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| Two views of the Cape, a of the popular markets of Arab origin in Palermo: the characteristic colored tarps that cover the shops and the stalls of vendors of fresh food - meat, fish and vegetables, especially - and one of the many glimpses of art - the mosaic of liberty bakery Morello - still visible in the architecture of the run-down neighborhood |
"Among the old neighborhoods of Palermo, the Western Cape was the most depressed at all times, constantly deserted by the great civil and religious buildings. Trained in Arabic age, was refuge of slave traders, Mariola of every stripe, the tiny mob, nor different today is the human landscape of poor people who live by their wits, the edge of law and civilization ".
In the early sixties of last century, when the historical center of Palermo lived the darkest period of abandonment - that is raging in the years of 'building lot' political mafia in urban areas away from the historic center - the critic 'Palermo Art Joseph Bellomo thus described the degradation of the Cape, one of the old markets of Arab descent in the city.
At that time, the popular market for excellence in Palermo was still the Vucciria; the animated dozens of vendors who were the subject during 1974, the most famous paintings of Renato Guttuso.
Today, Vucciria lost almost completely the appearance of his vivid and noisy workshops, together fascinating and repulsive, and it is the Capo market, from 11 centuries encased in lowland squeezed between urban Palace Justice, plain and Papireto Via Maqueda, to perpetuate the age of hypermarkets and shopping centers buy 'face to face' with the fishmonger, the butcher, the grocer or the greengrocer.
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| Market sellers Palermo Cape, from 11 centuries a place of sale of food. After the decline of the better known Vucciria, today the district - despite the apparent state of degradation secular building - offers a variety of merchandise, which attracts thousands of customers, both the district from other areas of the city |
The richness of its food so it was already explained in 1615 by John Vincent, who work 'Palermo restored' described the Chief as a "good square and plenty of all sorts of fruits, to be nearer to the gardens, and fish to be in the street and Castellammare di Carini "(Rosario La Duca, 'City Walk', L'Epos, Volume III, 2003).
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| Still images of the Cape newspaper market: sellers largely inherit a traditional family business. A visit to the Cape is a perfect way to perceive the contradictions in which he lives Palermo, a city eternally suspended between immobility and vitality, here represented by the colors and voices of the stalls and - in the photos posted below - from structural deterioration of the neighborhood |
Compared to the degradation described 50 years ago by Bellomo, in Palermo in 2011 little or nothing has changed to the Head: even the obvious practice of expedience - along with vegetables and fish, are being offered counterfeit CDs, the result of stolen items and quantities of cannabis or cocaine - which remains the inescapable prospect of those who continue to live in the crumbling buildings of the neighborhood.
Diving between the lanes of the Cape, almost let ourselves be guided by its current human inhabitants or people of Palermo who still buy their food, is an experience that, once the first barrier of folklore (including the risk of muggings) leads directly to the heart of the essence of Palermo, a city that is the symbol of hope and all is its negation, a prisoner of an old habit to survive the decay.
All photos posted are made by Sicilian reportage
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