and reproduced under historical conditions as a platform to build proposals on how it could change within the eyes of beholders. This process involves asking what kind of homeland we might want as opposed to what has already been presented to us. What kind of homeland do we want from the Strait and, ostensibly, the Earth? ‘Occluded power relations’ and their exclusionary effects pre-empt views of what one’s homeland could be.51 From such a standpoint, we might harness a generative and richer notion of place. Geographical imagination might ferry us to new futures without

184

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

erasing the ways ‘imaginations of the past have brought us to the present’; past boundaries can thus be placed under anti-foundational as well as re-foundational scrutiny.52 If space holds the emotional and material strength to mobilize new forms of power, then the Mediterranean can be seen again as ‘a space of possible plurilinguism’ – one that defies ‘geopolitical forces [creating] methods of division’ and provides homelands with no hard borders.53 Resisting the Sirens of cultural chauvinism would liberate the utopian potential of the past as a way to embrace a new reality re/constructed in the present and the future.54 In these new constructions, Greater Greece should be better and more critically appraised outside of the trite, binary or xenophobic frameworks that have normalized its colonial whitewashing. Mythical, primordialist views of nations as natural exertions of landscape should be replaced by a constructivist view of homelands as inventions.55

8.5 Re-imagining the Strait This book has discussed the reception of the landscape and environment of the Strait as a land of the sublime and the terrifying, of the exotic and the quaint, of picturesque and uncommon phenomena. Through Odysseus’ travels and his encounters with Scylla and Charybdis and other places and figures of Greek mythology, often set in an enticingly blurry space between the imaginary and the Real, the Strait provides travellers, artists and explorers with a land straddling the mythical and the historical, the factual and the wondrous. The Strait has emerged as a mythological landmark and as a mythographic topos, a larger-than-real place for geographical inquiry and imagination. Greek mythology has contributed to a larger way of looking at the geographical landscape as a source for imagination and the arts, exotic narratives of difference, variously embodied and mediated forms of immersion, and the desire to understand it or appropriate it as part of human endeavour. I have pointed out how local ideas of exceptionalism of place can sustain ways of perceiving nature as omnipotent and untarnishable, and how such beliefs can hide the ultimate impermanence of mythopoeic beauty in times of frightful, humanity-driven environmental destruction. In the process, I have spoken of the ‘real’ Strait as an area of the world time and again impacted upon by Homeric geographies, Greater Greece and the

Conclusions

185

Graeco-Roman world as signifiers of a larger geopolitical relation of this place to the ‘West’. Many of the most common ideas held about this region today may be traced, in part, to the moment that the Grand Tours’ romantic focus on the glorious past was received and internalized by the locals. These ideas have spoken to us of very partial accounts of history. The signifiers of Greater Greece represent a contested historical and cultural tradition, diversely appropriated from different areas of the political spectrum. I have thus argued that a re-imagined Strait should re-purpose its heritage and transcend the ‘cultural, ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic boundaries erected by the institutions of post-Cold War European capitalist and globalized modernity to reaffirm their privilege’.56 In this study, I have been using the past tense to signal a separation of a few years from the bulk of my ethnographic research. The past couple of years, when my time spent in town has been waning, have marked a few infrastructural developments and the further gentrification of the town, a rise in the number of visitors to Reggio’s Archaeological Museum, and the contradictory effects of the global pandemic on tourism – with more national tourists saturating Scilla town in 2020 in concomitance with the easing of social distancing. These years have also see the rise of important social mobilization around racial inequality in the country, coupled with increased academic scrutiny of the ‘classics’ and attempts to decolonize dominant canons around the world. There is certainly much work left unattended and that will hopefully find space in future research on the Strait, the legacy of Greater Greece, the appropriations of antiquity and, more broadly, the geographical dimension of myths (as ancient tales and social narratives) and the relations between places and identities. The visual iconographies of the Strait as well as the Graeco-Roman world, Hellas and Mediterranean antiquities and histories in the Mediterranean are also surprisingly under-researched, particularly from the standpoint of a historical look at their relations with the imaginaries of tourism. There is an immense scholarly and political potential in the legacy of the Graeco-Roman past, provided we reappraise it via a critical, postcolonial lens that allows for its complication, contextualization and decoupling from the whitewashed and West-centric narrative in which it has been framed in its traditionally hegemonic forms. From a historical standpoint, much work can be done by institutions, education, academia and the media to turn political uses of Graeco-Roman antiquity, which simultaneously provincialize its histories, into a more complex and nuanced view of our many pasts. Some of this work has occurred in the fields of ‘classics’, but much of it has still taken place within a notion of ‘classicism’

186

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

that has pre-empted possibilities of an epistemic shift. Scholars, academia and institutions have made insufficiently substantial efforts to situate their histories in a transdisciplinary, postcolonial framework and reappraise more diverse views of antiquity. The past can hold a utopian function that we can evoke politically. As Bouchard and Ferme remind us, while ‘European institutions have failed to advance models of belonging that move beyond the exclusionary cartographies of national state sovereignty, these years have also witnessed the flourishing of alternative discourses on the Mediterranean’, views that often ‘revisit a heritage of exchange and plurality that complicates one’s understanding of self and other’, and challenge ‘the universalising assumptions of the Western model seen as the horizon and teleological end point to which so-called premodern or not-yet-modern societies should ultimately aspire’.57 The lesson that we should accept from the Odyssey is not closure, but openness. It is openness to the theme of distance and to the abandonment of a regressive sense of place. We should argue in favour of what Doreen Massey calls an ‘extroverted’ notion of place, looking at places as nodes in networks of connectivity. People often choose to believe in myths that then form realities in their minds.58 Ultimately, there is nothing wrong in observing the mythopoeic consonance between the viper fish (Figures 4.3, 5.1) and the Scylla of Homer – provided this story supports preservation of the environment, sustainable policies and respect for non-human animals rather than blind faith in the sea’s allegedly magical ability to self-heal. Even toying with the idea that Homer hailed from Reggio could ultimately benefit a region with a history punctuated by misfortune, so long as people are not actually compelled by delusion into religious belief in this claim for the sake of a tradition that is ultimately as metaphysical as factual. Myths impact the present by going ‘beyond current reality’59; we are left with the perhaps inescapable choice of writing them rather than living by them, or utilizing them rather than letting them inhabit us.60 Should we believe that previously held beliefs on the legacy of the Greeks bind us to fixity in exchange for the gilded jail of rootedness, then we should also consider rising up and walking past them. Massey’s (2005) notion of our ‘thrown-togetherness’ shows a possible way to counter the delusional notions of timeless roots, pre-determined identities and their destructive potential as they do not respond to the complexities of the world we inhabit. Parochializing Greater Greece will allow us to understand its conflation of different people, contexts and moments in place

Conclusions

187

and time, liberating the future from partial accounts that might be predetermining our present. In obsessively presenting their attempts to locate the real places of the Odyssey or demonstrate that Homer was their citizen, many have worked as involuntary carriers of the reiterations of mythography, compelled to blindly reproduce expectations in exchange for personal gain or a sense of belonging. Scylla and Charybdis in the Strait have signified, in many cases, much more than a distant, fictional story of sea monsters. Geographies of myth have also been elements in a political process of the construction of places of identities, from gendered to racialized ones. In these identities, the Graeco-Roman world has been whitewashed as the prerogative of a Mediterranean where the sea has been separating ‘Us’ from ‘Them’. We need to be careful about foundational myths lest we become ‘prisoners of our geographical and historical’ heritage; instead, we can go beyond ‘everyday spatial notions and practices’ to ‘imagine other arrangements, other worlds’.61 Rather than the yearning for imagined evidence or timeless origins, we can think of the sea as an element that unites. Projects in the Strait aim to create a space that brings together the two sides (and ostensibly, the Mediterranean) while thinking responsibly about the Strait’s environment and inclusively about the people who have been traversing it. This approach requires thinking beyond one’s own backyard. In a hundred years, the Strait could be a desert or a submerged plastic dump in a dystopian world, its garbage representing the most visible archaeological remains. The political choices we make in the next years and decades will depend on our ability to function collaboratively, joining the local with the global – as the global Covid-19 pandemic is demonstrating while I edit this chapter. Perhaps, in a world where seas and oceans are at risk, study of their mythologies could be instrumental in politically countering the ways we are threatening to wipe out our means of sustenance, the lives of their inhabitants and their symbolic and existential value. Perhaps what Antonio the fishmonger told me, that Homer had done a lot and we have done little, really does speak to audiences beyond the Strait. As Placanica worded it, the sea itself, ‘offended by the hands and myopic egoism of men’, could ultimately play the role of its own avenger, punishing our ‘obscene ransacking’ of nature.62 Circumstances and cultures often work to constrain our understanding of the past and of its impact on our present. Whether by plan or accident, heritage can shackle us to engrained beliefs that erase more complex histories – national, regional, local, familial, personal. Some of us are fortunate enough to be able to

188

Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity

Figure 8.3 View from the Strait, facing Punta Faro in Sicily. Photo by author.

try to leave them behind. Indeed, this book could work as a ladder. Hopefully, the reader will leave it behind and re-write (rather than blindly perpetuate) the history of their homelands,63 sailing past a familiar shore to regain freedom and multiplicity in the wide expanses of the oceans – and allowing all Others the right to do so.

Notes Chapter 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21

Homer (2018), Pache et al. (2020). See Luce (1974), Saïd (2011: 161). De Martino (1973), see infra. Wyke (1997). See Palmié/Stewart (2019: 2) on the varieties of historical experience and the past as ‘a significant and often affectively charged aspect’ of people’s lives. Shields (1991: 3), also on political/symbolic peripherality as positional. Ashworth/Tunbridge (1999: 105). See Agarwal/Shaw (2013) and infra on travel and heritage, literary and screen tourism. See Dietler (2010: 28) and infra. Consistently with what Dietler (2010: 34) noted about European imperialism and colonialism, appropriating the ‘classical’ past to acquire its cultural capital (in the sense used by Bourdieu (1977): an accumulation of distinctive markers of knowledge and behaviour that serve to legitimate power). Dietler (2006: 246). See Foucault (1980: 83–85) on discourse- and knowledge-as-power via engrained discursive practices. Seligmann/Estes (2020: 178). See Banks/Morphy (1997: 2). Dietler (2010). Shields (1991), Bakhtin (1981), Foucault (1984). Pescosolido (2017); Perna (2017). Said (1978), Herzfeld (1984), Dietler (2006), Bertellini (2010), Tedesco (2017). This is a varied set of historical experiences; broadly speaking I refer to a movement upholding ideas of Hellas as a pinnacle of human development; its inception is owed to figures like German philologist J. J. Winckelmann and romantics like Goethe, Schiller and Schlegel; Shelley’s dictum held that ‘we are all Greeks’: see Dietler (2010: 29); also my discussion infra. Schliemann (1874), Heyerdahl (1952). Cuisenier (2003), Vinci (2005).

189

190

Notes to pp. 11–16

Chapter 2 1 Exon et al. (2000). 2 See Dietler on ‘classics’ as cultural capital (as in Bourdieu 1977) accessed via universities and secondary education in France, England and Germany (the Lycée, ‘public’ schools, and the Gymnasium). 3 See Hopman (2012: 12) on the etymologies of Scylla and Charybdis. 4 See Hawes (2014: 1–35) on rationalization, euhemerism and allegoresis. 5 See Page (1973), Lane Fox (2008), Louden (2011: 168), Aguirre Castro (2012), Hopman (2012: 9–12), my Ch. 4. 6 See Phillips (1953: 53), Louden (2011), Hopman (2012: 135n) on the possible pre-Homeric origins of these myths. 7 Palmié/Stewart (2019: 6). 8 See Bertellini (2010). 9 See Carbone (2017a, 2018) and forthcoming publications. 10 See Carbone (2017a) and future studies on Greek mythology, cryptozoology (the science of ‘hidden animals’: Heuvelmans 1958, Eberhart 2010, Hurn 2017), and tales of marine mysteries (including the novel Aghia Napa monster legend in Cyprus). 11 Herzfeld (1982), Spencer (1986) on philhellenism and modern Greece as a continuation of Hellas; Ceserani on the South of Italy as Hellas (2013: 1). 12 See Greenwood (2013: 881) on the Odyssey and tourism. 13 Hall (2012: 8). 14 Boitani (1992), Greenwood (2003: 881) on exploration and the Odyssey; Bassnett (2013: 880–881) on its ‘open-endedness’. 15 Helfers (2013: 766). 16 Erathostenes, cited by Strabo, Geography, Book 1, section 2, par. 15; discussed in Bettini (2011: 8). 17 See Schliemann (1874) on Troy; Kolb (2010), Jablonka (2011) on the ‘Troja-Debatte’, also in my Ch. 5. 18 Tolkien (1947: 80). 19 Bakhtin (1981). 20 From the 1882 lecture, now in Renan (2018). 21 For Shields (1991: 12–20), ‘spatialisation’ is a ‘mode through which geography is crucial to everyday life’. 22 Shields (1991: 208), also on English regionalist literatures, the North as ‘The Land of the Working Class’, and the economic inequalities of England’s ‘North-South Divide’. 23 Shields (1991: 52, 60). On structuralism one can trace back to Lévi-Strauss (1978). 24 Shield (1991: 115) discusses places made ‘easier to think of ’ for specific experiences. 25 Shields (1991: 15, 18). 26 Foucault (1984a).

Notes to pp. 16–23 27 28 29 30

31 32 33

34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

52

191

Shields (1991: 14). Alitalia (2015). See Laruffa (2004). See Dietler (2010: 28–39) on the ‘classical’ during Renaissance as a ‘modern infatuation’ with the Graeco-Roman world (in the fifteenth century, with the Roman Empire; in eighteenth-century romanticism, with the Greeks lifted ‘from oriental obscurity’ to the ‘quintessential occidental ancestor’ as the ‘creators of philosophy and democracy’. Rankine (2019) on the racial cultural baggage attached to ‘classics’. Pescosolido (2017). Beales/Biagini (2013). Cortese (2015: 7), noting the intra- and extra-national migration scores and registers of residents abroad counted 375,805 people from Calabria, 8.4 per cent of the total number of expatriates. See also Del Boca/Venturini (2003), Bonifazi/Heins (2017), Statista (2020). European Commission (2020). On the history of Calabria, see Placanica (1999). On Calabria’s history, Placanica (1999). Farney/Bradle (2018). See Donnelly/Norton (2021: 183–99). The issue is discussed by Wyke (1997: 5). Rankine (2019). On archaeology’s critical turn and overcoming of ethnocentricity (including ideas of ‘races’, ‘civilisation’ and the selective ascription of different racial/cultural stereotypes to certain human groups), see Gathercole/Lowenthal (1994: x). Wyke (1997: 8). Hirsch/Stewart (2005: 262). Shields (1991). Herzfeld (2004). TNS (2007), Serra (2014). Mosino (2007). See Greenan (2013), Johnston (2013), Quark-Ulisse (2014), Angela (2014). Barillà (2017); this model was quashed in 2018 by a migration-adverse and xenophobic government (Giuffrida 2018). See Knight/Stewart (2015: 11) on introjection and agency in relation to historicity. See Shields (1991) on the processual construction of place-images; see Herzfeld (1982), discussed infra, on local historiographies pandering to global hierarchy of values. See Bourdieu (1977, § 2, ‘Structures and the habitus’); Anderson (1991) on imagined communities; Shields (1991: 32) on habits and predispositions in everyday life versus the ‘reified abstractions constructed by researchers’; Borneman/Hammoudi

192

53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70

71

72

73 74 75 76

77

Notes to pp. 23–9

(2009: 8–11, 15–16) on the dangers of ‘surfacing’ and the need to critically frame fieldwork. See Derrida (2006) [1993] on hauntology. I am not equating interview with participant observation, but used them as a means to it. See Seligmann/Estes (2020: 177). On the ethnographic interview, see Schensul et al. (1999). Larkin, cited in Brett (1996: 319), McDowell (2008: 49). See Agarwal/Shaw (2017) and my discussion infra. Discussed in Wyke (1997: 5). Mosino (2007). Halbwachs (1992: 84–119) [1925], discussed in Palmié/Stewart (2019: 9). Hirsch (1993: 1). On critical historiography, see Palmié/Stewart (2016: 207). See Duncan/Duncan (2001: 387), Cosgrove (1993), Daniels (1993). Borneman/Hammoudi (2009: 2). On ethnohistorians and epistemologies external to the object see Hirsch/Stewart (2005: 267). Todorova (1997: 51), Bakić-Hayden (1995). See Borneman/Hammoudi (1996: 14) on ‘being there’ to ‘fit between the order of words and the order of things’. McDowell (2008). Tuan (1976: 33). See Hamilakis (2007) on the Acropolis as a tangible, ‘purified’ and sacralized signifier of a ‘golden age’ and as an identitarian infrastructure to project it outside of national confines. On a ‘science of mythology’ see Csapo (2005: 316); see Segal (2004: 2) on there being ‘no discipline [. . .] in itself ’; on relations with literature, religion, ritual, science, the mind and culture, see Strenski (1987, 1992); see Coupe (1997), Lincoln (1999), Segal (1999), Csapo (2005), also Sole (2000), Séstito (1995), Hopman (2012), Carbone (2017a) on Scylla and Charybdis. See Barthes (1957) on myth; Foucault (1980) on the regimes of truth; Lévi-Strauss (1978: 34; 2004: 228–44), Foucault (1984b: 1), Strenski (1987: 157–9) on volkish ideology; Stewart (2012: 216) on myth as the beyond-reality. Mitchell (2002). Séstito (1995). On the concept, see McNeill (1986), Mali (1994; 2012). See Williams on the complexity of ‘nature’ (1972: 146); Sauer (1963: 343) on the cultural shaping of the environment; Bourdieu (1968: 682–684) on the ‘objective world’ as a cultural construction. Shields (1991: 57).

Notes to pp. 29–34

193

78 See Bouchard/Ferme (2016: 3), Tedesco (2017: 55). 79 Two geographical entities ‘support and to an extent reflect each other’ (Said 1978: 5); historically, the ‘West’ has fashioned itself as rational, civilized and progressive, and defined the ‘East’ as inferior or half-civilized (Said 1978, 1993) through power asymmetries and discursive debasement and domination. See Jazeel (2013: 1–8) on Said’s geography. 80 Said (1978). 81 Bhabha (1994). 82 Herzfeld (1987: 64; also 1982). 83 Herzfeld (1987: 64), also on exoticism and anthropology’s grappling with the ‘unity of human intellection’ and the uniqueness of situated cultures. 84 Herzfeld (1987: 64). 85 Bertellini (2010), Giordano (2010; 2018). 86 Faeta (1996: 11). 87 Alcaro (1999), Tedesco (2018), Giordano, F. (2018: 11). 88 Herzfeld (1982). 89 Moe (2002), Selwyn (2004); see my Ch. 3. 90 Herzfeld (1982; 1987; 1991; 2004) elaborated on specific cultures’ pandering to their perceived opportunity to self-style as recognisable within a larger, global ‘hierarchy of values’. 91 Tedesco (2017: 39–40, Chs. 1–2). 92 Tedesco (2018), Bertellini (2010: 3–4, 273); relatedly, Giordano (2018) examines a paesaggio meridiano and the narratives and self-narratives of the South (‘cinema del Sud e dal Sud) in more recent decades (my italics). 93 See Lowenthal (1985: 44) on collective beliefs and cultural solidarity, national identity through common historical experience, and state-enacted ‘official’ memory. 94 McDowell (2008: 40), Shields (1991). 95 Dietler (2006: 237). 96 Dietler (2010: 27). 97 Dietler (2010: 593) focuses on French nationalism, the iconization of Vercingetorix, and the rhetoric of ‘our ancestors the Gauls’ in national popular cultures and place branding. 98 For Dietler (2010: 597, 239), these processes involve competing appropriations of ancient peoples as the ‘first Europeans’ (the Celts in France) as well as regionalism (as in Brittany’s history of resisting ‘state hegemony’). 99 Hobsbawm/Ranger (1983), Anderson (1991). 100 Foucault (2005: 119), Jazeel (2013). 101 See Pratt (1998: 26–44) on places and boundaries. 102 Sole (2000). 103 See Giordano (2012) on the pertinence of visual culture for anthropologists.

194

Notes to pp. 34–8

104 See Carbone (2017a, § 4–5) on the mythological Strait in fantasy and horror literatures and games like Dungeons and Dragons (1974), Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997) and God of War (2010). 105 Palmié/Stewart (2019: 20–26). 106 On geographies of media, see Ortoleva (1996: 84), Adams et al. (2014); on geographies of geographies see Johnson et al. (2013), Kobayashi (2013). 107 Shields (1991: 29). 108 See Hopman (2012: 15, 159, 217), Pratt/Erengezgin (2013), Carbone (2017a; 2018). 109 See Swyngedouw on the two-way dialectic of glocalism (2004: 33). 110 Debord (1967). 111 Gamson et al. (1992). 112 Penrose (2002: 290). 113 Rose (2001: 6). 114 Lowenthal (1985: 238). 115 Appadurai (1990: 297–8). 116 Eco (1985: 16–19). 117 See, again, Yalouri (2001), Hanink (2017), discussed supra and in Chs. 7, 8. 118 See Pieroni’s (2002: 297) account of Scilla – its sunsets at night, with Sicily’s light twinkling at sea, the smell of iodine; a land transfixed in nature, ahistorical, ‘pure’ – as an example of romantic Mediterraneanism (Tedesco 2018: 63). 119 See Scarre (1994: 12–13) on the colonial Age of Discovery of Europe’s ‘South’ as a way to reconnect to the former’s past (also by appropriating physical remains) in contrast to the utterly exotic ‘New Worlds’. 120 Palmié/Stewart (2019: 27), also citing Pine/Gilmore (1998) (on the ‘experience economy’) and Hartog (2015: 191). 121 Shaw/Williams (2002: 29). 122 Urry (1990). 123 Shields (1991). 124 See Lundberg/Ziakas (2018) on tourism, popular culture and consumption. 125 See Shield’s (1991) idea of places ‘on the margin’; Graburn’s (1989) view of tourism as a sacred journey. 126 See Dixon Straughan (2013) on pre-cultural, sensuous ‘senses of place’; Pieroni (2002: 297). 127 Pieroni (2002: 277–88). 128 Duke (2007: 23–7). 129 Palmié/Stewart (2019: 16). 130 McDowell (2008: 42); also Lowenthal (1985: 205), Forty (1999: 7) on history as the act of forgetting. 131 Violi (2006: 22), Castrizio (2004), discussed in Ch. 7.

