Lontano dalle capitali. Il viaggio di Ruskin in Sicilia: una lettura comparata

On April 21, 1874 John Ruskin arrived in Palermo and began a short tour in Sicily, lasting only ten days. Sicily is a “peripheral” area if compared to the more well-known Ruskin’s places and indeed the tour in the island is very different from the itineraries of most of the travelers who preceded him. The decision to move by boat from Palermo to Messina and the exclusion of the archaeological sites (Agrigento, Segesta, Selinunte, Siracusa) from the visit are a prelude to shorter and more selective travels, which became more common between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. On the basis of a comparative analysis, the paper aims to identify the heterodox elements of Ruskin’s trip with respect to a canon that by 1874 is more than consolidated.