Deep Dive: Craft in Sicily
Full of folklore and eccentricity, your three-stop circuit for Sicilian craft: Puppets in Palermo, painted horse carts in Ragusa, a hilltop ceramics town, and the three perfect palazzos to book now
PUPPETS in PALERMO //
Stretching back more than 200 years, Palermo’s folkloric tradition of puppetry and puppet-making is easily one of Italy’s most imaginative and vibrant craft treasures. Who doesn’t like handmade armed puppets and epic battles? Designated a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO, the Opera de Pupi runs on generations of family-run theaters and highly trained craftsmen. All this to say that the puppet scene in Palermo is not a series of tourist traps and mass-produced trinkets; this is real deal traditional craft wizardry. Start at the Antonio Pasqualino International Puppet Museum (some 4,000 wide-ranging examples of marionettes, shadow puppets, hand puppets, playbills, and puppets from other countries) for context, where you might catch Salvatore Bumbello, who has been making puppets since he was 11 years old, stage a performances with help from his kids. Not that you need extra incentive to take your kids to a puppet performance, but they will be super impressed to see kids controlling the strings or cranking a barrel organ.