Notes to pp. 38–44

195

132 See Dwyer/Jones (2000) on white hegemonic identity as founded ‘on the negation of the traits of the excluded Other’. 133 See Bouchard/Ferme (2016: 2) on the Mediterranean as a politically contested area of geopolitical appropriations, even though subject to systematic ‘hybridization and exchanges between [. . .] diverse cultures, societies, and ethnicities that stretch from western Europe and the sub-Sahara to the Middle East and farther to the Indian Ocean and the Asian steppes’. 134 De Martino (1973), cited in Farinetti/Stewart (2012: 432). 135 Knight/Stewart (2016: 2–3). 136 De Martino (1973). 137 Knight/Stewart (2016: 11).

Chapter 3 1 On tourism as a mass phenomenon after the Second World War as a consequence of democratized transportation, see Urry/Larsen (2001). 2 Chaney (1998: xi). 3 This fascination for past civilizations was boosted by Schliemann’s excavations of Troy (1874) and Evans’ excavations in Knossos, Crete (1909). See Ziolkowski (2008). 4 See Dietler (2010: 32) on ‘classics’ as cultural distinction (in the sense of Bourdieu, 1977) among the elites and rising bourgeoisies and as a factor that bound them across the European empire as they shared tastes, values and cultural references tied to ancient cultures ‘from Bismark to Gladstone, Napoléon III, and the graduates of the École Coloniale’. 5 Faeta (1996). 6 See Bertellini (2010). 7 See Scarre (1994: 12), Ceserani (2014). 8 Tsigakou (1981: 48), Scarre (1994: 12). 9 On literary travel and tourism, see Black (1992) and Watson (2009). 10 Chaney (1998: xi). 11 Scarre (1994: 12). Also see Argenti/Knight (2014) on the consumption and appropriation of material remainders and landscapes as ways to ‘buy’ history and heritage. 12 See Hall (2012: 3) on the impact of Homer in the ‘West’. 13 Str., 1.2.15. On Homeric geographies see Wolf/Wolf (1983). 14 Foster (2013: 509) saw some of these travellers as novel Pausanias, ‘the forerunner of Victorian antiquarianism’. 15 See Andrews/Roberts (2012). 16 Didier (1846), Strutt (1840).

196 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

Notes to pp. 44–50

Wyke (1997: 3). See Scarre (1994: 12), Ceserani (2014). Grushow (2013: 520). Riedesel (1773: 139). Swinburne (1783: 333), in Ceserani (2013: 79). Swinburne (1783: 326). Black (1992: 3). Goethe (1992: 269). Minasi (1778), Principe (1986). Author’s own translation from Custine (1830), available via Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org). On Custine, see Muhlstein (2001). Gissing (1901); also Gissing (1996) [1901]. Addison (1767: 1). See Custine’s account in Mozzillo (1964). Watson (2009). Saint-Non (1783: 132). Saint-Non (1783: 131–3). Crespo Delgado/Romero Muñoz (2009). See Consolo (1993); also Séstito (1995: 53–60) for cartography from 1538 to 1878. See Tramontana (2002: 21). Pilati (2010). The map, now unavailable and itself a media object of archaeology, was previous accessible via www.viaggioincalabria.it/luogo/calabria/confronto-fra-il-viaggio/ (last accessed: July 2017). Jaucourt ‘Scylla’, in Diderot, D’Alembert, Encyclopédie, 1751–1772, Vol. 14: 845, online at: http://encyclopedie.uchicago.edu. See Hawes (2014) on antiquity; Segal on positivism and myth (1999). Swinburne (1783: 333); also discussed in Ceserani (2013: 79). Swinburne (1783: 326). Riedesel (1773: 138–9). Séstito (1995: 73). Douglas (1911). Gissing (1905: 235). La Salle (1829). Séstito (1995: 104). La Salle (1822–6). See De Seta (1982: 167) on the picturesque. Van Duzer (2013: 7, 34–5); also see Helfers (2013: 767). Placanica (1999: 20). On the earthquakes, Carbone Grio (1884), Consolo (1993), Placanica (1999); in literature, Lanucara (1949).

Notes to pp. 50–4

197

52 The book was produced in Amsterdam, ‘the centre of the European book trade’, where urbanites consumed images of the far-away South; the Mundus was a ‘lucrative collaboration’ between Kircher and the publisher (Stolzenberg 2004: 15, 199). 53 Custine (1830: 392). 54 De Tavel (1825). 55 See Bettini/Spina (2007: 95). 56 Chaney (1998: 128). 57 See Consolo (1993: 32). 58 See Heinrich von Kleist’s 1807 Das erdbeben in Chili (Earthquake in Chile), in which the 1647 seismic event that struck Santiago is equated to Sodom and Gomorrah. 59 Both Cassini’s (1797) allegories of the continents and Fortuyn’s view of the Strait are examples of gender and animality playing an iconographic role in informing metaphors of civilisation. See Passerini (2003), Wintle (2009), Carbone (2017a: 64). 60 Didier (1846); see, again, Hawes (2014), Lincoln (1999: 3–43), Coupe (1997: 108–109). 61 Aguirre Castro (2012), Hopman (2012). 62 Lear (1852: 172). 63 Lear, 1964. 64 Custine (1830: 156–9). The explanation of the passage in the Odyssey (Book 12: 95–97) dates back to Eustathius, as discussed in Saïd (2011: 161). 65 Eliade (1991: 132–6), Stewart (2012: 19). 66 Fabian (1983). 67 Bassnett (2013: xi). 68 Séstito (2002: 208). 69 Custine (1830: 156). 70 Van Duzer (2013: 8). 71 See Pieroni (2002: 237) on the local decline of the local felucari boats. 72 Ceserani (2013: 87). See Arnold (2002) and Spybey (1992) on the ‘Age of Discovery’ and colonialism. See Love (2006) on maritime exploration; Naylor/Ryan (2010) on the Antarctic. 73 See Bouchard/Ferme (2016: 3), Broodbank (2013). 74 See, again, Said (1979), on Orientalism and Occidentalism. Jazeel (2013: 1–8) on Said and geography. 75 See Tedesco (2017) on first- (external) and second-degree (internal) Mediterraneanism. 76 Todorova (1997: 254), citing Wolff (1994). 77 Bouchard/Ferme (2016: 3). 78 See Lowenthal (1997: 397) on Europe’s defiance of the Ottoman Empire (1812– 1819), ‘predicated on the idea of resuscitating ancient Greece’, so that ‘the Western press reshaped 19th-century Greeks into Homeric heroes’ to restore ‘her former classical glory’.

198 79 80 81 82

83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93

94 95

96 97 98 99 100 101

102 103

Notes to pp. 54–6 Williams (1989: 15). Rivarol (2011, § 3), translation by the author. Slaner (2016: 87). On the topographies of Hellenism see Leontis (1995). See Arnold (2002) on travel and modernity. See Spybey (1992) on exploration, the West and colonialist thought. See Chard (1999) on exoticism; Hamblyn (1996) on primitivism, Orientalism and Romantic Hellenism; Buse/Stott (1999: 11) on hauntology. Bertellini (2010: 6). Bertellini (2010). Placanica (1999: 20). See Ceserani (2013: 95) on colonial parallels affecting views of Greater Greece. Ceserani (2013: 96–7). Smith (1985: 200–2), discussed in Hirsch (1995: 12). Lenormant (1881: 22). See Cesearini (2013: 31) on binaries such as urban/country life, North/South, ancient/modern in Humanist culture. Moe (2002: 6). Said (1978: 6–8). Todorova (1997: 290) ‘the escapist dream of affluent romantic conservatives’, ‘the imagined Orient served not only as refuge from the alienation of a rapidly industrializing West but also as metaphor for the forbidden’ (loc. 294). See Custine (1843: 22). See Kobayashi (2013: 60) on ‘superior and inferior’ regions perceived as ‘civilized’ or ‘uncivilized’ by geography as ‘a product and a producer of imperial, colonial systems’; Livingstone (1992: 219) on imperial power and racialized projections; Said (1978) on racialization imposed on imagination and landscape. Bouchard/Ferme (2016: 5). Ceserani (2013: 77–8). See Ceserani (2013: 77–8) on interactions between foreign and local scholars. Ceserani (2013: 24). Chard (1999: 17, 20). Black (1992: 1). See Betteridge (2007: 1) and Frank/Hadler (2011: 1) on frontiers and national ideologies. See Adamovsky (2006: 251) on Euro-Orientalism as an East/West narrative. See Chaney (1998: xi) on the patronisation of Italy as ‘a museum set in a picturesque landscape’ and on the ‘South-within-the-South’. See Ceserani (2013: 79) on how the Grand Tour shifted Northern European disdain for modern Italy to its South. See Ceserani (2013: 77–8). See Bertellini (2010: 3–4) on the ‘ruin-dotted countryside’ and ‘mythical and pastoral heaven’ and Thomas (1993: 21) on the rise of landscape as a ‘commonplacing device that freezes time’.

Notes to pp. 56–67 104 See Cosgrove (1993: 250–1). More in general, Barthes (1957) on myth as naturalized ideology. 105 Hoby (1902: 45). 106 See Séstito (2002: 220, 230–1). 107 Custine (1830: 166). 108 Undiscovered Destinations (2019). 109 Cartier and Lew (2005: 5). 110 See ‘Jerusalem syndrome’ (Bar-el et al. 2000). Décultot (2000) likened art to a time-travel narrative. 111 Inglis (2000: 25). 112 Watson (2009: 166). 113 Spencer (1954) wrote on Greece as the ‘sad relic’ of Hellas. 114 The formulation dates back to the Jesuits visiting in the thirteenth century ce (Selwyn 2004, Moe 2002). 115 Chaney (1998: 3). 116 ‘Haid’ (2005). 117 Placanica (1999: 3–4). 118 Redazione Dove (2013). 119 Turismo Reggio Calabria (2020).

Chapter 4 1 Alitalia (2015: 58). 2 Alitalia (2015: 63). 3 See Giordano (2012) on the choice of the Mediterranean as an equivalent to the peripheral and isolated locations of the extra-European ‘savage societies’. 4 In the medium of film see The Odyssey of Homer (1911) and Ulysses (1954). 5 Heyerdahl (1952), Bérard (1929). 6 See Bakhtin (1981), Shields (1991), discussed in my Introduction. 7 Cardinal (2003: 423). 8 Bertellini (2010: 7). 9 Hirsch (1993); see Cronon (1983). 10 Muirhead (1928: i). 11 Muirhead (1928: 411). 12 Muirhead (1928: 362), Bertarelli (1928: 685). 13 Bertarelli (1928: 685). 14 See Pivato (2011) on the Touring Club and Italian tourism. 15 De Lange (1965: 239, 294). 16 See Creuzé de Lesser on the South of Italy as African (1806). 17 The consulted edition is Morton (1983).

199

200

Notes to pp. 68–75

18 Complete with a Grand Tour-esque reflection on how ‘nature has somehow reserved an unusual beauty for those parts of Calabria which she has most frequently destroyed’ (Morton 1983: 352). 19 Morton (1983: 403). 20 Golding (1955). 21 Schildt (1953); also Schildt (1959) on the track of Icarus. 22 Schildt (1953: 39–44, 45–47). 23 Roloff (1962: 13–14). 24 Quanchy (2013: 939). 25 Odissea [L’] (1954, at 00.01:38). 26 At 00.02.48. The film dramatizes Odysseus’ encounter with Polyphemus, but omits Scylla and Charybdis. 27 Lessing (1965: 7–15, 27). 28 See Bakhtin (1984), and supra. 29 Allen (1975: 7). 30 Bradford (1963: vii). 31 Bradford (1963: x). 32 Bradford (1963: 155). 33 Bradford (1963: 144–8), also on swordfish hunts in the Strait and in the Odyssey, and on the Kraken myth (pp. 152–3). 34 Bradford (1963: 145–50). 35 Burn (1963: xvi). 36 Bradford (1966, at 24.40). 37 Bradford (1966). 38 Indeed, the 1949 Oxford Classical Dictionary states that none of these kinds of whirlpools existed in the Strait, while the second edition from 1970 corrects the statement by saying that Charybdis was later identified in the area, citing Bradford’s Ulysses Found (1963). 39 Quanchy (2013: 939). 40 Bradford was cited by Lessing (1965) and in general impacted on Homeric geographies (Luce 1974: 118). 41 Mulvey (1975). 42 Bradford (1966, at 5.55 to 06.51). 43 Bradford (1966, at 24.40); on the Sperlonga statues, see Contincello (2012). 44 See again Shields (1991: 24–32) who noted how postcard-views could lead to disappointment once in place, with the consequence of either shattering expectations or disappointing. 45 In Lessing (1965). 46 RAI, Italy (1967–78). 47 Quilici (2005) [1968a], at 01.10–01.42. My translations throughout the chapter.

Notes to pp. 75–8

201

48 Quilici (2005) [1968a], at 01.50–01.58. 49 Quilici (2005) [1968a], at 00.18. The illustration was drawn by Matthaeus Merian for Topographia Italiae, 1688. 50 Quilici (2005) [1968a], at 25.05–25.11. 51 Quilici (2005) [1968a], at 25.23–25.29. 52 Quilici (2005) [1968a], 36.30–36.40. 53 On the other hand, an actual illustration of Scilla in Quilici’s documentary, Matthäus Merian’s geographical treatise Topographia Italiae (1688), is described as if it depicted another locality in Capo Vaticano, Calabria. 54 Faeta (1996). 55 Quilici (2005) [1968]. 56 Goethe (1992: 269); see my Ch. 3. 57 In his autobiographical novel, Berto (1964: 366) discusses Calabria as homecoming: ‘a place for my life and my death’. 58 Sicily is ‘the land of sea and fire’, with its ‘Rock of the Cyclops’, the Faraglioni; Sardinia is home to landmarks associated with the Laestrygonians; Campania is home to Virgil, Cape Palinuro associated with the Aeneid and Cuma with the Sybil. See Carbone (2017a: 124–5). 59 Nostalgia is the ache (ἄλγος), or longing, for a homecoming (νόστος). Odysseus’ voyage has been read traditionally through this notion (Hall 2012: 185). See Rajan (1985: 4) on ruins as the ‘union of telos and origin’. See Teti (2017) on the South’s depopulation and ruins. 60 See Mangiameli (1988). 61 Large areas of the South were underdeveloped industrially, and experienced poverty, depopulation and mass migration (Teti 2015). In its most rural areas, transport could be non-existent and water and electricity could be unavailable. However, such traits were generalized to characterize the entirety of the South under Western Eurocentrism and Italian nationalism (Moe 2002: 1). 62 Bouchard/Ferme (2016: 5): such discourses can be traced to the Jesuit’s account on the South, for whom areas of Italy were ‘the site of destitution, indolence, and barbarism’. See Gribaudi (1996: 77). 63 Quilici (1970). 64 On the problem of the reception of the South as outside of history, see Filippucci (1996: 52–71). 65 See De Seta (1982: 233) and Moe (2002: 56). 66 See Gribaudi (1996: 73) on the South as ‘much more than a geographical area’ and, rather, as ‘a metaphor which refers to an imaginary and mythical entity, associated with both hell and paradise’; views of the mezzogiorno as lacking in modernity congealed in Banfield’s infamous stereotype of ‘amoral familism’ (1958). This view saw the South’s purported ‘inability to produce and disseminate organizational

202

67 68 69 70 71 72

73 74

75

76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92

Notes to pp. 78–83

ability’ (Filippucci 1996: 54). In turn, Cassano (2011) reappraised Mediterranean societies’ purported moderation and slowness; on this positive reversal see, critically, Tedesco (2017: 56). Filippucci (1996: 7). Gribaudi (1996: 81). Gribaudi (1996: 81). Cole (1977), cited in Filippucci (1996: 53). Bouchard/Ferme (2016: 5). Italian ethnographer and film-maker De Seta represented the Strait as a backward land rooted in a harsh confrontation with nature (see the film Lu tempu di li pisci spata, 1954). Similar depictions are in Italian writer Carlo Levi’s (1945) memoir of exile in a village in the province of Matera: see De Martino (1955), Forgacs (1996: 277). De Martino (1941; 1958) cited in Forgacs/Lumley (1996: 5) Tedesco (2017: 48–50). See Gribaudi (1996) on Mediterraneanist views persisting ‘even as scholars such as De Martino’ raised complex issues in the political debate over the South’s peasantry, Marxist class struggle, and the Mezzogiorno’s ‘immobility and exclusion from history’ (1996: 82). See Tedesco (2017) on first- and second-degree Mediterraneanism. Filippuci (1996: 67) on the ‘Mediterraneanist vicious circle’ internalized in Italian scholarship by route of Atlantic Orientalism, and first addressed by Herzfeld (1987). Banfield (1958), discussed in Filippucci (1996: 54). Cassano (2011). Lianeri (2011: 16), Gribaudi (1996: 73). Spencer (1954). Forgacs (1996: 277). Gribaudi (1996: 84–5). See Filippucci (1996: 58) on the South’s ahistorical ethnographies. Bouchard/Ferme (2016: 122, 154). Allen (1975: 43–4). Nagy (1995: vi). Busby/Klug (2001: 319). Marrazzo (2018). Fabian (1984). Pieroni (2002: 277–85). Mazza (2002b: 177, 179). Mazza (2002b: 191). Balm/Holcomb (2003: 157). Berto (1968).

Notes to pp. 83–9

203

93 Bassnett (2013: xi). Perhaps Quilici and Bradford could be said to join that ‘noble line of Marxian social theorists – Adorno and Horkheimer, Marcuse, Mattelart among others’ – who ‘have often schizophrenically condemned in theory the mass cultures they participate in practically’ (Shields 1991: 9). 94 Nichols (2010: ix–x).

Chapter 5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17

18 19

Mattievich (2010). Todorov (1970). Vazzana (2016). The reference is to Minasi’s ‘Southern view of the town of Scilla’ (1773), discussed in my Ch. 3. Vazzana (2016). See Ballabriga (1998) on how the Odyssey transfigures actual locations and invents others. See Kolb (2010) and Jablonka (2011) on the ‘Troy debate’ over the exploration of the ancient Troy, the settlement of which has polarized experts from different fields. See https://web.archive.org/web/20050519022321/www.uni-tuebingen.de/troia/eng/ index.html. I am grateful to Jonathan Burgess for our discussion and his suggestions on this topic. See, for instance, Sugameli’s (1892) theory of Homer in Trapani (after Butler 1897). Casey (1993: 255). Casey (1993: 255), Saïd (2008: 161), Bettini (2010). Bettini (2011: 1). Eratosthenes was sceptical about pinpointing myths; Strabo supported a geographical reading of Homer; Polybius championed the ideas of locating a few myths; Apollodorus remarked that Odysseus’ wanderings were ‘imagined in fantasy’. See Phillips (1953: 187–8), Foster (2013: 508), Puliga/Panichi (2005). Apollodorus, in Strabo 1.2.37; Strabo 7.3.6. Saïd (2011: 158). On the Odyssey and oral traditions, see Nagy (1993), Bakker (1997). See Burgess’ (2013) project on Homeric landmarks in the Mediterranean. Lane Fox (2008: 170), Saïd (2011), Braccesi (2010). Rhegion was a strategic commercial point and the most notable Ionian polis, boasting a geography related to Homer and Teagenes as the bard’s original exegete; see Justin, History of the World, § 4.1. Puliga/Panichi (2005: 201). Stanford (1947: 352).

204 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28

29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

Notes to pp. 89–96

See Stanford (1954), Boitani (1992). Luce (1974: 118). Greenwood (2013: 880), Luce (1974: 118). Université de Genève (2019). On re-mediation see Bolter/Grusin (2000). Burgess (2013). On the Scylla/Scilla lexical correspondence, see Consolo (1993: 18). Vinci (2005). Such imaginative exo-oceanic interpretations are nevertheless rooted in tradition: Strabo made the hypothesis that Calypso’s island was set in an imaginary Atlantic Ocean. See http://codexceltica.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/homers-north-atlanticodyssey.html. On Homer in the sky, see Wood/Wood (2011). See Burgess: http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~jburgess/rop/pages/bibliography.html; also see the ToposText project (https://topostext.org) and, more generally on geography and the Mediterranean, Broodbank (2013). Cuisenier (2004). See http://jean.cuisenier.online.fr/ulysse/index.html; own translation. In fact, Cuisenier sailed on a modern boat equipped with scientific equipment. Cuisenier (2003: 10). See Carbone (2017a, § 5) on the genealogies of Scylla and Charybdis as sea monsters. Cuisenier (2003: 13). Cuisenier’s (2003: 19–20) approach is between that of an allegorist and euhemerist interpretation. See Hawes (2014). The Mediterranean’s Canesca, Canuso and Muzzolu fish. Cuisenier (2003: 375). Cuisenier (2013: 312–313). On Scylla as dog and shark see Hopman (2012: 159) and Aguirre-Castro (2012). Appendix in Lessing (1965). Cuisenier (2003: 318–20). Cuisenier (2013: 323). See Donnan/Clewlow (1974) on ethnoarchaeology; Fabian (1983) on the denial of coevalness. Vinci (2011: loc. 180). On historical revisionism, see Lipstadt (1993). Vinci (2011: loc. 6778). Vinci (2011: loc. 1379, 1410). The novel by Jules Verne (1954). Vinci (2011: loc. 13860). Vinci (2011: loc. 6771, 6790, 6793–810). Vinci (2011: loc. 6). Vinci (2011: loc. 6762).

