A few years ago, Martino Juvara, a retired schoolteacher from Ispica in the province of Ragusa, presented the theory that William Shakespeare had nothing to do with Stratford-upon-Avon but was in fact born in 1564 in Messina, Sicily, and given the name Guglielmo Crollalanza (’Falling Spear’). When still a boy, because of his father’s Calvinist leanings, the family was forced to flee to Verona, where they had relatives. Here the young Guglielmo stayed in a house belonging to a certain Othello (where a certain Desdemona had been killed), fell in love with a certain Juliet (who later committed suicide), and a few years later went on to England, where he changed his name to William Shakespeare to facilitate his acceptance into the new country. Juvara’s theory is largely based on a series of coincidences. Shakespeare mentions Sicily in five of his plays: Julius Caesar, Much Ado About Nothing, Antony and Cleopatra, A Comedy of Errors and A Winter’s Tale. His rich vocabulary would indicate a good knowledge of Italian, and he used many Sicilian proverbs in his works: ‘much ado about nothing’, for example, is a translation of the old proverbtantu schifiu ppi nenti, and ‘all’s well that ends well’ is si chiuriu ‘na porta e s’apriu un purticatu. What’s more, some of his biographers say Shakespeare had a foreign accent–though for a good actor that wouldn’t have been difficult to assume, if he wanted to give himself exotic appeal. So far, perhaps not surprisingly, this new idea about Shakespeare’s identity has met with widespread scepticism….

The 8th edition of Ellen Grady’s Blue Guide Sicily is out now.

The three-legged trinacria is an ancient symbol. Researches trace its origins to the Phoenician sun-god Baal, and also to the Greek Apollo: the legs signify the sun’s course through the skies and the three main seasons of the year. They are also taken to represent the triangular shape of Sicily, with its three main headlands. After their successful colonisation of the 8th century BC, the Greeks dedicated the island to Apollo, placing the god’s head in the centre of the symbol, with his totem snakes (he gave two entwined on a stick to his son Asclepius). An alternative interpretation contends that the head represents the Gorgon Medusa. The device was revived in modern times when Frederick II of Aragon had himself crowned “King of Trinacria”, adopting the ancient Greek name for the island. The emblem is famously also used by the Isle of Man (but without the head, and with armour-clad legs). It was perhaps chosen by Alexander III of Scotland and Man in 1266, when he married a Sicilian princess and all things Sicilian were considered worthy of emulation. The emblem set on a red and yellow shield, with three ears of wheat emerging from the winged head, is now the logo of the Regione Siciliana.