Notes to pp. 96–100

205

50 Fagan (2006). 51 See http://jean.cuisenier.online.fr/odysseus/index.html (last accessed: 15/05/2020). 52 An Italian Preface was signed by scholar Calzecchi Onesti, who remained open to Vinci’s hypothesis (Vinci 2011: loc. 6); the programme, Voyager, is accessible at www.raiplay.it/programmi/voyager/; currently, the episode is unavailable. 53 See Duke (2007: 36) on Schliemann’s success in proving some historical basis to the Homeric epics. 54 Vinci (2011: loc. 17). 55 The first edition (1995) was followed by a second (1998), third (2002), fourth (2004) and fifth (2008). The book was translated into English (2005) and Russian, German, Swedish, Estonian, Danish, Lithuanian and French. See www.palombieditori.it/ detail.php?book=54&vetrina=venduti. 56 See Cole (1980: 2), Stiebing (1987: 2) on pseudo-archaeological theories’ unscientific method, evidence claims, simplification of issues and persecution complexes. 57 E. A. Poe, ‘A descent into the Maelström’ (1841). See Séstito (1995: 15) on Poe and the Odyssey. 58 Fagan/Feder (2006: 721). See Feder (2004) on pseudo-scientific strands of historical claims. 59 Colella (2008). 60 Bettini (2011: 13). 61 Bettini (2011: 26). See Cole (1980: 2) on the appeal of sensationalism in pseudosciences. 62 Bettini (2011: 11). 63 Bettini (2011: 1). 64 Wolf/Wolf (1983). 65 Ballabriga (1998). 66 Phillips (1954: 53). 67 See Tramontana (2002: 18). 68 Bérard (1929). 69 Cuisenier (2003: 321). 70 See, to name just a few, the Sibyl grottos in Cuma, Malta’s Blue Grotto, Corfu’s Grotta Verde, Praia a Mare’s and Capri’s Grotta Azzurra in Calabria and Campania, Alghero’s Grotto of Neptune in Sardinia, the Blue Grotto in Taormina. 71 See the theories about a ‘lost archipelago’ of islets thought to have existed in antiquity (De Grazia, 1930). 72 See Bril (1998) on Lamia as a Reversed Mother. 73 Bettini/Spina (2007: 100). On Lamia’s semantic field see Bril (1998). On grottos, see Carratelli (1988). 74 See Popper (2002a: 10–13, 22) on the problem of induction, an ‘occult effect’ mythologizing history (2002b).

206 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84

85

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103

Notes to pp. 100–7 Séstito (2002: 208). Wolf/Wolf (1983), Wolf (2017). Vazzana (2016). Vazzana (2016). This was first discussed in Sole (2000: 22). Vazzana (2016: 32). This view was popularized by Fortuyn/Minasi (1773) (Figure 3.2); see Consolo (1993: 157–173). Vazzana (2016: 65–7) is preceded by Sole (2000: 17). On the now sunken rocks see Séstito (1995: 147–73). Both texts are available in Reggio’s city library. Drawing on Fortuyn/Minasi (1773). See Séstito (1995: 97–104). The predominant interpretation situates the Homeric Strait between Sicily and Calabria, but a narrow passage within Scilla’s own cohort of cliffs (sunk after the earthquake in 1783) is often mentioned. See Séstito (1995: 143). See Séstito (2002: 208–14) on this and the ‘lost geography’ lore of the Ionian and the Mediterranean. Such a hypothesis may vestigially incorporate kernels of past geographical realities; see the volcanic Ionian islet of Ferdinandea/Aeaea/Strofaria (Strabo’s Chersoneso), thought to have disappeared (Mazzarella 1984). Allen (1976: 53). Bowden (1976: 119–20). Allen (1976: 46). As a starting point, see Consolo (1993: 41), Berdar/Riccobono (1986: 17–22), Fenicia (1857: 19), Longo (1882), Defant (1940), Baguet (1995), Bruni (2006). Séstito (1995: 8). Sole (2000: 12). The viper fish dwells in bathypelagic habitats throughout the world (Sepkoski 2004). Vazzana (2016: 15). Mosino (2007), discussed in my Ch. 7. Bettini (2011: 13). See Bourdieu (1977) on cultural capital. Halbwachs (1992: 84–119) [1925], discussed in Palmié/Stewart (2019: 9). Herzfeld (1991: xiii). Allen (1976: 42). Allen (1976: 43). Wright (1966: 27), discussed in Allen (1975: 43, n. 9). Allen (1976: 44). Dietler (2010: 31). One could even see in them the victory of the ‘minor knowledges’ created by the hierarchy of scientism and power discussed by Deleuze (1997: 192), or of the fragmentary, unruly genealogies of Foucault (1980b: 86) as a remedy to the dispositif of dominant discourse.

Notes to pp. 107–15

207

104 Bril (1998), Barnatt/Edmonds (2002). 105 Casey (1993: 255); as he noted, ‘just as all human creation is subtended to a greater or lesser extent by the nature that provides it material, so nature is to a greater or lesser extent enculturated by human interaction’. 106 Source: www.Italy101.com. 107 Mediterranean Yachting, www.mediterranean-yachting.com/Hist-6a.htm. 108 Moore (2013). 109 Described as a ‘stylistic Odyssey’ (Giardinazzo 2002: 116), D’Arrigo’s (1975) Horcynus Orca combines hieratic references to the forces of the sea and animals with references to local dialects, modernism and folklore, transfixing the scill’e cariddi into a poetic setting for an existential nostos. 110 Similarly, Syracuse’s Archaeological Museum displayed a skeleton of a dwarf elephant, explaining that their large nasal cavities had been mistaken as an orbital, inspiring the myths of the Cyclops. See Hawes (2014). 111 See Placanica (1999), Carbone Grio (1884), Consolo (1993). 112 See Scilla’s less notorious image of winter storm surges eating into the beach and invading the streets (www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpBSF15SRJQ – last accessed: 15/09/2020). 113 Pitrè (2016). 114 Musolino (2014); the work is inspired by the current of the weird (Joshi 1990); on Scylla and the weird see Carbone (2017a: 147–61; 2018). 115 See Placanica (1999), Carbone Grio (1884), Consolo (1993). 116 See Mediterraneo (1995), Mythos (2012), Longo (2014). See Dietler (2006: 242) on Celticity, fantasy and globalisation. 117 Gathercole/Lowenthal (1994: 302). 118 Bettini (2011).

Chapter 6 1 Alitalia (2015). 2 Relatedly, see Dietler (2006: 244) on globalized Celticity packaged in mystery cruises. 3 Yalouri (2001). 4 See Melotti (2008) on the ‘authentic reconstructions’ of archaeological tourism. On theme parks, Carlà-Uhink (2020). 5 Clifford (1997). 6 For an overview, see Till (2004). 7 Hobsbawm/Ranger (1983), Billig (1995). 8 On the gendered aspects of myths, see Carbone (2017a).

208 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27

28 29 30 31 32 33 34

35

Notes to pp. 115–26

Herzfeld (2004). Moore (2013). Alitalia (2015). Lowenthal (1996). See Séstito (2002: 219–24), also on the never-accomplished Museo per il Mito Scilleo. See Tedesco on this textualist attitude to places (2017: 54). See Hopman (2012: 124) on ancient Scylla coins and Mazza (2002) on its modern symbols. DeLyser (1999). Hagen/Ostergren (2006). Nature (1907). Reggio has often been branded as the City of Fata Morgana. Pieroni (2002: 297). For Paolo, ‘myth has come immediately after beauty’. Moore (2013), cited supra. See Weston et al. (2019). On cine-tourism in Italy, see Lavarone (2016). On heritage as a driver for tourism see Herbert (1995), Aluza et al. (1998). On media and place-bound narratives see Agarwal/Shaw (2017: 10–12), and their examples of film locations of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin in Kefalonia, the ‘Lord of the Rings’ in New Zealand, the ‘English Riviera’ of Agatha Christie, and the Baker Street of Sherlock Holmes. See Beeton (2015) on landscape, place and emotions. Agarwal/Shaw (2017: 14), Connell/Meyer (2009: 194). In comparable contexts, such as Crete, tourists arguably visit the island mostly for the sun and beaches rather than ‘ancient walls and dusty museums’ (Silverman 2007: 11). Calabria has centres of traditional ceramics production (like Seminara), but most mythological-inspired souvenirs are made in Sicily and then sold in tourist spots across the regions. See Shields on liminal places as holiday destinations for suspending mundanity (1991: 108–9). See Castells (2004) on the spatial arrangements of flows of information in information capital societies. Pieroni (2002: 277–8). Pieroni (2002: 278). Pieroni (2002: 290–5). Mazza (2002). See Placanica (1999: 70) on the ‘great transformation’ of the 1960s and 1970s, bringing modernisation, urbanisation and easier connection, but also the dissolving of traditional sustenance structures and their ascription into the new category of the ‘folk’. See Pieroni (2002: 260) on state-dependent economy. Mazza (2002b: 179, 919)

Notes to pp. 126–31 36 37 38 39

40

41

42

43 44 45 46 47 48

49 50 51

52 53 54

209

A committee distinct from UNESCO, advocating for the latter’s agenda. Among these, artists such as Renato Guttuso and Giovanni Omiccioli. Pieroni (2002: 263). See Pieroni (2002: 269) on subsidized tertiarization in Scilla, belated modernisation and lack of a private entrepreneurial sector and a reliable public presence and infrastructures. Mazza (2002b: 185). See the Agenda 2000 European Union meeting in Berlin (1999) and Versace’s Sensi contemporanei, an organization aiming to promote ‘contemporary art, urban beautification’ and regional cinema (Cimino 2004: 44, cited in Bouchard/Ferme 2016: 125). As Placanica notes (1999), surrounded by a 750 kilometre coastline (the most extensive in Italy), Calabria’s core consists of steep elevations that have long meant isolated centres and even dangerous connections. Low-cost airline connections, the internet and social media have all contributed to a degree of development over the past two decades, with the emergence of a large number of Airbnb structures. Pieroni (2002: 284, 316n). Séstito (2002). See the relations between ancient theatres and tourism in Sicily in Malcagio et al. (2007: 18); Trimarchi (2007: 58–9) on the issue of institutional integration. Shields (1991: 11). See Tzanelli (2007: 9). On touristed places, see Cartier/Lew (2005). Also see Urry (1990; 1992) and Urry/Larsen (2001). See Yalouri (2001) on tourism in Greece, the risk of becoming ‘the waiters of Europe’ and fears of ‘foreign hegemony’ in ‘the vortex of the international market’. Placanica (1999) probably refers to mass-scale tourism in Paestum, Pompeii, Taormina and Tropea. Placanica (1999: 13). See Placanica on Calabria’s sudden projection into an imperfect, dependent modernization, overcoming the region’s centuries-old misery but consigning it to peripheralization and inability to produce and export (1999: 23). See Bianchini et al. (1996: 292–293) on the ‘political vacuum’ of national tourist policies. See Placanica (1999) on the ‘deregulatory frenzy of environmental exploitation’ (overbuilding, lack of long-time visions, dubious return for local economies) producing private gain for foreign entrepreneurs, dominant classes and the local mafie at the expense of the public. See Morgan et al. (2002: 336) on Tourism New Zealand. This kind of fleeting, distracted consumption was mocked by tourism workers in Greece with the joke, reported by Yalouri (2001), that ‘it is Tuesday, so we are in Athens’. On Calabria’s seemingly unescapable contradictions between ‘spellbinding vistas and frightening eyesores’ see Minervino (2010).

210

Notes to pp. 132–142

55 See Bianco (2000). As with Scilla, Homer does not mention Aci Trezza. The earliest associations are made by Pliny the Elder, describing the cyclopum scopuli and (probably) island of Lachea: see the self-published D’Urso (2020). As Antonio explained, attempts to brand Aci include plans to recondition a building associated with the 1881 Italian realist novel I Malavoglia, set in this town by Italian writer Giovanni Verga. 56 A common lamentation in town concerned poor traffic management, with noise and over-congestion of the small alleys. 57 On cine-tourism, see Lavarone (2016). 58 See Badilla (2020) on the internet and marketing and communication compared to traditional media. 59 Tourism development has never really ceased to be ‘a cornerstone of politics in Scilla’, as reflected in countless attempts to capitalize on national policies and European funds as well as local resources (Pieroni 2002: 191). 60 See Fabian (1983). 61 Herzfeld (1991). 62 On tourism as landscape consumption starting with images on the media, and on the media’s construction of expectations about places, see Urry’s studies (1990; 1995). 63 Alderman/Inwood (2013a). See Porter/Lukmann (1975: 214) on ‘the promotional literature of travel and tourism’ as inspired by attempts to leave ‘the mundane’, escape from the real world into an ‘often isolated or idyllic’ setting, suspending routine, time, identity and class, and taking ‘revenge for the outrages perpetrated by [one’s] society’. 64 As Sassen notes (2005: 161), ‘the global is not simply defined as that which is outside and in contestation to the national, nor is the global only that which is part of a space of flows that cuts across borders’. On literary tourism, see Egberts/Alvarez (2018); on film tourism, see Beeton (2005). 65 Alderman/Inwood (2013: 13). 66 Harvey (1996). 67 Tuan (1975: 33). 68 Alderman/Inwood (2013a). 69 Tuan (1975: 33). 70 Bortolotto (2011: 12) (tr. by author). 71 Herzfeld (1991), Hamilakis/Yalouri (1996). 72 Billig (1995).

Chapter 7 1 Castrizio (2004). 2 Hodkinson/Macgregor Morris (2012). 3 Mosino (2007).

Notes to pp. 142–7 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27

28 29

211

Yalouri (2001: 78–81). Lowenthal (1997: 302). See Billig (1995) and his metaphor of the unwaved flag. On this, see Gathercole/Lowenthal (1994), Greenfield (1996), Karp et al. (1991), Lowenthal (1998). Herzfeld (1991). Dietler (2005: 237), and supra, Ch. 2. See Smith on the ‘globalization of nationalism’ (1991: 143). Bouchard/Ferme (2016: 3). On the Mediterranean historically, see Abulafia (2012). Yalouri (2001: 82). The idea of ‘homeland’ does not passively exist in people’s geographical imaginations, ‘but it informs, frames and guides material geopolitics’ (Culcasi 2011: 425). Hirsch/Stewart (2005: 262). This is not a study on Greek-speaking minorities in Calabria, even though these seem to also establish roots in an idealized past and imagine a linear descent from an ancient homeland in Athens (despite arriving in Italy around the twelfth century ce : see Pipyrou 2012; 2016). Herzfeld (1991), Hamilakis/Yalouri (1996). As possible sources of inspiration for the comic-book history, see Biagi (1981; 1982). Argentino Mazzitelli (2004: 9). Castrizio (2010). Castrizio (2004: 11). Castrizio (2004: 13). Castrizio (2004: 14–18) discusses Italy’s name drawn from Vitulìa, Scylla and Charybdis, and the overlapping of elements of the Odysseus and Hercules myths. See Dittmer (2013) on nationalist super-heroes. Castrizio (2016). See Dietler (2010: 38) on the colonial doctrine of ‘civilizing mission’, underpinned by ideologies of ‘scientistic scalar classification of the natural intellectual ability of various regional, national and racial groups. Castrizio (2004: 19). For an overview of hypotheses, see Lombardi Satriani/Paoletti (1996), Dafas (2019); Castrizio (2016) sees the Bronzes as made in ancient Rhegion and their discovery in Riace, in Reggio’s province, as a ‘return home’. Castrizio (2004: 36); similarly, Violi (2006). See Todorova (1997, loc. 247) on the Orient as the barbarian counterpart depicted by the Greeks and on their binary of a ‘cultured South and the barbarous North (Thracian and Scythian)’.

212

Notes to pp. 147–50

30 See Dietler (2010: 43), on the ‘Greek historians and geographers’ as seeing the ‘Orient’ while redolent with their ‘cultural dispositions, prejudices, and cosmologies’ and how this effectively enacts a historiographical platform for subsequent Mediterranean histories ‘seen through Greek and Roman eyes’. 31 Panico (2018). 32 An exhaustive historical analysis on the peoples of today’s Calabria and Italy is beyond the remit of this work. On ancient Italian people and archaeology see Donnellan et al. (2016), Farney/Bradley (2018). 33 See Placanica (1999) on the history of Calabria’s histories including relations with Byzantium, the Normans, the Aragonese and the Borbons; and including Orthodox Christianity until the seventeenth century, in connection to the existence today of minorities speaking variants of Greek (Pipyrou 2016) and to the Arbëreshë community. On the history of Sicily, where Greater Greece has less obscured their historical periods, see Renda (2003). 34 Rankine (2019: 353). 35 See Bator (1983), Lowenthal (1987) on architecture as expressing cultural identity, promoting citizenship and ‘attracting foreign sympathy’. See Lowenthal (1998) on heritage policies and national identity. On the Liceo Classico see Fusillo (2016). 36 Placanica (1999: 4). 37 ‘Beautiful and good’ in ancient Greek (Liddell/Scott 1996). 38 Placanica (1999: 5). 39 Placanica (1999: 15, 37), also on Rhegion and Zancles as two ends of the Strait, an important commercial passageway. See Whitley (2001: 124) on the Greek’s apoikia (‘home away from home’) in Italy from the mid-seventeenth century bce . On Greater Greece see Ameruoso (1996). 40 See Placanica (1999: 17, 27) on the proliferation of ‘mythographies of eponymous heroes’, including King Italus as the pre-Greek ‘founder’ of Italy in Calabria, or Italy as Hercules’ Vitulia, all due to the ‘perennial fame of Great Greece’ (p. 34). For Violi (2006: 48–54), the earliest references to Italy describe Calabria. See Placanica (1999: 36) on Calabria as the ‘earliest Italy’. 41 Placanica (1999: 46). 42 Placanica still exalts the ‘incontrovertible record’ of the Greeks, who ‘themselves’ acknowledged the ‘almighty expression’ of their poleis (1999: 46). For Violi (2006: 27), the ‘colonies’ (including Sybaris, Rhegion, Zancles, Lokris) ‘replicated and surpassed [. . .] Greece’. 43 Bernal (2006) [1987]. 44 Violi (2006: 18). 45 See Violi (2006: 24). 46 Violi (2006: 48–57) also sees the ‘inevitable penetration’ of the Romans in Calabria as coinciding with the crumbling of the poleis, environmental damage and social decline.

Notes to pp. 150–3

213

47 See Herzfeld (1982) and Lowenthal (1997: 308) on modern-day Greece’s cherishing of ‘classics’ and expunging of other elements (Lowenthal 1997: 308), entailing the myth of modern Greeks as ethnically homogeneous and devoid of ‘Turks, Vlachs, Slavs, or Albanians among them’. 48 Mollo (2018). 49 See Dietler (2010: 55–74). 50 See La Genière (1974) on Greater Greece beyond Eurocentrism; also De Sensi Sestito/Mancuso (2001), Greco/Lombardo (2012), Guzzo (2016), La Torre (2017), Lombardo (1994), Mele (1991), Musti (2005). La Torre (2018: 7) urges readers to ‘reclaim’ a complex past. 51 Dietler (2010: 41). Also Mollo (2018: 7, 24–5) on how archaeological research began as an erudite form of interest in Graeco-Roman remains. 52 Dietler (2010: 55). 53 See Mali (1994). See Mollo (2018: 24–7) on perceptions of a ‘jarring contrast’ between Greater Greece’s splendour and modern day Calabria in the Grand Tours. 54 On the emergence of non-Western centric and postcolonial archaeology see Lowenthal/Bowden (1976), Gathercole/Lowenthal (1994), Dietler (2010). In recent Italian scholarship see Mollo (2018: 3–8, 44–53) on hellenocentric archaeology in Calabria, sustained by the eighteenth-century excavations in Pompeii, Paolo Orsi’s research in Monasterace (the ancient Kaulòn), and the Magna Graecia society. 55 See, again, Bernal (1987). 56 Bernal (1987). 57 See Till (2004); on the spatial foundations of nationhood and geographies of homelands, see Penrose (2002); on iconographies of national landscapes, see Cosgrove/Daniels (1993), Matless (1998). 58 See Mali (2012: 7) on contested appropriation of traditions. Also Pipyrou (2012; 2016). 59 Mosino (1932–2015) was a renowned high school Greek and Latin teacher in Reggio; he wrote highly regarded studies in philology and history (1985, 1989) before turning to a few para-scientific pamphlets on Homer (including Mosino 2007), supported by somewhat flippant editorial choices. 60 For his theory on Appa, Mosino once nominated himself for a Nobel Prize. 61 Mosino went on to tell me that archeo-astronomy supported his theory; see my Ch. 5 on Homeric geographies. 62 See Wolf/Wolf (1983), and the recent Wolf (2017) issues by a publisher promoting ‘territorial identities’. 63 Like Vazzana (2016), Mosino’s pseudo-theses display flawed, ‘irrefutable hypotheses’ (Hines 2003: 13). 64 Pipyrou (2016: 186).

214

Notes to pp. 153–6

65 See Herzfeld (1991: xiii) on Greece, reminiscent of Calabria as an ‘Other-withinItaly’. See Pescosolido (2017) on the subaltern political positioning of the ‘South’ and political advantage of the ‘Northern’ regions. 66 Herzfeld (1982) focused on the Greek nation-state at the moment when its history was expunged of any Turkish elements to accommodate its inscription within the ‘West’. See Yalouri (2001: 11–12) on Hellenism as ‘the outside view of Greek culture linked to the idealization of ancient Greeks by Western Europeans’ and Romiossini as ‘the inside view of the Greek culture, associated with [. . .] the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires’). See Lowenthal (1994: 307–8) on modern Greece’s internalization of the ‘West’. Also Leontis (1995). 67 On onomastics, heritage and power see Puzey/Kostanski (2016: xiii). 68 Pipyrou (2016: 1). 69 See Pipyrou (2016: 3–8) on the Grecanici, national institutions and ways to deal with hegemonic culture. On Greek-speaking communities in the Puglia region, see Pellegrino (2013). 70 Placanica (1999) captures this rapid progression from the sea to the mountains of this area. 71 Pipyrou (2016). 72 Pipyrou (2016). 73 A hall of Bova’s Museo della Lingua Greco-Calabra ‘Gerald Rohlfs’ (www. museogerhardrohlfs.it) – named after the German linguist who studied the local dialects extensively – was recently named after Mosino. 74 On the one hand, Violi (2006) dispels the ‘legends’ that seek ‘grandeur’ by connecting to Greater Greece (p. 88); on the other, he nostalgically celebrates the ‘witnesses of a formerly great region’, infused with ‘the pride and awareness of [. . .] a different ethnicity’ (p. 57). 75 See Lowenthal on heritage and religious belief (1998: 1–2, 138); Anderson (1991: 2) on religion, nationalism and identity; also Halbwachs (1992). 76 See Borneman/Hammoudi (2009: 17) on ‘neo-scripturalist’ forms of worship of texts (pp. 12–17) deemed to foreground political action. 77 Mali (2012). 78 On such nineteenth-century positivist views, see Frazer (1922). On the excluded past, see Gathercole/Lowenthal (1994: xii). See also Bettini (2016: 29). 79 Castrizio (2004). 80 See Bartoli (2012). 81 Laroux (1998), Tuan (1976: 26). 82 On the Graeco-Roman world and class distinction in England, France and Germany, see again Dietler (2010: 31–32); on their association with national high culture in Italy, see Genovesi (2016), also on the riforma Gentile and the Liceo Classico high school. 83 On the focus on Graeco-Roman history in Italy, consistent with sixteenth- and seventeenth-century humanism, see Scarre (1994: 12). On colonialism and

Notes to pp. 156–60

84

85 86 87 88 89

90

91

92 93 94 95 96

97 98 99 100

215

museums, see Scarre (1997: 12, 48). On philhellenism and elites see Tsigakou (1981: 48). See Bianchini et al. (1996: 291) on Italian cultural policies; see Palumbo (2003) and Ponzanesi (2012) on the missing decolonization process in Italian public history. For a transnational perspective, see Hawthorne/Pesarini (2020). On classics, again see Rankine (2019). Placanica (1999: xiii). Placanica (1999: xiv). On Riace, see Barillà (2017); Zavaglia (2018). On exclusionary legal processes in Italy see Tuckett (2018), Loprieno (2019). On Italy’s ‘South’ as African, see Franchetti (1961), Dal Lago (2014). See Miles (1989: 74) (after Fanon 1966, Banton 1977, Guillaumin 1980) on racialization as a normalized ‘representational process whereby social significance is used to refer to certain biological (usually phenotypical) human features, on the basis of which those people possessing those characteristics are designated as a distinct collectivity’. The reference is obviously to Fanon (2008) [1952]; see King/Mai (2008) on how Italy’s ‘Southerners’ as the internal Others can be replaced by ‘foreigners’ as a more obvious and convenient outsider. On structural racism in Italy, see Bartoli (1992); on the ‘South’, ‘North’ and ‘Centre’ of Italy, see Forgacs/Lumley (1996); on its ‘South’ as the ‘Africa of Italy’, see Franchetti (1961); on Italian nationalisms, see Raimo (2019), Viroli (2020). See King/Mai (2008) on the North’s Othering of the South. See Roche/Demetriou (2018). See Bond (2018). Koch (2013: 29–30). See Lazaridis et al. (2016) on recent xenophobic movements in Europe and their perceived threats to the ‘West’, entrenched in conflations of whiteness, Westernness and Euro-American canons. Similar points have been made in relation to ethnoidentitarian appropriations of historical traditions and labels such as Celtitude (see Dietler 2006: 246, Hague et al. 2005, McWhiney 1988). On the ‘Bruneau-gate’, see Arito (2014), Carbone (2014); future research will focus on the Bronzes’ reactionary and subversive appropriations. On structural racism, see Tucket (2018). McNeill (1986), Mali (1994). See Gathercole/Lowenthal (1994: x–xi) on antiquity’s presentation as evidence of ‘races’, ‘peoples’, ‘tribes’, ‘linguistic groups’ and ‘none-too-subtle ascription of racial/ cultural stereotypes to static material culture items’. See Penrose (2002: 282) on emotive connection between place and history. See Tuckett (2018) on migration in Italy.

216

Notes to pp. 160–9

101 Consolo (1993: 23). 102 On the geo-philosophy of the sea, see Saffioti (2007); see Giordano (2010; 2018) on the Southern landscape; on Europe and the Mediterranean, see Cacciari (1994), Resta (2012) – further discussion in Bouchard/Ferme (2016: 7). 103 For Giacomo, Sicilians were overall more aware than the Calabresi of their ties with Arab cultures. This was due both to a perceived ‘longer and deeper influence’ and with being ‘slightly less obsessed’ about the Greeks. 104 See Cassano (2011), discussed in Bouchard/Ferme (2016). Cassano embraces Graeco-Roman heritage with no assumptions of a ‘Western’ teleological point in history. For Cacciari (1994), Europe’s paradoxical creation out of the separation of Greece from Asia (its preconditional ‘Other’) should inform a polycentric view of nations (Bouchard/Ferme 2016: 7). See Derrida (2006) and Deleuze/Guattari (1994) on ‘fortress’ Europe. 105 See Tedesco (2017) and my discussion from Ch. 2. 106 Renan (2018). 107 Till (2003). 108 Even though no totalizing ideology either, Christianity punctuates the social fabric of the region far more deeply than Graeco-Roman heritage, as one can see in festivities such as St Rocco’s when the icon of the Saint traverses a crowded town before the blessing ritual as the entire community chants along. 109 Comparatively, see Yalouri (2001: 71, 188) on intellectuals in Greece, the modern state as ‘a shrunken Hellenism often associated with failure and inefficiency’, and its mythical counterpart in ancient Greece. See also Hanink (2017: 272–5) on the Greeks’ demonization of their modern ‘Byzantinism’ based on the untenable expectation that it should live up to mythicized roots in Hellas. 110 https://pizzimenti.it/prodotto/confezione-tris-zaleuco/. See Tedesco (2017: 64–64) on Mediterraneanist discourses on food typicality. 111 Yalouri (2001: 9, 200). 112 See Billig (1995) on everyday nationalism; Wiebe (2002: 5), Agnew (2013), Guibernau (1996: 3), Geertz (1973), Hutchinson (1994), Smith (1998), Gibernau (1996: 3) on territoriality; Till (2004) on identity landscapes; Penrose (2002: 283) on distinctions ‘between civic and ethnic nations’; Hobsbawm/Ranger (1983) on invented traditions, and Cosgrove/Daniels (1993), Matless (1998) on national landscape. 113 On the first view, see Ardrey (1967), Morris (1973; 1994), Dawkins (1976), Sack (1986: 19). On the second, see Penrose (2002: 279).

Chapter 8 1 See Buse/Stott (1999: 11) on hauntology. 2 Lowenthal/Bowden (1976).

Notes to pp. 169–77

217

3 Placanica (1999: xvi). 4 Gathercole/Lowenthal (1994: 302). 5 Consistently, see Yalouri (2001: 196) on modern Greece’s continuous struggle ‘to remind the world of its contribution to Western civilisation’. 6 Schapera (1962), Whitehead (2003), discussed in Hirsch/Stewart (2005: 268). 7 See again Ortoleva’s (2019) low-intensity myths and Billig’s (1995) banal nationalism. 8 Kalantzis (2014: 57). 9 Herzfeld (2004: 156). 10 Lowenthal (1997: 307). 11 Rankine (2019: 353). 12 Lewontin et al. (1982). 13 Bettini (2016: 76). 14 Foucault (1984), discussed in Shields (1991: 44) in terms of epistemic shifts. 15 Placanica (1999: xv). 16 Placanica (1999). 17 My reference is to De Martino’s work on migration and remorse (1961). 18 See Teti (2011) on the restanza (‘stayance’) or the courage of those who decide to not migrate. 19 See Bourneman/Hammoudi (1996) on ‘being there’ as an attempt to understand a ‘fit between the order of words and the order of things’ (p. 14). 20 See Bettini (2016: 77) on imagined roots in Italy and politicized fears of immigration. 21 See Tuckett (2018) on migration ‘on the ground’ and on systemically exclusionary legal and bureaucratic processes in Italy. On the ‘invisibles’ movement, see Soumahoro (2019). On migration and feminism, see Andall (2007). 22 On borders, citizenship and migrant flows to Italy from North Africa and the ‘Middle East’ see Proglio et al. (2020). 23 Herzfeld (1987: 13). A deeper reflection on the Calabresi as the ‘eredi di Omero’ (‘heirs of the Greeks’) and their racialized perceptions will be the object of a parallel study. 24 Shelley (1934: 447). 25 Or, possibly, even fabricated hoaxes made with data collected from biographical searches. 26 Placanica (1999: 383). 27 See Clifford/Marcus (1986) on a critical approach to ethnography’s ‘truth-claims and authority’. 28 See Bourneman/Hammoudi (2009) on the ‘odd spaces of interlocution’ and struggles of the ethnographer. 29 See John Paul Jones III (2013), Baudrillard (1994), Hacking (1999) on representationalism.

218 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

40 41

42 43

44 45 46 47

48 49 50 51 52 53 54

Notes to pp. 178–84

Bakhtin (1981). See Braudel (1985), Giordano (2001); discussed in Giordano (2012). Shields (1991: 3). Johnson et al. (2013). Küchler (1993: 85). Bettini (2016: 79). Foote/Azaryahu (2007). See Barton/Leonard (2010) on decolonized and inclusive heritage tourism landscapes. Bouchard/Ferme (2015: 10). Compare what Hanink (2017: 6–7) notes of Greece, with Britain, France, Germany and America using ‘an imagined stake in [Greece’s] distant past to justify intervention in contemporary Greek affairs’, whilst simultaneously ‘touting their “indebtedness” to the ancient Greeks’. Küchler (1993: 85). Compare, via Lowenthal (1994: 308), modern-day Greece’s cherishing of ‘classical antiquities’ and how Turkish, Balkan and Slav elements were ‘expunged from Greek folklore’ to create a ‘narrative of classical descent’ and make the Greeks ‘racially homogeneous’. Price (2001: 226). See Detienne (1986) on the European ‘invention’ of Greek mythology at the peak of West-centric philhellenism; Frazer (1922) on the Greeks as proto-modern people and the incubators of European genius; compare the opposite espousal of Deleuze/ Guattari’s rhizome (1987: 5–8) to ‘uproot ideals of linearity singularity and hierarchy [. . .] embedded in the cult of “classics” ’ (López-Gregoris 2015: 276). Todorov (1998), Laroux (1998), discussed in Bettini (2017: 14–15). See Tuan (1976) on the idea of identifying with and through one’s environment. Tuan (1976: 33–34). Tuan (1976: 36) – see (17–25, n66) on calling the soil ‘as fatherland and mother’ as a return to the idea of biological bonds between persons and places and of place as a ‘living, age-old family tree’. Jazeel (2013). See Eliade (1991: 32–6); discussed in Segal (1999: 21), Strenski (1987: 105–7). See Lincoln (1999: 143–5) on Eliade’s right-wing nationalism. Stewart (2012: 19). Jazeel (2013: par. 1). Gilroy (2000). Bouchard/Ferme (2016: 10). Porter/Lukermann (1975: 200, 218n).

Notes to pp. 184–8

219

55 See Smith’s (1984) ‘perennialism’ as a ‘non-natural’ but historically long-standing view of ‘ethnie’ as the foundations of nations – a ‘middle ground between the extreme primordialist view that nations are natural and the extreme modernist view that nations are inventions’ (Penrose 2002: 291; see also Özkirimli 2000: 68). 56 Bouchard/Ferme (2016). 57 Bouchard/Ferme (2016: 2). 58 Eco (2013). 59 Stewart (2012: 216). 60 Lévi-Strauss (1978: 34; 2004: 228–44). Structuralism dealt with ‘what we call time and what we call history’ (Foucault 1984b: 1). 61 Shields (1991: 7). 62 Placanica (1999). 63 Nietzsche (1997).

220

Bibliography Primary sources Texts and graphical imprints Addison, J. (1767), Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, &c., In the Years 1701, 1702, 1703, London: J. and R. Tonson. Alitalia (2015), ‘Speciale Calabria. A cura di Regione Calabria Assessorato Turismo’, Ulisse, April: 58–63. Angela, A. (2014), I bronzi di Riace. L’avventura di due eroi restituiti dal mare, Milano: Rizzoli. Berto, G. (1964), Il male oscuro, Milano: Rizzoli. Berto, G. (1968), ‘Introduzione’, in F. Quilici (ed.), L’italia vista dal Cielo. Basilicata e Calabria, Milano: Amilcare Pizzi. Biagi, E. (1981), Storia d’Italia a fumetti. Storia di Roma, Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. Biagi, E. (1982), Storia d’Italia a fumetti. Storia dell’Oriente e dei Greci a fumetti, Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. Bradford, E. (1963), Ulysses Found, London: Hodder and Stoughton. Cassini, G. M. (c. 1797), Nuovo Atlante Geografico Universale, Rome: Calcografia Camerale. Castrizio, D. (2004), Storia di Reggio a fumetti. Dalle origini alla venuta di S. Paolo. Testi di Daniele Castrizio. Disegni di Marilisa Bonanno, Massimiliano Placanica, Reggio Calabria: Tipografia de Franco. Conferenza Area Stretto (2019), ‘Conferenza permanente interregionale per il coordinamento delle politiche dell’Area dello Stretto – Avvisi’, Consiglio Regionale della Calabria, www.consiglioregionale.calabria.it/portale/Istituzione/ ConferenzaAreaStretto/Avvisi Coronelli, V. (1690–1701). Atlante Veneto, vol. 1, Venezia: Accademia Cosmografica. Custine, A. de (1830), Mémoires et voyages, ou lettres écrites à diverses époques, pendant des courses en Suisse, en Calabre, en Angleterre et en Écosse, Paris: Editions François Bourin: Paris. Custine, A. de (1843), La Russie en 1839, Paris: Librairie d’Amyot. Custine, A. de (1951) [1843], Journey for our Times, the Russian Journals. P. Penn Kohler (ed.), tr. W. B. Smith. Chicago, IL: H. Regnery Co. & New York: Pellegrini & Cudahy. Custine, A. de (2008) [1830], Lettere dalla Calabria, Rubbettino: Cosenza.

221

222

Bibliography

D’Arrigo, S. (1975), Horcynus Orca, Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori. D’Arrigo S. (2015), Il Codice siciliano, Messina: Mesogea. De Lange (1965), Guide to Italy, Vol. 2: Central and Southern Italy 1965, Amsterdam and London: De Lange N. V and E. Stanford Ltd. Diderot, D., Le Ronde D’Alembert, J. (1751–1772), Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, Vol. 14, available at: http://encyclopedie. uchicago.edu (last accessed: 15/12/2020). Erasmus, D. (1508), Erasmi Roterodami Adagiorum Chiliades Tres, Venice: In Aedibus Aldi, available at www.e-rara.ch/bau_1/doi/10.3931/e-rara-44672 (last accessed: 08/07/2021). Evans, A. (1909), Scripta Minoa: The Written Documents of Minoan Crete, with Special Reference to the Archives of Knossos, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Fortuyn, G., (1773), L’aspetto meridionale della città di Scilla [engraving – publisher unknown]. Garnett, R. (1888), The Twilight of the Gods and Other Tales, London: T. Fisher Unwin. Gissing, G. (1901), By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy, London: Chapman and Hall. Gissing, G. (1996) [1901], Sulle rive dello Ionio. Un vittoriano al Sud. M. F. Minervino (ed.), Torino: EDT. Giuffrida, A. (2018), ‘Pro-refugee Italian mayor arrested for “aiding illegal migration” ’. The Guardian, 2 October, available at www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/02/ pro-refugee-italian-mayor-arrested-suspicion-aiding-illegal-migration-domenicolucano-riace (last accessed: 15/12/2020). Godwin, J. (2011), ‘Foreword’, in F. Vinci, The Baltic Origins of Homer’s Epic Tales. The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Migration of Myth (Kindle edn), loc. 157–248, Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions. Goethe, J. W. (1992), Italian Journey: 1786–1788, London: Penguin Classics. Golding, L. (1955), Good-bye to Ithaca, London: Hutchinson. Greenan, D. (2013), ‘Calabria’s ancient Riace bronzes return home’, Gazzetta del Sud, available at https://gazzettadelsud.it/speciali/english/2013/12/06/calabria-s-ancientriace-bronzes-return-home-c4634e60-27fc-4ddf-bdb5-f6d95205859f/ (last accessed: 15/12/2020). Heuvelmans, B. (1958), Dans le sillage des monstres marins. Le kraken et le poulpe kolossal, Paris: Plon. Heyerdahl, T. (1952), The Kon-Tiki Expedition (7th edn), Paulton Somerset and London: Purnell and Sons (original: Glydendal Norsk Forlag, Oslo, 1948). Hoare, R. C. (1819), A Classical Tour Through Italy and Sicily. Tending to Illustrate Some Districts Which Have Not Been Described by Mr Eustace, in his Classical Tour. London: J. Mawman. Homer (2018) [n.d.], The Odyssey, translated by E. Wilson. New York & London: W.W. Norton & Company Inc.

Bibliography

223

John Murray (1836), A Hand-Book for Travellers on the Continent, London: J. Murray and Son. Johnston, A. (2013), ‘Italy’s “abandoned” Riace Bronzes back on show in Calabria’, BBC, available at www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-25468964 (last accessed: 15/12/2020). Kircher, A. (1678), Athanasii Kircheri E Soc Jesu Mundu Subterraneus, Amsterdam: Ex Officina Janssonio-Waesbergiana. Lanucara, N. (1949), Città delle corti, Reggio Calabria: Editrice Meridionale. La Salle, A. G. de (1822–1826), Voyage pittoresque en Sicile, 2 vols., Paris: P. Didot. Lear, E. (1852), Journal of a Landscape Painter in Southern Calabria and the Kingdom of Naples, London: Richard Bentley. Lear, E. (1964), Edward Lear in Southern Italy, London: William Kimber & Co. Lear, E. (2009) [1852], Diario di un viaggio a piedi, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. Lenormant, F. (1881), La grande-Grèce, paysages et histoire, Paris: A. Lévy libraireéditeur. Lesser, A., Creuzé de (1806), Voyage en Italie et en Sicile, Paris: Didot L’Aine. Lessing, E. (1965), The Voyages of Ulysses. A Photographic Interpretation of Homer’s Classic, Freiburg: Herder. Levi, C. (1945), Cristo si è fermato a Eboli, Torino: Giulio Einaudi. Longo, M. (2014), Caponata Meccanica. Tutti i racconti, Createspace Independent Publishing. Marrazzo, D. (2018), ‘Viaggio in Calabria per un concentrato di grecità’, il Sole 24 Ore [national newspaper], 4/7/2018. Mediterraneo (1995), design. A. Angiolino, art. G. Meluzzi, D. Calì [game book], Roma: Quality Game. Merian, M. (1688), Topographia Italiae, Frankfurt: Merian. Miller, F. (1998), 300 [graphic novel], Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Comics. Minasi, A. (1778), Tavole Naturali Istoriche di Scilla e Cariddi e del Canale di Messina. [publisher unknown]. Moore, J. (2013), ‘10 must-see mythical places’, Smartertravel.com, 8 June, available at www.smartertravel.com/photo-galleries/editorial/10-must-see-mythical-places. html?id=464&photo=47987 (last accessed: 15/05/2017). Morton, H. V. (1983) [1969], A Traveller in Southern Italy, Reading: Methuen. Mosino, F. (2007), L’Odissea scritta a Reggio, Prove testuali, topografiche, filologiche, iconografiche, antropiche, Reggio Calabria: Iiriti Editore. Muirhead, F. (ed.) (1925), The Blue Guides. Italian Touring Club. Southern Italy Including Rome, Sicily, and Sardinia by L. V. Bertarelli, London and Paris: MacMillan and Co. and Librairie Hachette & Cie. Musolino, L. (2014), Oscure regioni, Genova: Wild Board Edizioni. Mythos (2012), design. G. Gallo, art. M. Lanza, F. Naspetti, J. Blando [game book], Torini: Games Academy. Olaus Magnus (1572) [1539], Carta Marina, Rome: Antoine Lafréry, available at www. wdl.org/en/item/3037/ (last accessed: 15/12/2020). Pace, O. K. (2012), Scilla. Racconto mitologico, Reggio Calabria: Città del Sole Edizioni.

224

Bibliography

Poe, E. A. (1841), ‘A descent into the Maelström’, Graham’s Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine, no. CLXXXV, May 1841, New York: Israel Post. Principe, I. (1986), La Specola del Filosofo Natura e Storia nelle incisioni di Antonio Minasi, Vibo Valentia: Mapograf. Quilici, F. (1987), Italy from the Air, London: Weidenfield and Nicolson. Quilici, F. (2001), L’Abisso di Hatutu, Milano: Mondadori. Redazione Dove (2013), ‘Lungo la costa ionica sulle tracce della Magna Grecia’, Il Corriere Viaggi, available at https://viaggi.corriere.it/weekend/calabria-magnagrecia/ (last accessed: 15/07/2017). Riedesel, J. H. (1773), Reise durch Sizilien und grossigriechenland, Zürich: bey Orell, Gessner, Füsslin und Comp. (Eng. tr. J. R. Forster, Travels through Sicily and that Part of Italy Formerly Called Magna Græcia. And a Tour through Egypt, with an Accurate Description of its Cities, and the Modern State of the Country, London: Edward & Charles Dilly, 1777). Rivarol, A. de (2011), Nota storica sulla Calabria, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino (Original: Notice historique sur la Calabre pendant led dernieres révolutions de Naples, Paris: Magimel, Anselin et Pochard, 1817). Roloff, B. (1962), A Time of the Gods, London: Thames and Hudson. Saint-Non’s, A. J.-R. de (1783), Voyage pittoresque ou Description des royaumes de Naples et de Sicile, vol. 3, Paris: Saint-Non. Schildt, E. (1953), In the Wake of Ulysses (tr. A. Blair), New York: Apollo Publications. Schildt, E. (1959), The Sea of Icarus, London: Staples Press. Schliemann, H. (1874), Trojanische Alterthümer. Bericht über die Ausgrabungen in Troja, Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus. Serra, E. (2014), ‘Gli affitti brevi (ai turisti) che fanno litigare’, Corriere.it, available at www.corriere.it/cronache/14_settembre_23/gli-affitti-brevi-ai-turisti-che-fannolitigare-0f5e6e64-42e2-11e4-9734-3f5cd619d2f5.shtml (last accessed: 15/12/2020). Shelley, P. B. (1934), The Complete Poetical Works, London: Oxford University Press. Strutt, A. J. (1840), A Pedestrian Tour in Calabria & Sicily, Newby : London. Swinburne, H. (1783), Travels in the Two Sicilies, London: P. Elmsly at the Strand. Tavel, D. de (1832), Calabria During a Military Residence of Three Years. In a Series of Letters, by a General Officer of the French Army, London: E. Wilson. Touring Club Italiano (1938), Touring Club Italiano. Attraverso l’Italia. Illustrazioni delle regioni italiane. Volume ottavo, Puglia, Lucania, Calabria, Milano: Touring Club Italiano. Travelnostop (2007), ‘Ryanair, successo per primo volo Lamezia-Pisa’, available at https:// travelnostop.com/calabria/aeroporti/ryanair-successo-per-primo-volo-lameziapisa_49006 (last accessed: 15/12/2020). Turismo Reggio Calabria (2020), ‘From all over Europe to the deep south’, available at https://turismo.reggiocal.it/en/culture/all-over-europe-deep-south (last accessed: 15/09/2020). Undiscovered Destinations (2019), ‘Italy Calabria tour. Italy’s secret southern gem’, available at www.undiscovered-destinations.com/calabria-small-group-tour/ (last accessed: 15/09/2020).

Bibliography

225

Université de Genève (2019), L’Odyssée, du mythe à la photographie, available at https:// unige.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.htm (last accessed: 15/12/2020). Vazzana, A. (2016), Fenomeni naturali e miti nell’area dello Stretto. Skylla e Cariddi negli autori reggini dell’Odissea / Natural Phenomena and Myths of the Strait Area. Skylla and Charybdis in the Authors by Reggio of Odyssey, Reggio Calabria: Gangemi International Publishing. Vinci, F. (2005), The Baltic Origins of Homer’s Epic Tales: The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Migration of Myth, Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions (original: Omero nel Baltico. Le origini nordiche dell’Odissea e dell’Iliade, Roma: Palombi Editori, 1995). Vinci, F. (2011), The Baltic Origins of Homer’s Epic Tales: The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Migration of Myth (Kindle edn), Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions.

Film, audio-visuals and games 300 (2007), dir. J. Snyder [film], USA: Legendary Pictures. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997), T. Hagihara, K. Igarashi [digital game], Japan: Konami. Dungeons and Dragons (1974) design G. Gygax, D. Arneson [role-playing game], USA: Wizards of the Coast. Eruzione del Vesuvio (1906) dir. Roberto Troncone, [film], prod. Fratelli Troncone, Italy. God of War: Ghost of Sparta (2010), design Jan, R. Weerasurija [digital game], USA and Japan: Ready at Dawn/SCE Santamonica/Sony. Hero Quest (1989–1997) design S. Baker, cover art L. Edwards [board game], USA and UK: Milton Bradly/Games Workshop. Italia vista dal Cielo [L’]. Calabria e Basilicata (1968–1978), dir. F. Quilici [documentary film series], Italy : Esso Standard Italiana. Lu tempu di li pisci spata (1954), dir. V. De Seta [documentary film], Italy. Odissea [L’] (1968), dir. F. Rossi, M. Bava, P. Schivazappa, script. G. P. Bona, V. Bonicelli, F. Carpi, L. Codignola, M. Prosperi, R. Rosso, prod. D. De Laurentiis, RAI, Ortf, M. [film mini-series], Italy/France/Yugoslavia/West Germany : Jadran Films. Odyssey of Homer [The] (1911), dir. De Liguoro/Bartolini/Padovan [silent film], Italy : Milano Films. Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013), dir. T. Freudenthal, prod. K. Rosenfelt, M. Barnathan [film], USA: Sunswept Entertainment/1492 Pictures/TSG, 20th Century Fox. Quark. Ulisse. Il fantastico viaggio dell’Odissea (2001), RAI, dir. G. Cipollitti, host. P. Angela [broadcast/film documentary], Italy : RAI Trade, in two parts: 27/12/2000 and 03/01/2001. Quark. Ulisse. Il mondo dei Bronzi di Riace (2014), RAI, host. A. Angela [broadcast/film documentary], Italy : RAI Trade, available at www.raiplay.it/dl/RaiTV/programmi/

226

Bibliography

liste/ContentSet-b54b997f-a288-4417-8955-69784dd6208f-V-0.html (last accessed: 15/12/2020). Search for Ulysses [The] (1966) (based on Ernle Bradford’s Ulysses Found, 1963), prod. M. Carr [documentary film], Canada: CBC. Sesto Continente (1953), dir. F. Quilici, prod. B. Vailati [documentary film], Italy: Delphinus. Ulysses (1954), dir. M. Camerini, M. Bava, prod. D. De Laurentiis, C. Ponti, script F. Brusati, M. Camerini, E. De Concini, H. Gray, B. Hecht, I. Perilli, I. Shaw [film], USA and Italy : Paramount Pictures/Lux Film.

Secondary sources Abulafia, D. (2012), The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean, London: Penguin. Adam-Veleni, P., Tsangari, D. (eds) (2015), Greek Colonisation: New Data, Current Approaches: Proceedings of the Scientific Meeting Held in Thessaloniki, 6 February 2015, Athens: Alpha Bank. Adamovsky, E. (2006), Euro-Orientalism: Liberal Ideology and the Image of Russia in France (c. 1740–1880), New York: Peter Lang. Adams, P., Craine, J., Dittmer, J. (2014), ‘Introduction: Geographies of media’, in P. C. Adams, J. Craine, J., Dittmer (eds), The Ashgate Research Companion to Media Geography, pp. 1–14, London & New York: Routledge. Agarwal, S., Shaw, G. (2017), Heritage, Screen, and Literary Tourism, Bristol: Channel View Publications. Agnew, J. (2013), ‘Nationalism’, in N. C. Johnson, R. H. Schein, J. Winders (eds), The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Cultural Geography, pp. 371–83, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Aguirre Castro, M. (2012), ‘Scylla: Hideous monster or Femme Fatale? A case of contradiction between literary and artistic evidence’, Cuadernos de Filología Clásica: Estudios griegos e indoeuropeos, 12: 319–328. Alcaro, M. (1999), Sull’identità meridionale, Torino: Bollati Boringhieri. Alderman, D. H., Inwood, J. F. J. (2013), ‘Landscapes of memory and socially just futures’, in N. C. Johnson, R. H. Schein, J. Winders (eds), The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Cultural Geography, pp. 186–97, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Allen, J. (1976), ‘Lands of myth, waters of wonder: The place of the imagination in the history of geographical imagination’, in Lowenthal, D., Bowden, M. J. (eds), Geographies of the Mind: Essays in Historical Geography, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ameruoso, M. (1996), Megále Hellás. Genesi, storia ed estensione del nome, Roma: Istituto Italiano per la Storia Antica. Anderson, B. (1991) [1983], Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Revised and extended edn), London: Verso.

Bibliography

227

Andall, J. (2007), ‘Italian feminism and the challenges of ethnic diversity’, Feminist Review, 87: 76–84. Anderson, K. (2001), ‘Race: Part I’, in J. A. Agnew, J. S. Duncan (eds), The WileyBlackwell Companion to Human Geography, pp. 440–52. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Andrews, H., Roberts, L. (2012), Liminal Landscapes: Travel, Experience and Spaces In-Between, London & New York: Routledge. Apaydin, V. (2020), Critical Perspectives on Cultural Memory and Heritage, London: UCL Press. Appadurai, A. (1990), ‘Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy’, Public Culture, 2: 1–24. Appadurai, A. (1996), Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Minneapolis, MN and London: University of Minnesota Press. Ardrey, R. (1967), The Territorial Imperative: A Personal Inquiry into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations, London: Collins. Argentino Mazzitelli, G. (2004), ‘Valorizzare un patrimonio inestimabile’, in D. Castrizio (ed.), Storia di Reggio a fumetti. Dalle origini alla venuta di S. Paolo. Testi di Daniele Castrizio. Disegni di Marilisa Bonanno, Massimiliano Placanica, pp. 9–10, Reggio Calabria: Tipografia De Franco. Arito, A. (2014), ‘Bruneau al Face OFF. Non volevo offendere i reggini, ma il pianeta intero’, ZoomSud.it, available at www.zoomsud.it/index.php/cultura/73202-rcbruneau-al-face-off-non-volevo-offendere-i-reggini-ma-il-pianeta-intero (last accessed 15/12/2020). Arnold, D. (2002), The Age of Discovery, 1400–1600, London, Routledge. Assmann, J., Czaplicka, J. (1995), ‘Collective memory and cultural identity’, New German Critique, 65: 125–133. Badilla, M. C. G. (2020), ‘Do you feel the warmth? The online destination image of Southeast Asia’, in M. Månsson, A. Buchmann, C. Cassinger, L. Eskilsson (eds), The Routledge Companion to Media and Tourism, pp. 102–11, London: Routledge. Baguet, F. (1995) ‘Bioluminescence of deep-sea fishes in the Straits of Messina’, in L. Guglielmo, A. Manganaro, E. De Domenico (eds), The Straits of Messina Ecosystem. Proceedings of Symposium Held in Messina: April 4–6, 1991, pp. 203–12, Messina: Università degli studi di Messina, Dipartimento di biologia animale ed ecologia marina. Bakhtin, M. M. (1981), The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Bakić-Hayden, M. (1995), ‘Nesting Orientalisms: The case of former Yugoslavia’, Slavic Review, 54(4): 917–931. Bakker, E. J. (1997), Poetry in Speech. Orality and Homeric Discourse, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Ballabriga, A. (1998), Les fictions d’Homere. L’invention mythologique et cosmographique dans l’Odyssée, Paris: PUF.

228

Bibliography

Balm, R., Holcomb, B. (2003), ‘Unlosing lost places: Image making, tourism and the return to terra cognita’, in D. Crouch and N. Lübbren (eds), Visual Culture and Tourism, pp. 157–74, Oxford and New York: Berg. Banfield, E. (1958), Amoral Familism: The Moral Basis of a Backward Society. New York: Free Press. Bar-el, Y. et al. (2000), ‘Jerusalem syndrome’, British Journal of Psychiatry, 176: 86–90. Barillà, T. (2017), Mimì Capatosta. Mimmo Lucano e il modello Riace, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. Barnatt, J., Edmonds, M. (2002), ‘Places apart? Caves and monuments in Neolithic and earlier Bronze Age Britain’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 12(1): 113–129. Barnett, C. (2013), ‘Class – Part II’, in J. A. Agnew, J. S. Duncan (eds), The WileyBlackwell Companion to Human Geography, pp. 426–39. Hoboken, NJ: WileyBlackwell. Barthes, R. (1957), Mythologies, Paris: Les Lettres Nouvelles. Bartoli, C. (2012), Razzisti per legge: L’Italia che discrimina, Roma-Bari: Laterza. Barton, A. W., Leonard, S. J. (2010) ‘Incorporating social justice in tourism planning: Racial reconciliation and sustainable community development in the Deep South’, Community Development, 41(3), 298–322. Bassnett, S. (2013), ‘Introduction’, in J. Speake (ed.), Literature of Travel and Exploration: An Encyclopedia, 2 vols., pp. xi–xv, London and New York: Routledge. Bator, P. M. (1983), The International Trade in Art, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Baudrillard, J. (1994), Symbolic Exchange and Death, London: Sage Publishing. Beales, D., Biagini, E. F. (2013), The Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy, London and New York: Routledge. Beeton, S. (2005), Film-Induced Tourism, Bristol: Channel View Publications. Bender, B. (ed.) (1993a), Landscape. Politics and Perspectives, Oxford: Berg. Bender, B. (1993b), ‘Introduction. Landscape – meaning and action’, in B. Bender (ed.), Landscape. Politics and Perspectives, pp. 1–17, Oxford: Berg. Bérard, V. (1929), Les navigations d’Ulysse, 4 vols., Paris: Armand Colin. Bérard, V. (1933), Dans le sillage d’Ulysse, Paris: Armand Colin. Bérard, J. (1957), La colonisation Grecque de l’Italie méridionale et de la Sicile dans l’antiquité. L’histoire et la légende, Paris: Presses Universitaire de France. Berdar, A., Riccobono, F. (1986), Le meraviglie dello Stretto di Messina, Messina: Sfameni. Bernal, M. (2006) [1987], Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Bertarelli, L. V. (1928), Guida d’Italia del Touring Club Italiano. Italia Meridionale. Vol. 3: Campania, Basilicata e Calabria, Milano: Touring Club Italiano. Bertellini, G. (2010), Italy in Early American Cinema, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Bibliography

229

Betteridge, T. (ed.) (2007), Borders and Travellers in Early Modern Europe, Aldershot/ Burlington: Ashgate. Bettini, F. (2005), ‘Introduzione: Un antichissimo presente’, in D. Puliga and S. Panichi (eds), Un’altra Grecia. Le Colonie d’Occidente tra mito, arte e memoria, pp. v–xxiii, Torino: Einaudi. Bettini, M. (2011), ‘Miti di miti. Alla ricerca del ciabattino che cucì l’otre dei venti’, in P. Volpe (ed.), Isola / Isole. Sulla rotta di Odisseo e . . . oltre, pp. 11–34, Napoli: D’Auria. Bettini M. (2016), Radici. Tradizione, identità, memoria, Bologna: Il Mulino. Bettini, M. (2017), Contro le radici. Tradizione, identità, memoria, Bologna: Il Mulino. Bettini, M., Spina, L. (2007), Il mito delle Sirene. Immagini e racconti dalla Grecia a oggi, Torino: Einaudi. Bhabha, H. (1994), The Location of Culture, London: Routledge. Bianchini, F. Torrigiani, M., Cere, R. (1996), ‘Cultural policy’, in D. Forgacs, R. Lumley (eds), Italian Cultural Studies, pp. 291–308, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bianco, E. (2000), Riserva Naturale Integrale Isola Lachea e Faraglioni dei Ciclopi, Catania: Maimone. Billig, M. (1995), Banal Nationalism, London: Sage. Black, J. (1992), The British Abroad: The Grand Tour in the Eighteenth Century, New York: St. Martin’s Press. Boitani, P. (1992), L’ombra di Ulisse. Figure di un mito, Bologna: Il Mulino. Bolter, J. D., Grusin, R. (2000), Remediation: Understanding New Media, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bond, S. (2018), ‘Fasces, fascism, and how the alt-right continues to appropriate ancient Roman symbols’, Hyperallergic, September, available at https://hyperallergic. com/459504/fasces-fascism-and-how-the-alt-right-continues-to-appropriateancient-roman-symbols/ (last accessed 15/12/2020). Bonifazi, C., Heins, F. (2017), ‘Internal migration patterns in Italy: Continuity and change before and during the Great Recession’, Rivista Italiana di Economia Demografia e Statistica, LXXI(2): 5–24. Borneman, J., Hammoudi, A. (2009), Being There: The Fieldwork Encounter and the Making of Truth, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Bortolotto, C. (2011), ‘Patrimonio immateriale e autenticita. Una relazione inclissolubile’, La Ricerca Folklorica, 64: 7–17. Bouchard, N., Ferme, N. (2016), Italy and the Mediterranean: Words, Sounds, and Images of the Post-Cold War Era, New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Bourdieu, P. (1977), Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bowden, M. J. (1976), ‘The great American desert in the American mind: The historiography of a geographical notion’, in D. Lowenthal, M. J. Bowden (eds), Geographies of the Mind, pp. 89–117, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Braccesi, L. (2010), Sulle rotte di Ulisse. L’invenzione della geografia omerica, Roma-Bari: Laterza.

230

Bibliography

Bradford, E. (1963), Ulysses Found, London: Hodder and Stoughton. Braudel, F. (ed.) (1985), La méditerranée. L’espace et l’histoire, Paris: Flammarion. Brett, D. (1996), The Construction of Heritage, Cork: Cork University Press. Bril, J. (1998), Lilith ou la mère obscure, Le Bouscat: L’Esprit du Temps. Broodbank, C. (2013), The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World, London: Thames and Hudson. Bruni, L. (2006), Researches on Marine Biology in the Straits of Messina: Past and Present, The University of Malta, available at www.um.edu.mt/__data/assets/pdf_ file/0003/96096/bruni2006.pdf (last accessed: 15/12/2020). Burgess, J. S. (2013), In the Wake of Odysseus: Localization of the Journey of Odysseus. With Research by T. Wright, T. Perr, S. Allemang, L. Mawhinney, Department of Classics, University of Toronto, available at http://homes.chass.utoronto. ca/~jburgess/rop/od.voyage.html (last accessed: 15/12/2020). Burn, A. R. (1963), ‘Foreword’, in E. Bradford, Ulysses Found, pp. xv–xvi, London: Hodder and Stoughton. Busby, G., Klug, J. (2001), ‘Movie-induced tourism: The challenge of measurement and other issues’, Journal of Vacation Marketing, 7(4): 316–332. Buse, P., Stott, A. (1999), ‘Introduction: A future for haunting’, in P. Buse, A. Stott (eds), Ghosts: Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis, History, London: Palgrave. Butler, R. (1991), ‘West Edmonton Hall as a tourist attraction’, Canadian Geographer, 35: 287–295. Butler, S. (1897), The Authoress of the Odyssey, London, New York and Bombay : Longmans, Green, and Co. Buttimer, A. (1976), ‘Grasping the dynamism of lifeworld’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 66(2): 277–292. Cacciari, M. (1994), Geofilosofia dell’Europa. Sesta edizione, Milano: Adelphi. Caillois, R. (1965), Au coeur du fantastique, Paris: Gallimard. Carbone, M. B. (2014), ‘I Bronzi, il Bruneau-gate, e il destino di Reggio’, Scenari, 7 November, available at www.mimesis-scenari.it/2014/11/07/i-bronzi-il-bruneaugate-e-il-destino-di-reggio/ (last accessed: 15/12/2020). Carbone, M. B. (2017a), Transformations of Scylla and Charybdis: Encounters with Otherness and Ancient Greek Myth in Post-Classical Perspective, PhD Thesis, Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Gender, Society and Cultural Studies – Documentary-Film Track, University College London. Carbone, M. B. (2017b), In The Strait [documentary film essay], available at https:// vimeo.com/238236625/f5d6db415d (last accessed 15/12/2020). Carbone, M. B. (2017c), ‘Chronotopes of Hellenic antiquity: The Strait of Reggio and Messina in documents of the Grand Tour era’, in R. R. Guardiola (ed.), The Ancient Mediterranean in Modern Visual and Performing Arts, pp. 33–54, London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Bibliography

231

Carbone, M. B. (2018), ‘Beauty and the octopus: Close encounters with the other-thanhuman’, in J. Hackett, S. Harrington (eds), Beasts of the Deep: Sea Creatures and Popular Cultures, pp. 59–76, Bloomington, IN: John Libbey Publishing & Indiana University Press. Carbone Grio, D. (1884), I terremoti di Calabria e Sicilia nel secolo XVIII, Napoli: De Angelis. Cardinal, R. (2013), ‘Fantasy travel writing’, J. Speake (ed.), Literature of Travel and Exploration. An Encyclopedia, pp. 422–5, 2 vols., London and New York: Routledge. Carlà-Uhink, F. (2020), Representations of Classical Greece in Theme Parks, London: Bloomsbury. Carratelli, P. (1988), I santuari extramurani, in Magna Grecia, vita religiosa e cultura, Milano: Electa. Carrier, J. G. (1992), ‘Occidentalism: The world turned upside-down’, American Ethnologist, 19(2): 195–212. Carrol, W. K. (2012), ‘Global, transnational, regional, national: The need for nuance in theorizing global capitalism’, Critical Sociology, 38(3): 365–371. Cartier, C., Lew, A. A. (2005), Seductions of Place: Geographical Perspectives on Globalization and Touristed Landscapes, London and New York: Routledge. Casey, E. S. (1993), Getting Back Into Place. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Cassano, F. (2000), ‘Contro tutti i fondamentalismi. Il nuovo Mediterraneo’, in V. Consolo, F. Cassano (eds), Rappresentare il Mediterraneo. Lo sguardo italiano, pp. 55–65, Messina: Mesogea. Cassano, F. (2009), Tre modi di vedere il Sud, Bologna: Il Mulino. Cassano, F. (2011), Southern Thought and Other Essays on the Mediterranean, tr. N. Bouchard, V. Ferme, New York: Fordham University Press. Castells, M. (ed.) (2004), The Network Society: A Cross-Cultural Perspective, Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. Castrizio, D. (2010), Le monete della necropoli nord di Antinoupolis (1937–2007), Imprint Firenze: Istituto papirologico G. Vitelli. Castrizio, D. (2016), Bronzi di Riace. L’enigma dei due guerrieri, Reggio Calabria: Città del Sole Edizioni. Ceserani, G. (2013), Italy’s Lost Greece: Magna Graecia & the Making of Modern Archaeology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ceserani, G. (2014), ‘Antiquarian transformation in eighteenth-century Europe’, in A. Schnapp, L. Von Falkenhausen, N. P. Miller, T. Murray (eds), World Antiquarianism: Comparative Perspectives, pp. 317–42, Los Angeles: Getty Publications. Chakrabarty, D. (2000), Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Chaney, E. (1998), The Evolution of the Grand Tour: Anglo-Italian Cultural Relations since the Renaissance, London/Portland: Frank Cass.

232

Bibliography

Cimino, M. (2014), ‘Reggio, arte a Obiettivo 1’, Il Quotidiano, Reggio Calabria, September 17. Clifford, J. (1997), Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clifford, J., Marcus, G. (1986), Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Cocker, A. (2012), ‘Borders crossing: Practices for beating the bound’, in H. Andrews, L. Roberts (eds), Liminal Landscapes, pp. 50–66, London & New York: Routledge. Cole, J. R. (1980), ‘Cult archaeology and unscientific method and theory’, Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, 3: 1–33. Colella, B. (2008), ‘Omero nel Baltico: Epopee scandinave riprodotte nei libri omerici? L’ipotesi di Felice Vinci’, Greco e Classici, available at http://guide.supereva.it/greco/ interventi/2008/11/omero-nel-baltico (last accessed: 15/05/2017). Connor, W. (1994), Ethnonationalism: The Quest for Understanding, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Connor, W. (2001), ‘Homelands in a world of states’, in M. Guibernau, J. Hutchinson (eds), Understanding Nationalism, pp. 53–73, Oxford: Polity Press/Blackwell. Consolo, V. (1993), Vedute dello Stretto di Messina, Palermo: Sellerio. Conticello, M. (2012), La grotta di Tiberio a Sperlonga e le sculture di soggetto omerico / The Grotto of Tiberius in Sperlonga and the Homeric Sculptures, Roma: Phoenix. Cortese, A. (2015), ‘Il movimento migratorio in Calabia dall’Unificazione ai giorni nostri’, Rivista Calabrese di Storia del ‘900, 2: 5–22. Cosgrove, D. (1983), ‘Towards a radical cultural geography’, Antipode, 15: 1–11. Cosgrove, D. (1993), The Palladian Landscape: Geographical Change and Its Cultural Representation in Sixteenth-Century Italy, Leicester: Leicester University Press. Cosgrove, D. (1999), ‘Global illumination and enlightenment in the geographies of Vincenzo Coronelli and Athanasius Kircher’, in D. Livingstone, C. W. J. Withers (eds), Geography and Enlightenment, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Cosgrove, D., Daniels, S. (eds) (1988), The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design and Use of Past Environments, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crary, M. (1990), Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Creed, B. (1993), The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis, London and New York: Routledge. Crespo Delgado, D., Romero Muñoz, D. (eds) (2009) [1886], Teatro geografico Antiguo y Moderno del Reyno de Sicilia. Un retrato del poder virreinal españo, en Sicilia, Madrid: Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y de Cooperación. Croce, B. (1921), History, Its Theory and Practice. New York: Harcourt & Brace. Cronon, W. (1983), Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of Land. New York: Hill and Wang.

Bibliography

233

Crouch, D., Lübbren N. (eds) (2003), Visual Culture and Tourism, Oxford & New York: Berg. Csapo, E. (2005), Theories of Mythology, Maldon, MA and Oxford: Blackwell. Cuisenier, J. (2003), Le périple d’Ulysse, Paris: Fayard. Cuisenier, J. (2004), Les Navigations d’Ulysses. Ethnologue, available at http://jean. cuisenier.online.fr/ulysse/index.html (last accessed: 15/09/2020). Culcasi, K. (2011), ‘Cartographies of supranationalism: Creating and silencing territories in the “Arab Homeland” ’, Political Geography, 30: 417–428. Dafas, K. A. (2019), ‘Greek large-scale bronze statuary: The Late Archaic and Classical periods’, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, BICS Supplement, 138: 51–67. Dal Lago, E. (2014), ‘Italian national unification and the Mezzogiorno: Colonialism in one country?’, in R. Healy, E. Dal Lago (eds), The Shadow of Colonialism on Europe’s Modern Past, pp. 57–72, New York: Springer. Davis, S. (2017), ‘The new white nationalism’s sloppy use of art history, decoded’, Artnet, available at https://news.artnet.com/art-world/identity-evropa-posters-artsymbolism-881747 (last accessed 15/12/2020). Dawkins, R. (1976), The Selfish Gene, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Debord G. (1967), La société du spectacle, Paris: Buchet-Chastel. Décultot, E. (2000), Johann Joachim Winckelman: Enquête sur la Genèse de l’Histoire de l’Art, Paris: PUF. Defant, A. (1940), ‘Scilla e Cariddi e le correnti di marea nello Stretto di Messina’, Geofisica Pura Applicata, 2: 93–112. De Grazia, P. (1930), ‘Sull’esistenza di alcune isole nel Mar Jonio presso Crotone’, Atti dell’XI Congresso Geografico Italiano, Napoli: Giannini. De Lange (1965), Guide to Italy. Vol 2: Central and Southern Italy 1965, Amsterdam and London: De Lange N. V and E. Stanford Ltd. Del Boca, D., Venturini, A. (2003), ‘Italian migration’, Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit Institute for the Study of Labor, Discussion Paper No. 938, http://ftp.iza. org/dp938.pdf. Deleuze, G. (1997), ‘Desire and pleasure’, in A. I. Davidson (ed.), Foucault and His Interlocutors, tr. D. W. Smith, pp. 183–92, Chicago, IL and London: The University of Chicago Press. Deleuze, G., Guattari, F. (1994), What Is Philosophy? New York: Columbia University Press. Della Porta, D. (2008), Le ragioni del no. Le campagne contro la TAV in Val di Susa e il Ponte sullo Stretto, Milano: Feltrinelli. De Martino, E. (1955), ‘Intorno a una polemica [Intellettuali e Mezzogiorno]’, Nuovi Argomenti, 12: 33–42. De Martino, E. (1961), La terra del rimorso, Milano: Il Saggiatore. De Martino, E. (1973), Il mondo magico. Prolegomeni a una storia del magismo, Torino: Boringhieri (original: Torino: Einaudi, 1948). Derrida, J. (1976), Of Grammatology, Baltimore MD: John Hopkins University Press.

234

Bibliography

Derrida, J. (1994), Spectres of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International, London: Routledge. De Sensi Sestito, G., Mancuso, S. (eds) (2011), Enotri e Brettii in Magna Grecia Modi e forme di interazione culturale, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. De Seta, C. (1982), ‘L’Italia nello specchio del Grand Tour’, in Storia d’Italia. V. Il paesaggio, pp. 127–263, Torino: Einaudi. De Tavel, D. (1996) [1825], Lettere dalla Calabria, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino (Voyage d’un officier français en Calabre; ou, Lettres propres à faire connaître l’état ancien et moderne de la Calabre. . ., Béchet Ainé: Paris). Detienne, M. (1986) [1981], The Creation of Mythology, Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press. Diaz-Andreu, M. (2007), A World History of Nineteenth-Century Archaeology. Nationalism, Colonialism, and the Past, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Didier, C. (1846), Sicile, Calabre, Pouilles, in Librairie Pigoreau (ed.), L’Italie Pittoresque (3rd edn), Paris: Librairie Pigoreau. Didier, C. (2008), Viaggio in Calabria, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. Dietler, M. (1994), ‘ “Our ancestors the Gauls”: Archaeology, ethnic nationalism, and the manipulation of Celtic identity in modern Europe’, American Anthropologist, 96(3): 584–605. Dietler, M. (2006), ‘Celticism, Celtitude, and Celticity: The consumption of the past in the age of globalization’, in S. Rieckhoff (ed.), Celtes et Gaulois dans l’histoire, l’historiographie et l’idéologie moderne. Actes de la table ronde de Leipzig, 16–17 juin 2005, pp. 237–48, Glux-en-Glenne: Bibracte, Centre Archéologique Européen. Dietler, M. (2010), Archaeologies of Colonialism: Consumption, Entanglement, and Violence in Ancient Mediterranean France, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Dittmer, J. (2012), Captain America and the Nationalist Superhero: Metaphors, Narratives, and Geopolitics, Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Dixon, D., Straughan, E. R. (2013), ‘Affect’, in N. C. Johnson, R. H. Schein, J. Winders (eds), The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Cultural Geography, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Donnan, C. B, Clewlow, W. C. (eds) (1973), Ethnoarchaeology, Los Angeles, CA: Institute of Archaeology. Donnellan, L., Nizzo, V., Burgers G. J. (2016), Conceptualising Early Colonisation: Archaeology, Sources, and Interpretative Models between Italy and the Mediterranean, Bruxelles: Belgisch Historisch Insituut te Rome. Donnelly, M., Norton, C. (2012), Doing History (2nd edn), London: Routledge. Douglas, M. (1970), Natural Symbols, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Dunbabin, T. J. (1948), The Western Greeks: The History of Sicily and South Italy from the Foundation of the Greek Colonies to 480 bc , Oxford: Oxford University Press. Duke, P. (2007), The Tourist Gaze, the Cretans Glance: Archaeology and Tourism on a Greek Island, Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.

Bibliography

235

D’Urso, G. (2020), La vera Storia di Acitrezza. Saggi e riflessioni sulla Storia del borgo marinaro, Catania: Graziano D’Urso. Dwyer, O. J. (2004), ‘Symbolic accretion and commemoration’, Social & Cultural Geography, 5(3): 419–435. Dwyer, O. J, Jones III, J. P. (2000), ‘White socio-spatial epistemology’, Social and Cultural Geography, 1(2): 209–222. Eberhart, G. M. (2010), Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology, Woolfardisworthy, North Devon: CFZ Publishing Group. Eco, U. (2013), The Book of Legendary Lands, London: MacLehose Press. Egberts, L., Alvarez, N. D. (2018), Heritage and Tourism: Places, Imageries and the Digital Age, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Eliade (1991) [1954], The Myth of the Eternal Return: Or, Cosmos and History, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. European Commission (2020), ‘Regional Innovation Monitor Plus: Calabria’, available at https://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/regional-innovation-monitor/ base-profile/calabria (last accessed: 15/12/2020). Exon et al. (2000), Stonehenge Landscapes: Journeys Through Real-and-Imagined Worlds, Oxford: Archaeopress. Fabian, J. (1983), Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object, New York: Columbia University Press. Faeta, F. (1996), Nelle Indie di quaggiù. Fotografie 1970–1995, Milano: Jaca Books. Fagan, G. (2006), ‘Diagnosing pseudoarchaeology’, in G. Garrett, G. Fagan (eds), Archaeological Fantasies: How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public, pp. 23–46, London and New York: Routledge. Fagan, G, Feder, K. L. (2006), ‘Crusading against straw men: An alternative view of alternative archaeologies – response to Holtorf ’, World Archaeology, 38(4): 718–729. Fanon, F. (2008) [1952], Black Skin, White Masks, New York: Grove Press. Farinetti, T., Stewart, C. (2012), ‘Translators’ preface: An introduction to “Crisis of presence and religious reintegration” by Ernesto de Martino’, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 2(2): 431–433. Farney, G. D., Bradley, G. (2018), The Peoples of Ancient Italy, Berlin: de Gruyter. Feder, K. L. (2004), Frodi, miti e misteri, Roma: Avverbi (original: Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries, Houston, TX: Mayfield Publishing, 1990). Fenicia, S. (1857), Cenno sul vortice Cariddi, Napoli: Stamperia Salvatore Piscopo. Filippucci, P. (1996), ‘Anthropological perspective on culture in Italy’, in D. Forgacs, R. Lumley (eds), Italian Cultural Studies, pp. 52–71, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Findler, P. (2004), Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man Who Knew Everything, London and New York: Routledge. Foote, K., Azaryahu, M. (2007), ‘Toward a geography of memory : Geographical dimensions of public memory and commemoration’, Journal of Political and Military Sociology, 35(1): 125–144.

236

Bibliography

Forgacs, D. (1996), ‘Cultural consumption. 1940s to 1990s’, in D. Forgacs, R. Lumley (eds), Italian Cultural Studies, pp. 271–90, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Forgacs, D., Lumley, R. (eds) (1996), Italian Cultural Studies, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Forty, A. (1999), ‘Introduction’, in A. Forty, S. Kuschler (eds), The Art of Forgetting, pp. 1–18, Oxford: Berg. Foster, C. (2013), ‘Greece, Ancient Hellenic world’, in J. Speake (ed.), Literature of Travel and Exploration. An Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, G–P, pp. 507–10, London and New York: Fitzroy Bearborn. Foucault, M. (1980), Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings: 1972–1977, New York: Pantheon. Foucault, M. (1984), ‘Des espace autres’, Architecture/Mouvement/Continuité, 5: 46–49 (Eng. edn ‘Of other spaces: Utopias and heterotopias’, tr. Jay Miskowiec, Diacritics 16(1): 22–27). Foucault, M. (2005), The Order of Things, London and New York: Routledge (Original: Les mots et les choses, Paris: Gallimard, 1966). Foulke, R. (2002), The Sea Voyage Narrative, London and New York: Routledge. Franchetti, L. (1961), ‘Africa e Mezzogiorno / Leopoldo Franchetti’, in R. Villari (ed.), Il Sud nella storia d’Italia. Antologia della questione meridionale, Bari: Laterza. Frank, T. and Hadler, F. (2011), ‘Nations, borders and the historical profession: On the complexity of historiographical overlaps in Europe’, in T. Frank, F. Hadler (eds), Disputed Territories and Shared Pasts. Overlapping National Histories in Modern Europe, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Frazer, J. G. (1922), The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Abridged edn), New York: The MacMillan Company. Fusillo, M. (2016), ‘Perché non difendo il Liceo Classico (così com’è)’, Le parole e le cose, available at www.leparoleelecose.it/?p=24565 (last accessed 15/12/2020). Gamson, W. A., Croteau, D., Hoynes, al W., Sasson, T. (1992), ‘Media images and the social construction of reality’, Annual Review of Sociology, 18: 373–393. Gathercole, P., Lowenthal, D. (eds) (1994), The Politics of the Past, London and New York: Routledge. Gatti, E. (1975), II viaggio coloniale di Ulisse. La scoperta di Skera, Milano: Edizioni Virgilio. Geertz, C. (1973), The Interpretation of Cultures, New York: Basic Books. Gellner, E. (1983), Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell. Genette, G. (1988), Narrative Discourse Revisited, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Genovesi, P. (2016), ‘La scuola in Italia dall’Unità ad oggi. Lo snodo della riforma Gentile (e del modello classico)’, Memorie scientifiche, giuridiche, letterarie / Accademia nazionale di scienze, lettere e arti di Modena, series 8, 19(2): 431–446. Gérard, A. (1982), ‘La vision de la défaite gauloise dans l’enseignement secondaire’, Nos ancêtres les Gaulois, Actes du Colloque International de Clermont-Ferrand,

Bibliography

237

Association des Publications de la Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de Clermont-Ferrand, 13: 357–365. Giardinazzo, F. (2002), ‘Sui prati, ora in cenere, di Omero. Elementi per una genealogia poetica di “Horcynus Orca” ’, in F. Gatta (ed.), Il mare di sangue pestato. Studi su Stefano D’Arrigo, pp. 115–42, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. Gibson-Graham, J. K. (2006), A Post Capitalist Politics, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Gieryn, T. (1983), ‘Boundary-work and the demarcation of science from non-science: Strains and interests in professional ideologies of scientists’, American Sociological Review, 48(6): 781–795. Gilroy, P. (1993), The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness, London: Verso. Gilroy, P. (2000), Against Race: Imagining Political Culture beyond the Color Line, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Giordano, C. (2001), ‘Europe: Sociocultural overview’, International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, pp. 4917–23, Oxford: Pergamon. Giordano, C. (2012), ‘The discovery of Mediterranean societies as an anthropological subject’, in U. Kockle, M. N. Craith, J. Frykman (eds), A Companion to the Anthropology of Europe, pp. 11–31, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Giordano, F. (2010), Giro d’orizzonte. Cinema, spazi, paesaggi, da Sud e oltre, Reggio Calabria: Città del Sole Edizioni. Giordano, F. (2018), Paesaggi Meridiani. Luoghi, spazi, territori del Sud nel cinema italiano (1987–2004), Milano-Udine: Mimesis. Goff, B. (2005), Classics and Colonialism, Bristol: Bristol Classical Press. Goffman, E. (1974), Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. London: Harper and Row. Golding, L. (1955), Good-bye to Ithaca, London: Hutchinson. Gorak, J. (1991), The Making of a Modern Canon, London and Atlantic Highland, NJ: Athlone. Grabham, E. (2009), ‘ “Flagging the skin”: Corporeal nationalism and the properties of belonging’, Body and Society, 15: 63–82. Graburn, N. H. H. (1989), ‘Tourism: The sacred journey’, in V. L. Smith (ed.), Hosts and Guests. The Anthropology of Tourism, pp. 17–31, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Greco, E., Lombardo, M. (2012), ‘La colonizzazione greca. Modelli interpretativi nel dibattito attuale’, in Atti del 50 convegno di studi sulla Magna Grecia, pp. 37–60, Taranto: Istituto per la Storia e l’Archeologia della Magna Grecia. Greenfield, J. (1996), The Return of Cultural Treasures, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greenwood, E. (2013), ‘Odyssey’, in J. Speake (ed.), Literature of Travel and Exploration: An Encyclopedia, 2 vols., pp. 880–1, London and New York: Routledge. Gribaudi, G. (1996), ‘Images of the South’, in D. Forgacs, R. Lumley (eds), Italian Cultural Studies, pp. 72–86, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

238

Bibliography

Grosfoguel, R. (2008), ‘World-system analysis and postcolonial studies: A call for a dialogue from the “coloniality of power” approach’, in R. Krishnaswamy, J. C. Hawley (eds), The Postcolonial and the Global, pp. 93–104, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Grushaw, I. (2013), ‘Guidebooks’, in J. Speake (ed.), Literature of Travel and Exploration. An Encyclopedia, 2 vols., pp. 519–21, London and New York: Routledge. Guibernau, M. (1996), Nationalisms: The Nation-State and Nationalism in the Twentieth Century, Oxford: Polity Press/Blackwell. Guzzo, P. G. (ed.) (2016), ‘Enotri, Greci e Brettii nella Sibaritide. Atti della giornata di studi in memoria di Silvana Luppino, 2014’, in Rivista dell’Istituto Nazionale, Pisa: Fabrizio Serra. Haffner, R. E. (1952), ‘Zoogeography of the bathypelagic fish, Chauliodus’, Systematic Zoology, 1(3): 113–133. Hague, E., Giordano, B., Sebesta, E. H. (2005), ‘Whiteness, multiculturalism and nationalist appropriation of Celtic culture: The case of the League of the South and the Lega Nord’, Cultural Geographies, 12: 151–173. Haid, K. (2015), Calabria: The Other Italy, Minneapolis, MN: Mill City Press. Halbwachs, M. (1992), On Collective Memory, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press (Original: Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire, Paris: F. Alcan, 1952). Hall, E. (2012), The Return of Ulysses, London: I. B. Tauris. Hamblyn, R. (1996), ‘Private cabinets and popular geology’, in C. Chard, H. Langdon (eds), Transports: Travel, Pleasure, and Imaginative Geography, pp. 179–205, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hamilakis, Y. (2006), ‘The colonial, the national, and the local: Legacies of the “Minoan” past’, in Y. Hamilakis, N. Momigliano (eds), Archaeology and European Modernity: Producing and Consuming the “Minoans”. Creta Antica, special issue 7, pp. 145–62, Padova: Aldo Ausilio-Bottega d’Erasmo. Hamilakis, Y. (2007), The Nation and Its Ruins: Antiquity, Archaeology and National Imagination in Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hamilakis, Y., Yalouri, E. (1996), ‘Antiquities as symbolic capital in modern Greece’, Antiquity, 70: 117–129. Hanink, J. (2017), The Classical Debt: Greek Antiquity in an Era of Austerity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hardt, M., Negri, A. (2000), Empire, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hardwick, L., Harrison, S. (eds) (2013), Classics in the Modern World: A ‘Democratic Turn’?, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hartog, F, (2015), Regimes of Historicity: Presentism and Experiences of Time, tr. S. Brown, New York: Columbia University Press. Harvey, D. (1989), The Condition of Postmodernity, Oxford: Blackwell. Hawes, G. (2014), Rationalizing Myth in Antiquity, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hawthorne, C., Pesarini, A. (2020), Making Black Lives Matter in Italy: A Transnational Dialogue, Public Books.

Bibliography

239

Helfers, J. P. (2013), ‘Maps and charts, early period’, in J. Speake (ed.), Literature of Travel and Exploration. An Encyclopedia, 2 vols., pp. 766–8, London and New York: Routledge. Herzfeld, M. (1982), Ours Once More: Folklore, Ideology, and the Making of Modern Greece, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Herzfeld, M. (1984), ‘The horns of the Mediterraneanist dilemma’, American Ethnologist, 11(3): 439–54. Herzfeld, M. (1987), Anthropology through the Looking-Glass: Critical Ethnography in the Margins of Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Herzfeld, M. (1991), A Place in History: Social and Monumental Time in a Cretan Town, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Herzfeld, M. (2004), The Body Impolitic: Artisans and Artifice in the Global Hierarchy of Value, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hesse, D. (1993), Science in the New Age: The Paranormal, Its Defenders and Debunkers, and American Culture, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Hines, T. (2003), Pseudoscience and the Paranormal, New York: Prometheus Books. Hirsch, E. (1995), ‘Introduction: Landscape: Between place and space’, in E. Hirsch, M. O’Hanlon (eds), The Anthropology of Landscape, pp. 1–29, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hirsch, E., O’Hanlon, M. (eds) (1995), The Anthropology of Landscape, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hobsbawm, E. (1990), Nations and Nationalism since 1780, Cambridge: Canto. Hobsbawm, E. (1992), ‘Ethnicity and nationalism in Europe today’, Anthropology Today, 8(1): 3–8. Hobsbawm, E., Ranger, T. (eds) (1983), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hoby T. (1902), The Travels and Life of Sir Thomas Hoby, Knight of Bisham Abbey, Written by Himself. 1547–1564. Edited for the Royal Historical Society by Edgar Powell, London: Royal Historical Society. Hodkinson, S., Macgregor Morris, I. (eds) (2012), Sparta in Modern Thought: Politics, History and Culture, Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Hollinshead, K. (1997), ‘Surveillance of the worlds of tourism: Foucault and the past’, in C. Ryan (ed.), The Tourist Experience: A New Introduction, pp. 170–93, London: Cassell. Hopman, M. G. (2012), Scylla. Myth, Metaphor, Paradox, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Horden, P. and Purcell, N. (2000), The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History, Oxford: Blackwell. Howard, P. (2003), ‘Artists as drivers of the tour bus: Landscape painting as a spur to tourism’, in D. Crouch and N. Lübbren (eds), Visual Culture and Tourism, pp. 109–23, Oxford and New York: Berg. Hudson, B. (1977), ‘The new geography and the new imperialism: 1870–1918’, Antipode, 9(2): 12–19.

240

Bibliography

Hurn, S. (2017), Anthropology and Cryptozoology: Exploring Encounters with Mysterious Creatures, London & New York: Routledge. Hutchinson, J. (1994), Modern Nationalism, London: Fontana. Inglis, F. (2000), The Delicious History of the Holiday, London: Routledge. Jablonka, P. (2011), ‘Rezension. Frank Kolb: Tatort “Troia”. Geschichte, Mythen, Politik’, Jahresschrift für mitteldeutsche Vorgeschichte, 92: 527–555. Jannacodìmu, E. (2006), ‘Premessa’, in F. Violi, Storia della Calabria Greca, pp. 13–14, Reggio Calabria: Kaleidon. Jazeel, T. (2013), ‘Postcolonialism’, in N. C. Johnson, R. H. Schein, J. Winders (eds), The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Cultural Geography, pp. 15–22, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Johnson, N. C. (2013), ‘Political landscapes’, in N. C. Johnson, R. H. Schein, J. Winders (eds), The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Cultural Geography, pp. 173–85, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Jones III, J. P. (2013), ‘Poststructuralism’, in J. S. Duncan, N. C. Johnson, R. H. Schein, A Companion to Cultural Geography, pp. 23–8, Oxford: Blackwell. Karp, I., Kreamer, C. M. and Lavine, S. D. (eds) (1991), Museums and Communities, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. Kidd, K. (2010), ‘Homer’s Canadian Odyssey: A classics buff and retired engineer from the Bedford Institute reckons Odysseus might well have bounced around the Bay of Fundy in his travels’, The Star, available at www.thestar.com/news/ canada/2010/05/26/ (last accessed 15/12/2020). King, R., Mai, N. (2009), ‘Italophilia meets Albanophobia: Paradoxes of asymmetric assimilation and identity processes among Albanian immigrants in Italy’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 32(1): 117–138. Knight, D. M., Stewart, C. (2012), ‘Ethnographies of austerity: Temporality, crisis and affect in Southern Europe’, History and Anthropology, 27(1): 1–18. Kobayashi, A. (2013), ‘Critical ‘race’ approaches’, in J. S. Duncan, N. C. Johnson, R. H. Schein (eds), A Companion to Cultural Geography, pp. 57–72, Oxford: Blackwell. Koch, H. (2013), Casa Pound Italia. Mussolinis Erben, Münster: Unrast Verlag. Kolb, F. (2010), Tatort ‘Troia’. Geschichte, Mythen, Politik, Paderborn, Germany : Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh. La Genière, J., De La (1974), ‘Aspetti e problem dell’archaeologia del mondo indigeno’, in CoLe genti non greche della Magna Grecia. Atti del XI Convegno di Studi sulla Magna Grecia (Taranto 1971), pp. 225–73, Napoli: Convegno di Studi sulla Magna Grecia. Lane Fox, R. (2008), Travelling Heroes: Greeks and their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer, London: Penguin. Laroux, N. (1998), Nati dalla terra. Mito e politica ad Atene, Roma: Meltemi. La Torre, G. F. (2017), ‘Il mondo indigeno lungo la costa tirrenica calabrese in età arcaica’, in M. De Sensi Sestito (ed.), Enotri e Brettii in Magna Grecia. Modi e forme di interazione culturale, pp. 123–53, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino.

Bibliography

241

La Torre, G. F. (2018), ‘Prefazione’, in F. Mollo (ed.), Guida Archeologica della Calabria antica, pp. 7–10, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. Lavarone, G. (2016), Cinema, media e turismo. Esperienze e prospettive teoriche del film-induced tourism, Padova: Padova University Press. Lazaridis, G., Campani, G., Benveniste, A. (eds) (2016), The Rise of the Far Right in Europe. Populist Shifts and ‘Othering’, London: Palgrave MacMillan. Leach, E. R. (1961), ‘Two essays concerning the symbolic representation of time’, in E. R. Leach (ed.), Rethinking Anthropology, pp. 124–43, London: Athlone Press. Lefebvre, H. (1974), La Production de l’Espace, Paris: Anthropos. Lennon, J., Foley, M. (2000), Dark Tourism, New York: Cengage Learning Business. Leontis, A. (1995), Topographies of Hellenism: Mapping the Homeland, Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press. Lévi-Strauss, C. (1974), Tristes Tropiques, New York: Atheneum. Lévi-Strauss, C. (1978), Myth and Meaning, London and New York: Routledge. Lévi-Strauss, C. (2004), The Savage Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lianeri, A. (2011), ‘Unfounding times. The idea and ideal of ancient history in Western historical thought’, in A. Lianeri (ed.), The Western Time of Ancient History: Historiographical Encounters with the Greek and Roman Pasts, pp. 3–29, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Liddell, H. G., Scott, R. (1996), A Greek–English Lexicon (9th edn with revised supplement), Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lincoln, B. (1999), Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship, Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press. Lipstadt, D. (1993), Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, New York: The Free Press. Livingstone, D. (1992), The Geographical Tradition, Oxford: Blackwell. Lombardi Satriani, L. M., Paoletti, N. (eds) (1996), Gli Eroi Venuti Dal Mare. Heroes from the Sea: The Photographic Record of the Riace Bronzes, Reggio Calabria: Gangemi Editore. Lombardo, M. (1994), Greci e indigeni in Calabria. Aspetti e problemi dei rapport economici e sociali, in S. Settis (ed.), Storia della Calabria. Età italica e romana, pp. 247–97, Roma and Reggio Calabria: Gangemi. Longo, F. (1882), Il Canale di Messina e le sue correnti, con appendice sui pesci che lo popolano, Messina: Tipografia Ribera. Loprieno, D. (2019), ‘L’accoglienza segregante e il ruolo delle Regioni meridionali con particolare riferimento all’esperienza calabrese’, Le Regioni, 5–6: 1555–1573. Louden, B. (2011), Homer’s Odyssey and the Near East, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Love, R. S. (2006), Maritime Exploration in the Age of Discovery. 1415–1800, London: Greenwood Press. Lovell, N. (ed.) (1998), Locality and Belonging, London and New York: Routledge.

242

Bibliography

Lowenthal, D. (1976), ‘The place of the past in the American landscape’, in D. Lowenthal, M. J. Bowden (eds), Geographies of the Mind, pp. 99–117, New York: Oxford University Press. Lowenthal, D. (1985), The Past is a Foreign Country, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lowenthal, D. (1987), ‘Where does our architectural heritage belong?’, Old Cultures in New Worlds. Proceedings of the 8th General Assembly of the International Council on Monuments and Sites, pp. 685–90, Washington, DC: ICOMOS. Lowenthal, D. (1988), ‘Classical antiquities as national and global heritage’, Antiquity, 62: 726–735. Lowenthal, D. (1994), ‘Conclusions: Archaeologists and others’, in P. Gathercole, D. Lowenthal (eds), The Politics of the Past, pp. 302–14, London and New York: Routledge. Lowenthal, D. (1996), The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Luce, J. V. (1973), The End of Atlantis: New Light on an Old Legend, London: Book Club Associates. Luce, J. V. (1974), ‘The wanderings of Ulysses’, in W. B. Stanford, J. V. Luce (eds), The Quest for Ulysses, pp. 118–38, London: Phaidon Press. Lundberg, C., Ziakas, V. (2018), The Routledge Handbook of Popular Culture and Tourism, London: Routledge. MacSweeney, N. (2019), ‘Claiming the classical: The Greco-Roman world in contemporary political discourse’, Council of University Classical Departments Bulletin, 48, available at https://cucd.blogs.sas.ac.uk/bulletin/ (last accessed 15/12/2020). Majrani, A. (2008), Chi ha ucciso realmente i proci? Ulisse, nessuno, Filottete. Scopero dopo tremila anni il protagonist nascosto dell’Odissea, Firenze: Logisma. Malcangio, L., Treu, M., Trimarchi, M. (2007), ‘Dal Grand Tour ai piani di gestione: valorizzazione e sostenibilità dei teatri antichi’, in L. Malcangio, M. Treu, M. Trimarchi (eds), La valorizzazione dei teatri antichi del Mediterraneo sul mercato del Turismo culturale, pp. 15–21, Roma: Formez. Mali, J. (1994), ‘Narrative, myth, and history’, Science in Context, 7(1): 133–134. Mali, J. (2012), The Legacy of Vico in Modern Cultural History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Malinowski, B. (1962), ‘Myth in primitive psychology’, in B. Malinowski, Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays. Selected, and with an Introduction by Robert Redfield, pp. 72–124, New York: Doubleday. Mangiameli, R. (1988), ‘Mafia a dispense, tra fiction e realtà’, Meridiana, 2: 203–218. Marandino, R. (1997), Tempi e spazi letterari nella Calabria antica, Cosenza: Periferia. Massey, D. (2005), For Space, London: Sage Publishing. Matless, D. (1998), Landscape and Englishness, London: Reaktion. Mattievich, E. (2010), Journey to the Mythological Inferno, Denver, CO: Rogem Press.

Bibliography

243

Mazza, F. (ed.) (2002a), Scilla. Storia, cultura, economia, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. Mazza, F. (2002b), ‘La politica e la vita civile fra evoluzione e discontinuità’, in F. Mazza (ed.), Scilla. Storia, cultura, economia, pp. 139–202, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. Mazzarella, S. (1984), Dell’isola Ferdinandea e altre cose, Palermo: Sellerio. McDowell, S. (2008), ‘Heritage, memory, and identity’, in B. Graham, P. Howard (eds), The Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage and Identity, pp. 37–53, London and New York: Routledge. McLuhan, M. (1964), Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, New York: McGraw Hill. McNeill, W. H. (1986), Mythistory and Other Essays, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Mele, A. (1991), ‘Le popolazioni italiche’, in G. Galasso, R. Romeo (eds), Storia del Mezzogiorno, Vol. 1: Il Mezzogiorno antico, pp. 242–6, Napoli: Edizioni del Sole. Melotti, M. (2008), Turismo archeologico. Dalle piramidi alle veneri di plastica, Milano: Bruno Mondatori. Mertz, H. (1964), Wine Dark Sea, Chicago, IL: Henriette Mertz. Minasi, A. (1773), Dissertazione prima sopra un fenomeno volgarmente detto fata Morgana, o sia apparizione di varie, successive, bizzarre immagini, che per lungo tempo ha sedotto i popoli, e dato a pensare ai dotti, Roma: Benedetto Francesi. Minervino, M. F. (2010), Statale 18, Roma: Fandango Libri. Mitchell, W. J. T. (2002), Landscape and Power (2nd edn), Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Moe, N. (2002), The View from Vesuvius: Italian Culture and the Southern Question, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Mollo, F. (2018), Guida Archeologica della Calabria antica, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. Morgan, N., Pritchard, A., Piggott, R. (2002), ‘New Zealand, 100% pure. The creation of a powerful niche destination brand’, Journal of Brand Management, 9(4/5): 335–354. Morris, D. (1973), Manwatching: A Field Guide to Human Behaviour. London: Jonathan Cape. Mosino, F. (1985), Glossario del Calabrese Antico, Ravenna: Angelo Longo. Mosino, F. (1989), Storia Linguistica della Calabria, Cosenza: Marra Editore. Mosino, F. (2007), L’Odissea scritta a Reggio, Prove testuali, topografiche, filologiche, iconografiche, antropiche, Iiriti Editore: Reggio Calabria. Mozzillo, A. (1964), Viaggiatori stranieri nel Sud, Milano: Edizioni di Comunità. Muhlstein, A., Waugh, T. (2001), Astolphe de Custine: The Last French Aristocrat, London: Duckworth. Muirhead, F. (ed.) (1925), The Blue Guides: Italian Touring Club. Southern Italy Including Rome, Sicily, and Sardinia by L. V. Bertarelli, London and Paris: MacMillan and Co. and Librairie Hachette & Cie. Mulvey, L. (1975), ‘Visual pleasure and narrative cinema’, Screen, 16(3): 6–18.

244

Bibliography

Murillo Perdomo, A. (2004), ‘A modo de apéndice. Algunas reflexiones sobre migración y literatura’, in D. Sole-Espaubia (ed.), Literatura y pateras, Madrid: Akal. Musti, D. (2005), Magna Grecia. Il quadro storico, Roma and Bari: Laterza. Nagy, G. (1993), ‘Oral poetics and Homeric poetry’, Oral Tradition, 18(1): 73–75. Nagy, G. (1995), ‘Foreword’, in A. Leontis, Topographies of Hellenism. Mapping the Homeland, pp. i–vii, Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press. Nature (1903), ‘The Fata Morgana or the Straits of Messina’, Nature, 67: 393–394, available at www.nature.com/articles/067393a0 (last accessed: 08/07/2021). Naylor, S., Ryan, J. R. (eds) (2010), New spaces of Exploration: Geographies of Discovery in the Twentieth Century, London and New York: I. B. Tauris. Nichols, B. (2010) [1991], Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary, Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. Nietzsche, F. (1997), ‘On the use and abuse of history for life’, in F. Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations, R. J. Hollingdale (ed.), pp. 57–123, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (original: Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen, E. W. Fritzsch: Leipzig, 1874). Ortoleva, P. (1996), ‘Geography of the media since 1945’, in D. Forgacs, R. Lumley (eds), Italian Cultural Studies: An Introduction, pp. 185–98, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ortoleva, P. (2019), Miti a bassa intensità. Racconti, media, vita quotidiana, Einaudi: Torino. Özkirimli, U. (2000), Theories of Nationalism: A Critical Introduction, London: Macmillan. Pache, C. O., Dué, C., Lupack, S. M., Lamberton, R. (2020), The Cambridge Guide to Homer, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Page, D. (1973), Folktales in Homer’s Odyssey, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Palmié, S., Stewart, C. (2016), ‘Introduction: For an anthropology of history’, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 6(1): 207–236. Palmié, S., Stewart, C. (2019), ‘Introduction: The varieties of historical experience’, in S. Palmié, C. Stewart (eds), The Varieties of Historical Experience, pp. 1–29, London and New York: Routledge. Panico, C. (2018), ‘The colonial strikes back. Rappresentazione e governance dell’emergenza migratoria’, Giornale critico di storia delle idee, 2: 177–192. Passerini, L. (2003), Figures d’Europe. Images and Myths of Europe, London: Peter Lang. Pellegrino, M. A. (2013), ‘Dying Language’ or a ‘Living Monument’? Language Ideologies, Practices and Policies in the Case of Griko, PhD thesis, Department of Anthropology, University College London. Penrose, D. (2002), ‘Nations, states and homelands: Territory and territoriality in nationalist thought’, Nations and Nationalism, 8(3): 277–297. Perna, T. (2017), Lo sviluppo insostenibile. La fine della “Questione Meridionale” e il futuro del Mezzogiorno, Reggio Calabria: Città del Sole Edizioni. Pescosolido, G. (2017), Nazione, sviluppo economico e questione meridionale in Italia, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino.

Bibliography

245

Phillips, E. D. (1953), ‘Odysseus in Italy’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 73: 53–67. Pieroni, O. (2002), ‘La lenta trasformazione sociale ed economica’, in F. Mazza (ed.), Scilla. Storia, cultura, economia, pp. 235–327, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. Pilati, C., Ceravolo, T. (2010), Carlantonio Pilati. Per antichi sentieri, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. Pine, B. J., Gilmore, J. (1998), ‘Welcome to the experience economy’, Harvard Business Review, 76: 97–105. Pipyrou, S. (2012), ‘Commensurable language and incommensurable claims among the Greek linguistic minority of Southern Italy’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 17(1): 70–91. Pipyrou, S. (2016), The Grecanici of Southern Italy: Governance, Violence, and Minority Politics, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pitrè, G. (2016), Cola Pesce e altre fiabe e leggende popolari siciliane, Roma: Donzelli. Pivato, S. (2006), Il Touring Club Italiano, Bologna: Il Mulino. Placanica, A. (1999), Storia della Calabria. Dall’antichità ai giorni nostri, Roma: Donzelli. Popper, K. (2002a), The Logic of Scientific Discovery, London and New York: Routledge (First English edn, Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 1959). Popper, K. (2002b), The Poverty of Historicism, London and New York: Routledge (First English edn, Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 1957). Pratt, G. (2008), ‘Grids of difference: Place and identity formation’, in R. Fincher, J. M. Jacobs (eds), Grids of Difference, pp. 26–44, New York and London: Guilford Press. Pratt, G., Erengezgin, B. Ç. (2013), ‘Gender’, in J. S. Duncan, N. C. Johnson, R. H. Schein (eds), A Companion to Cultural Geography, pp. 76–87, Oxford: Blackwell. Price, P. L. (2013), ‘Place’, in N. C. Johnson, R. H. Schein, J. Winders (eds), The WileyBlackwell Companion to Cultural Geography, pp. 118–29, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Proglio et al. (eds) (2020), The Black Mediterranean: Bodies, Borders and Citizenship, New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Puliga, D., Panichi, S. (2005), Un’altra Grecia. Le Colonie d’Occidente tra mito, arte e memoria, Torino: Einaudi. Puzey, G., Kostanski, L. (2006), Names and Naming: People, Places, Perceptions and Power, Bristol, Buffalo, NY and Toronto: Multilingual Matters. Quanchy, M. (2013), ‘Photography’, J. Speake (ed.), Literature of Travel and Exploration. An Encyclopedia, 2 Vols., pp. 938–40, London and New York: Routledge. Raimo, C. (2019), Contro l’identità Italiana, Einaudi: Torino. Rajan, B. (1985), The Form of the Unfinished, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Randle, E. (2019), ‘Indigenous Peoples’ Day: The unofficial, Columbus-Free celebration’, The New York Times, 14 October, available at www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/ nyregion/indigenous-day.html (last accessed: 15/12/2020).

246

Bibliography

Rankine, P. D. (2019), ‘The classics, race, and community-engaged or public scholarship’, American Journal of Philology, 140(2): 345–359. Rantanen, T. (2005), The Media and Globalization, London: Sage. Raymond, H. (1963), ‘Utopia all-inclusive’, Landscape, 7: 4–7. Reed, K. (2012), New Directions in Social Theory: Race, Gender and the Canon, London: Sage. Reidy, M. S. (2008), Tides of History: Ocean Science and Her Majesty’s Navy, Chicago, IL and London: Chicago University Press. Renan, E. (2018), What is a Nation? And Other Political Writings, tr. and ed. M. F. N. Giglioli, New York: Columbia University Press. Renda, F. (2003), Storia della Sicilia dalle origini ai giorni nostri, Palermo: Sellerio. Resta, C. (2012), Geofilosofia del Mediterraneo, Messina: Mesogea. Robertson, R. (1992), Globalisation, London: Sage. Roche, H., Demetriou, K. (eds) (2018), Brill’s Companion to the Classics, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, Leiden: Brill. Rogers, B. M., Stevens, B. E. (2017), ‘Introduction: Fantasies of antiquity’, in B. M. Rogers, B. E. Stevens (eds), Classical Traditions in Modern Fantasy, pp. 1–22, New York: New York University Press. Rohlfs, G. (1933), Scavi linguistici nella Magna Grecia, Roma: Collezione Meridionale Editrice. Roloff, B. (1962), A Time of the Gods, London: Thames and Hudson. Romm, E. (1994), The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought: Geography, Exploration, and Fiction, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. Rose, G. (1993), Feminism and Geography: The Limits of Geographical Knowledge, Cambridge: Polity Press. Sack, R. (1986), Human Territoriality: Its Theory and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Saffioti, F. (2007), Geofilosofia del mare, Parma: Diabasis. Said, E. (1978), Orientalism, New York: Vintage Books. Said, E. (1993), Culture and Imperialism, New York: Vintage Books. Saïd, S. (2011), Homer and the Odyssey, tr. Ruth Webb, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sassen, S. (2005), ‘The many scales of the global: Implications for theory and for politics’, in R. P. Appelbaum, W. I. Robinson (eds), Critical Globalization Studies, pp. 155–66, London and New York: Routledge. Scarre, C. (1994), ‘The Western world view in archaeological atlases’, in P. Gathercole, D. Lowenthal (eds), The Politics of the Past, pp. 11–18, London and New York: Routledge. Segal, R. A. (1999), Theorizing about Myth, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Segal, R. A. (2004), Myth: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seligmann, L. J., Estes, B. P. (2020), ‘Innovations in ethnographic methods’, American Behavioral Scientist, 64(2): 176–197.

Bibliography

247

Selwyn, J. D. (2004), A Paradise Inhabited by Devils: The Jesuits’ Civilizing Mission in Early Modern Naples (Catholic Christendom, 1300–1700), London: Routledge. Senior, M. (1978), Greece and Its Myths: A Traveller’s Guide, London: Victor Gollancz. Séstito, M. (1995), Il Gorgo e la Rocca. Tra Scilla e Cariddi. Territori della Mente, Catanzaro: Mario Giuditta Editore. Séstito, M. (2002), ‘La cultura e il mito nel Novecento’, in F. Mazza (ed.), Scilla. Storia, cultura, economia, pp. 203–33, Soveria Manelli: Rubbettino. Severin, T. (1987), The Ulysses Voyage: Sea Search for the Odyssey, New York: E. P. Dutton. Shaw, G. Williams, A. M. (2002), Critical Issues in Tourism: A Geographical Perspective, London and Malden, MA: Blackwell. Shields, R. (1991), Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity, London and New York: Routledge. Silverman, H. (2007), ‘Preface’, in P. Duke (ed.), The Tourist Gaze, the Cretans Glance, pp. 9–11, Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press. Slaner, H. (2016), ‘Perceiving (in) depth: Landscape, sculpture, ruin’, in S. Butler (ed.), Deep Classics: Rethinking Classical Reception, pp. 87–105, London: Bloomsbury. Smith, A. D. (1984), ‘Review article: Ethnic persistence and national transformation’, British Journal of Sociology, XXXV(5): 452–461. Smith, A. D. (1991), National Identity, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Smith, A. D. (1998), Nationalism and Modernism: A Critical Survey of Theories of Nations and Nationalism, London: Routledge. Smith, B. (1985), European Vision and the South Pacific, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Sole, G. (2000), Scilla. Interpretazioni di un mito, Arcavacata di Rende: Centro Editoriale Librario. Soumahoro, A. (2019), Umanità in rivolta. La nostra lotta per il lavoro e il diritto alla felicità, Milano: Feltrinelli. Spencer, T. J. B. (1954), Fair Greece!, Sad Relic: Literary philhellenism from Shakespeare to Byron, London: Widenfeld & Nicholson. Spybey, T. (1992), Social Change, Development and Dependency: Modernity, Colonialism and the Development of the West, Cambridge: Polity Press. Stanford, W. B. (1947), The Odyssey of Homer, London: Macmillan. Stanford W. B. (1954), The Ulysses theme: A study in the adaptability of a traditional hero, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Stanford, W. B., Luce, J. V. (1974), The Quest for Ulysses, London: Phaidon. Stewart, C. (2012), Dreaming and Historical Consciousness in Island Greece, Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Stiebing, W. H. (1987), ‘The nature and dangers of cult archaeology’, F. B. Harrold, R. Eve (eds), Cult Archaeology and Creationism: Understanding Pseudo-Archaeological Beliefs about the Past, pp. 1–10, Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press. Stillman, W. J. (1888), On the Track of Ulysses, Boston, MA and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company – The Riverside Press.

248

Bibliography

Stolzenberg, D. (2013), Egyptian Oedipus: Athanasius Kircher and the Secrets of Antiquity, Chicago, IL and London: The University of Chicago Press. Strutt, A. J. (1840), A Pedestrian Tour in Calabria & Sicily, London: Newby. Sugameli, P. (1892), L’origine trapanese dell’Odissea secondo Samuel Butler, Trapani: Fratelli Messina (now in P. Sugameli (1999), Origine trapanese dell’Odissea, S. Denaro (ed.), Trapani: Coppola, Trapani). Swinburne, H. (1783), Travels in the Two Sicilies, London: P. Elmsly at the Strand. Swyngedouw, E. (2010), ‘Globalisation or “glocalisation”? Networks, territories and rescaling’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 17(1): 25–48. Tedesco, F. (2017), Mediterraneismo. Il pensiero antimeridiano. Milano: Meltemi. Teti, V. (2011), Pietre di pane, Macerata and Roma: Quodlibet. Teti, V. (2015), Terra inquieta. Per una antropologia dell’erranza meridionale, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. Teti, V. (2017), Quel che resta. L’Italia dei paesi, tra abbandoni e ritorni, Roma: Donzelli. Till, K. E. (2003), ‘Places of memory’, in J. Agnew, K. Mitchell, G. Ò Tuathail (eds), A Companion to Political Geography, pp. 289–301, Oxford: Blackwell. Till, K. E. (2004), ‘Political landscapes’, in J. S. Duncan, N. C. Johnson, R. H. Schein, A Companion to Cultural Geography, pp. 347–64, Oxford: Blackwell. Todorov, T. (1970), The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press. Todorova, M. N. (1997), Imagining the Balkans (Kindle edn), Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tolkien, J. R. R. (1947), ‘On fairy stories’, in C. Williams, D. Leigh (eds) Essays presented to Charles Williams, pp. 38–9, Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press. Tramontana, S. (2002), ‘Introduzione alla parte prima’, in F. Mazza (ed.), Scilla. Storia, cultura, economia, pp. 15–30, Soveria Manelli: Rubbettino. Trimarchi, M., (2007), ‘Criteri di sostenibilità e compatibilità per la valorizzazione delle risorse culturali. I teatri antichi del bacino mediterraneo’, in L. Malcangio, M. Treu, M. Trimarchi (eds), La valorizzazione dei teatri antichi del Mediterraneo sul mercato del Turismo culturale, pp. 55–75, Roma: Formez. Tsigakou, F. M. (1981), The Rediscovery of Greece: Travellers and Painters of the Romantic Era, London: Thames and Hudson. Tuan, Y. F. (1976), ‘Geopiety: A theme in man’s attachment to nature and to place’, in D. Lowenthal, M. J. Bowden (eds), Geographies of the Mind, pp. 11–39, New York: Oxford University Press. Tuckett, A. (2018), Rules, Paper, Status: Migrants and Precarious Bureaucracy in Contemporary Italy, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Tzanelli, R. (2007), The Cinematic Tourist: Explorations in Globalization, Culture and Resistance, London and New York: Routledge. Urry, J. (1990), The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies, London: Sage.

Bibliography

249

Urry, J. (1992), ‘The tourist gaze revisited’, American Behavioral Scientist, 36(2): 172–186. Urry, J. (1995), Consuming Places, London and New York: Routledge. Urry, J. and Larsen J. (2001), The Tourist Gaze 3.0, New York: Sage Publishing. Van Duzer, C. (2013), Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps, London: The British Library. Violi, F. (2006), Storia della Calabria Greca con particolare riguardo all’odierna isola ellenofona (2nd edn). Kaleidon: Reggio Calabria. Viroli, M. (2020), Per amore della patria. Patriottismo e nazionalismo nella storia, Roma and Bari: Laterza. Watson, N. J. (2009), Literary Tourism and Nineteenth-Century Culture, Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan. Whitley, J. (2001), The Archaeology of Greater Greece, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wiebe, R. (2002), Who We Are: A History of Popular Nationalism, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Wilkens, I. (1990), Where Troy Once Stood, London: Rider and Century Hutchinson. Williams, M. (1989), Americans and their Forests: A Historical Geography, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Williams, R. (1972), ‘Ideas of nature’, in J. Benthall (ed.), Ecology: The Shaping Enquiry, pp. 146–64, London: Longman. Wintle, M. (2009), The Image of Europe: Visualizing Europe in Cartography and Iconography throughout the Ages, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wolf, A. (2017), Ulisse in Italia, Catanzaro: Local Genius Edizioni. Wolf, A., Wolf, H.-H. (1983), Die Wirkliche Reise des Odysseus, München: Langen Müller. Wolff, L. (1994), Inventing Eastern Europe, The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Wood, F., Wood, K. (2011), Homer’s Secret Odyssey, Cheltenham: The History Press. Wright, J. K. (1966), Human Nature in Geography, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wyke, M. (1997), Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, Cinema and History, London and New York: Routledge. Yalouri, E. (2001), The Acropolis: Global Fame, Local Gain, Oxford and New York: Berg. Zavaglia, P. D. (2018), Bronzi, santi e rifugiati. Il caso di Riace. Roma: Castelvecchi. Zecchi, R. (2006), ‘The Tsunamis in the Seas of Italy’, Bollettino Associazione Italiana di Cartografia, n. 126–127–128. Ziolkowski, (2008), Minos and the Moderns: Cretan Myth in Twentieth Century Literature and Art, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

250

Index Aci Trezza 21, 44, 201 n.55 adventure, see travel, adventurous Aegean 67–9, 92–4 Aeolian Islands / Aeolus 17, 46, 52, 114, 119–20, 123, 125, 152 affect 6, 8, 14, 24, 26–8, 86–96, 105–12, 135, 152–3, 168–74, 182–3 Africa 13, 145–6, 161 Agrigento 116 Alberti, L. 56 animals, see myth, environment; fauna Arcadia 37, 43–4 archaeology expeditions 8, 42, 44, 65, 67–75, 83, 85–92 museums 9, 16, 21, 127, 131, 133, 138, 141, 185 mysteries 11, 72, 94–8 remains, see remains and ruins public, and society 4, 12, 18, 27–8, 33–4, 37, 113–17, 149–50 architecture 48, 75, 117 Athena Promachos (statue) 64, 113, 161–4 Athens 154, 211 n.15 Atlantic, see Euro-Atlanticism Baltic, Homeric hypothesis, see Vinci, F. See also: Homeric geographies Bérard, V. 65, 85, 90–1, 93, 98–9, 102, Bermuda Triangle 13, 120. See also: travel, adventurous Bernal, M. 149, 151, 213 n.55 Berto, G. 76, 82, 128 blackness, 143, 151, 157, 178–84 Bradford, E. 8, 29, 64–5, 71–4, 76, 81–2, 89, 128 Bronze Warriors (statues) 9, 16–7, 21–2, 38–9, 61, 64, 113, 117, 122–3, 127, 130–1, 141, 145–7, 151, 156–61, 164, 166, 183, 215 n.96

Bova town / Bovesia region 21, 23, 82, 153–5 Bruttii 19, 147–8 Calchas 89 Calypso 1, 71–2, 92, 113, 115, 119, 123, 173, capitalism 9, 43, 66, 79–83, 129, 136–7, 181–5 Capo Peloro (Cape Pelorus) 11, 21, 46, 108, 152 Capri 44, 48, 67, 90 cartography 1, 12–13, 41–9, 53–8, 90, 99–102, 167, 186 196 n.36 Cassini, G.-M. 51 Catania 132 Celticism 7, 32–3, 142 cephalopods, as Scylla 71, 87, 93–5, 110. See also: Scylla and Charybdis Charybdis, see Scylla and Charybdis Chianalea (Scilla) 23, 119–23, 129 chronotope 7, 15, 28, 41–6, 52, 66, 74, 76, 94, 167 Circe 68, 71–2, 92, 130 citizenship, see identity, citizenship classicism 9, 18, 20–32, 39, 47, 54–7, 79, 107, 148–62, 176–85 coinage 16, 117, 145–6, 208 n.15 colonialism 6, 9, 18–20, 30–1, 39–44, 53–6, 65, 78, 147, 157–8, 166, 175–86 Columbus, C. 55, 72 Crete 94, 97, 153, 195 n.3, 208 n.26 crisis, economic 11, 21, 39 crisis, of presence (de Martino) 3, 39 Cuisenier, J. 8, 87, 91–8, 102, 134 cultural capital 7–8, 14–16, 24–31, 42, 59, 87–92, 106, 130–4, 155, 161–2, 168, 183 currents (geophysical) 1, 8, 11, 24, 28, 33, 38, 48–52, 74, 94–109, 120, 136, 175, 207 n.112

251

252

Index

Cyclopes 21, 44, 48, 67, 71, 91, 95, 108, 132, 152, 200 n.26, 201 n.58, 207 n.110, 210 n.55, Custine, A. de 42, 45–6, 49–50, 52, 55, 57

Florence 15, 41, 117 folk / folkishness, see myth, and folklore Fortuyn, G.-G. 45, 48–50, 197 n.59, 206 n.81

D’Arrigo, S. see Horcynus Orca, novel De Martino, E. 39, 79 De Seta, V. 108, 202 n.72 Didier, C. 42, 44, 51 Douglas, K. 69, 81 Douglas, N. 48, 51

Game of Thrones 121 games 173, 194 n.103 Ganzirri, see Punta Faro gender 9, 13, 35, 72–3, 110, 121, 146, 157, 159, 178–9, geographies essentialised, see exceptionalism, geographical gendered 13, 35, 50–2, 99–100, 110–15, 160 Homeric, see Homeric geographies (landscape) 119–20 metaphysical and allegorical 40–52, 106–12, 181–6 positivist 43, 46–50, 65, 87–112, 181. See also: myth, and positivism and myth, see myth, environment and fauna Gissing, G. 28, 45–6, 48, 52 globalisation and regionalism 6, 14–21, 32–7, 60, 97, 114–39, 141–7, 153–65, 170, 181–8 Goethe, J. W. von 45, 68, 76, 189 n.19 golden age 10, 137–9, 143–4, 150–4, 166, 168, 182–3. See also: exceptionalism, historical Golding, L. 64, 68 Grand Tour 7, 12–8, 31, 37, 41–61, 64–68, 75, 100, 126, 129–30, 168, 198 n.99, 200 n.18 Great Mothers 72, 205 n.72 Grecanici minority 144, 153–4, 211 n.15 Greece, ancient and modern 5, 13, 15, 25, 31, 33, 58–9, 71, 80, 99, 108, 141, 144, 147, 148–51, 154, 156, 160, 165, 176, 181, 216 n.108

earthquakes and tsunamis 8, 28, 35, 50–1, 66–8, 86, 99, 101, 109–10, 119, 167, 173 environment and myth, see myth, environment and fauna environmental issues 9–10, 128–9, 134–7, 178–86, 209 n.51 Eratosthenes 14, 116, 132–3, 203 n.13 ethnicity 2, 146, 157, 162, 171, 175–8 ethnographic film 23–4, 43, 64 ethnography (method and issues) 6, 21–3, 25, 170–7, 192 n.54 Euro-Atlanticism 5, 7, 15, 17, 20, 29–39, 53, 143, 161–2, 175, 181 Europa (mythology) 51 Europe 4–9, 12–15, 21, 26, 29–39, 41–61, 67, 76, 78–9, 87, 96–8, 123, 133–4, 143–65, 167–72, 175, 178, 181 European Union (EU) 126, 159, 178 Eustathius 44, 197 n.63 Evans, A. J. 70, 97, 195 n.3 exceptionalism environmental 4–5, 24, 27–29, 37, 79, 94, 99, 104, 117, 119, 132–8, 167–9, 177, 184 historical 37, 117, 124, 132–8, 149, 172, 179 exploration, see travel, adventurous / exploration fables, see myth Fata Morgana (mirage) 119, 208 n.18 fatherland, see homeland fauna, see myth, environment and fauna film 4–8, 23–4, 34, 38–9, 43, 64, 65–75, 81, 83, 99, 102, 108, 122, 146, 159, 169. See also: ethnographic film

Hellenicism 7–9, 29–39, 119, 141–7, 158, 169–76 heritage and identity 2–29, 31–8, 57–8, 61, 105–6, 114–24, 141–65. See also: identity; UNESCO

Index memorialisation 9, 33, 109, 139, 148, 179. See also: landmarks and tourism industry 26, 113–40. See also: tourism as gatekeeping 7, 20, 24, 106, 155. See also: classicism heterotopias 7, 16, 43 Heyerdahl, T. 8, 70, 72 Hephaestus, see Mt Etna history / historiographies historicity 21, 129, 144 and identity 2, 11, 16, 115, 135, 148–9, 152–5, 157–66, 170, 178–82 public, see public histories Hoare, R. 46 Hoby, T. 44, 57 homeland, ideas of 6, 9, 76, 105, 145, 147, 151–5, 159–60, 167, 186–7, 217 n.47. Homer Homeric geographies 2, 8, 11–12, 14, 41–2, 48, 66–70, 85–112, Homeric Question 141, 151–2 in the Strait 5, 8–9, 11–12, 14–15, 18, 22, 24, 26–8, 31, 25, 42–50, 61, 65–70, 80, 82, 86–7, 100–6, 113–14, 118, 120–30, 132, 135–6, 141–2, 143–4, 147, 151–6, 160, 162, 167–70, 186–7 Horcynus Orca centre 8, 20, 108, 117, 161, 178, 187, D’Arrigo’s novel 108, 207 n.109 horror 34, 50–1, 137, 146, 194 n.103 identity see also: nationalism; regionalism banal regionalism / identitarianism 22, 36–7, 63, 115–19, 135–9, 144, 155–62, 170 citizenship 9, 38–9, 146, 160, 166, 175. See also: migration; xenophobia Iliad 89, 92, 94–5, 152, 160 Ithaca 68, 89, 94–7, 152 journey, see Odyssey, as journey; travel Kaulòn, see Monasterace Kircher, A. 49–51 Knossos, see Crete Kon Tiki, see Heyerdahl, T.

253

Laestrygonians 46, 71, 201 n.58 Lamia (mythology) 67, 99–100 landmarks archaeological, see remains and ruins architectural and statues 1–5, 9, 12, 16, 32–8, 52, 61, 74, 82, 109–11, 113–47, 161–5 See also: Athena Promachos; Bronze Warriors; Montorsoli, G.; Triglia, F. museums 16–17, 21–2, 44, 86, 101, 113, 117, 127, 130–8, 141–6, 157, 185. See also: Horcynus Orca, centre landscape see also: geographies mythopoeic, see myth, environment and fauna picturesque 1, 7, 12, 43–57, 66–78, 124, 133, 184 Lear, E. 28, 42, 51–2 Lessing, E. 64, 68–70, 74, 76, 81 Liceo Artistico high school 138 Liceo Classico high school 5–6, 124, 156, 214 n.81 Li Galli 68 liminality 4, 26, 37, 44, 107 London 26, 63, 67, 113, 175 Lord of the Rings 130 Loria, L. 79 Maelström, see whirlpools Malta 72, 205 n.70 marine animals 1, 11, 14, 15, 17, 48–54, 64, 67, 69, 71–4, 86, 101–11, 120–34, 172, 182, male gaze, see gender marketing, see place branding masculinity, see gender media, see representations, mediated Mediterranean Sea 1, 5–9, 12, 13, 15, 21–2, 26, 34, 38, 42–50, 53–4, 58, 63–80, 85–100, 101–17, 135, 137, 145, 148, 150, 157, 160–2, 171–3, 175, 177–86 Mediterraneanism 7, 30–2, 39, 52–7, 78–80, 117–29, 131, 143–4, 153–4, 157–8, 165–6, 169, 178–82 Medusa 122, 173 memory, see heritage, memorialisation

254

Index

mermaids, see sirens Messina 1, 11, 17, 19, 21, 45–6, 48, 57–8, 67–8,71, 90–1, 109–15, 142, 161–2 migration and migrants 5–6, 19, 22, 33, 38, 59, 76, 78, 80, 143–59, 163, 172–5 Minasi, A. 35, 48–50, 203 n.4, 206 n.81 Minasi, E. 125–6 Minoans, see Crete modernisation (and antiquity) 5, 17, 19, 31, 36–9, 52–4, 77–83, 108–11, 126, 169, 181, 185 Monasterace 131, 213 n.54 monstrosity 1, 11–12, 14, 24, 34, 44, 48, 50–2, 66–8, 76, 91, 93, 95, 100, 102, 114–21, 137, 141, 146, 148, 159, 179, 182 Montorsoli, G. 17, 57, 111, 113, 115, Mosino, F. 24, 35, 105, 142, 151–5, 213 n.59–61, 214 n.72 motherland, see homeland Mount Etna 17, 21, 44–8, 68, 107, 120, 123, 125, 132 museums, see landmarks, museums Mycenaeans 75, 89, 94 myth / mythology definitions 27–8 and the environment / fauna 14–15, 25, 27–9, 46–52, 68, 71–74, 93–4, 98, 100, 103–8, 137, 173–4, 206 n.84 and exploration 1–10, 14, 30–9, 44–6, 48, 53–7, 63–74, 81, 85–100, 103, 106, 114–15, 123, 144, 167–8, 183–4 and folklore 28, 79, 135 place-myths and space-myths 15, 37, 65, 70 and positivism 1, 11–12, 35, 47–8, 104, 155 and religion 24, 35, 104–5, 155, 183, 216 n.107 Naples 19, 41, 44, 80, 131 nationalism 12, 22, 32–3, 97, 106, 115, 141, 153, 201 n.61. See also: regionalism nativism, see identity, banal identitarianism Neptune, see Poseidon

Nigra, C. 79 North / South of Italy, see Southern Question nostalgia 4, 6–7, 26, 32, 44, 63–5, 70, 76–80, 129, 154, 167, 173–82. Occidentalism, see Orientalism Odysseus followers 1, 3, 43–5, 68–83, 97, 175, 179, 183 as a foundational figure 3, 48, 64, 119–20, 146, 165, voyages of, see Homeric geographies Odyssey, The as canon, see heritage gendered interpretations, see gender geography, see Homeric geographies as journey, see travel, journey in the media, see cartography, film, games, paintings myths, see myth orcas, see Scylla and Charybdis; Horcynus Orca Orientalism (and Occidentalism) 7, 29–30, 52–7, 72, 161 Ovid 67, 110–1, 155 paintings 12, 17, 88, 109–10, 133 Palmi (town), see Scylla, as a rock pandemic 21, 185–7 Pausanias 44–5, 70, 195 n.14 Phaeacians 68, 71, 91, 93 philhellenism 7, 11–14, 20–1, 30, 42–4, 67–8, 100, 105–7, 115–17, 136, 144, 150, 153–6, 162–9, 178 Philoctetes 89, 98 photography 7, 12, 34, 64–74, 75, 81–92, 101–2, 120–3, 159–60 picturesque, see landscape, picturesque Pilati, C. 42, 46, Pitrè, G. 79 place-branding 1, 5, 33–4, 61, 87–90, 116–36 Pliny, 46, 210 n.55 politics, and antiquity 3–10, 13–29, 30–9, 41–7, 53–6, 78–83, 101, 125–39, 142–55, 156–88 Polyphemus, see Cyclopes

Index Poseidon 17, 57, 69, 110–15, 155, 165, 205 n.70 postcolonialism 29–33, 52–61, 78–80, 137–40, 141–51, 156–62, 170–2, 179, 185–6, 213 n.54 public histories 142, 148–9, 156, 162, 170–1, 178–82. See also: history / historiographies Punta Faro 21 Questione Meridionale, see Southern Question Quilici, F. 8, 23, 54, 64–5, 74–8, 81–2, 99, 128 racialisation (and colourism) 9, 143, 175–84, 215 n.88 refugees, see migration, see also: xenophobia, racialisation Reggio Calabria 1, 3, 6, 11, 16, 19, 21–2, 25–6, 35–6, 46, 57, 61, 64, 68, 75, 86, 88, 101, 102, 105, 113–17, 122–6, 130–4, 138, 141–65, 180–1, 186 regionalism 6, 20–2, 32–5, 105–6, 146. See also: identity, banal identitarianism religion, see myth, and religion representations, mediated 11–12, 33–6, 63–71, 80–3, 117–23, 168, 170–1 Renaissance 15, 17, 156 Riace (town) 117, 131, 157, 215 n.86 Riace (Bronzes), see Bronze Warriors Riedesel, J. 45, 48 Rivarol, A. de 42, 54 rock of Scylla (myth), see Scylla and Charybdis, Scylla as a rock Rome, ancient and modern 15, 41, 56, 67, 117, 126, 131, 181, remains and ruins 11–5, 18, 23, 35, 41–3, 53–9, 61–76, 113, 117, 131–3, 148–51, 157, 163, 166–7, 170, 187 roots, ideas of 3, 14, 38, 54–6, 96, 114, 144–6, 155–63, 177, 181–6 Saint-Non, A., 28, 45–7, 68 Schildt, E. 64, 68

255

Schliemann, E. 8, 14, 70, 72, 97, 195 p. 3, 205 n.53 Scilla (town) 1–39, 113–40, passim Scylla and Charybdis see also: myth, environment and fauna Charybdis as a whirlpool, see whirlpools Charybdis as a marine creature 12, 45, 107, 141, 173, 187 Scylla as a marine creature 12, 24–5, 27, 71, 87, 93–5, 100–6, 110, 165, 186, 206 n.92 Scylla as a sea rock 52–3, 76–7, 86, 99, 101–2, 120, 174 sea element 1, 3, 11–12, 22, 25, 28–9, 38–9, 43–4, 45–53, 61, 64–5, 70–7, 81, 85–95, 97–102, 106–12, 107–10, 117, 119–23, 125–8, 134, 138, 136–7, 148–9, 155, 160–1, 163, 165, 173, 175, 181–2, 183, 186–7, 207 n.112. See also: Mediterranean Sea sharks, as Scylla, see Scylla and Charybdis Sirens 12, 17, 24, 44, 48, 67, 69, 72, 90–1, 104, 108, 110, 114–16, 119–23, 160 Southern Question 5–7, 16, 19, 25, 29–30, 39, 75–80, 124–5, 158 Southernism 7, 26, 29, 32, 52–7, 78–80, 124–5, 143, 148, 158, 168 spatara (boat) 2 Sperlonga group 74 statues, see landmarks, statues and architectural Stonehenge 11, 116, 168 Strabo 44, 150, 190 n.16, 203 n.13, 204 n.27, 206 n.85 Sugameli, P. 91, 203 n.9 Swinburne, H. 45, 47, 55, 76 swordfish hunt 3, 52, 68, 97, 108, 115, 123, 133–5, 165, Syracuse 116, 125, 132 Taormina 116, 123, 132, 205 n.70, 209 n.49 Tavel, D. de 50 tourism literary 1, 3–4, 9, 11–15, 27–8, 35–50, 57,68, 70, 80–2, 88–102, 114, 116–17, 126, 135, 148–56, 162, 168

256

Index

environmental impact, see environment, issues heritage-driven, see heritage, tourism Trapani 90, 203 n.9 transnationalism 18, 30–5, 106, 120, 136, 146, 161, travel 41–9, 52–62, 63–80, 85–95. See also: tourism adventurous, and exploration 8, 44, 54–8, 66–73, 70, 73–5, 83, 92, 99, 108, 112, 167, 179, 183 guides and magazines 7–8, 12, 36, 43–5, 58–66, 74, 92–5, 117–19, 123, 130 travelogues, see Grand Tour; travel, guides and magazines Tremusa grottos 67 Triglia, F. 1, 3, 16, 113, 115, 137 Tropea 116, 123, 125, 130 Troy 14, 70, 92, 95, 97–8, 108, 168 Turkey 70, 92, 108

Ulysses, see Odysseus UNESCO 104, 126, 138, 161, 164, 209 n.36 Venice 41, 119, 129–30 Vinci, F. 8, 85, 87, 91–9, 105, 152, 205 n.52 viper fish, as Scylla, see Scylla and Charybdis, Scylla as a marine creature voyaging, see travel West / Rest 20, 29, 52–7, 145–9, 153, 159–60, 171, 179–81, 187 Winckelmann 31, 44, 189 n.19 whirlpools, as Charybdis 1, 8, 12, 15, 27–9, 50, 59, 65, 68, 71, 74, 86, 93–7, 99–106, 111, 119, 137, 200 n.38. whiteness 9, 26, 39, 151, 157, 178–84 xenophobia 9, 18, 32, 39, 154, 157–60, 178–84