Arab-Saracen Block
Saracen Festivals: historical re-enactment of ancient Zabut takes the stage
The influence of Arab culture is a real boast for all Sambucese people, who, every year in August, also remember their past through the fascinating Saracen Festivals, a historical reenactment event of the Arab period that offers tourists as well as residents the opportunity to learn about significant episodes of Sambucese history: in fact, in the very alleys of the Arab Block of Sambuca - an open-air theater - more than 150 figurants, dressed in period costumes, noble clothes and armor, stage some 20 historical episodes that took place between the 9th and 13th centuries, tracing the history of the town when the Arabs were firmly in command of this territory (from the founding of the town by a handful of Saracens led by Emir Al Zabut--following the landing of the Arabs in Sicily around 830--to the expulsion of the Arabs in the 13th century). The stages of the route reconstruct the historical episodes, but also moments of daily life in the village until reaching the highest hillock at the foot of the Matrix, built on the remains of the Emir's Castle, which gave the town its name. For visitors, they are an opportunity to taste typical local products and to be involved as figurants and actors in the staging of the story of Zabut.
The Saracen quarter of "li Setti Vaneddi"
We are located at the top of the town, in a maze of perfectly restored alleys, reminiscent of a real Arab Kasbah. Here to the north, in the highest part of Sambuca, stands the Saracen Quarter, which evokes the origins of the village founded by the Arabs in the Belice Valley in 827 AD, the time of their conquest of Sicily. The small "casba," the thousand-year-old soul of Sambuca, stretches over a triangular area (from Piazza Navarro, to Largo San Michele to the belvedere), crossed by an irregular street layout that keeps its Arab structure intact. Here, among the typical houses leaning against each other, alleys run covered or punctuated by arches and ribbed vaults and suddenly open magnificent open spaces and courtyards of various shapes and sizes with sandstone details, the most distinctive evidence of Sambuca's Islamic matrix. These are the "Seven Saracen Alleys" or, in dialect, "li Setti Vanèddi": narrow alleys that take air from courtyards, around which the urban layout developed. From "Saracen Alley I" to "Saracen Alley VII," from the small, narrow doors and balconies of the houses, the curious, smiling faces of the locals will welcome you into the enchanted plots of the charming Islamic quarter, on whose red sandstone portals, made by skilled quarrymen, are today affixed plaques in Italian and Arabic.
Churches, murals and Places of Identity and Memory: Via Fantasma and the purrere
Today the Saracen Block is considered an important open-air museum, where it is possible to retrace all the stages of Sambuca's history. Here, in fact, the Arab street fabric is mixed with Baroque and 19th-century palaces; the labyrinth of narrow streets, reminiscent of an Arab kasbah, is embellished by the underground tuff quarries (the purrère) - and, again, by the 13th-century Church of St. Michael and the Mother Church of 1400, built on a part of the ancient Zabut Castle. This ancient place has the special charm of becoming and testifies to the perfect blend of history and art between past and present: next to the purrère and the Via Fantasma-recognized by the Sicilian Region among the Places of Identity and Memory (LIM)-today, in fact, there can also be admired works by contemporary street artists with Mediterranean colors and symbols, part of a project to redevelop the block; while, in a majolica wall of the casbah, of which he still seems to be the custodian, is depicted, with a proud and proud look, Al Zabut, the Saracen who inaugurated four centuries of Arab domination in Sambuca.
A living museum of Arab-Sicilian history
The block, among the most beautiful and well-preserved in Sicily, was formerly part of a magnificent castle on the fortress guarding the valley: the Arab Castle of Zabut, the "Splendid," founded back in the 9th century by Emir Al Zabut. To protect the Saracen fortress, defensive towers were built (one of them apparently gave rise to the bell tower of the Mother Church of Maria SS. Assunta, which today stands on the same hillock) and the as messy as strategic labyrinth of narrow and irregular "alleys" that, climbing the highest part of the village, weave into a tangle. Here the underground passages were places of imprisonment and torture, where surviving Saracens found death: many centuries later, the cholera epidemic of 1837 would turn them into burial grounds. These facts must have had a great hold on the population: in 1882, in fact, as a result of alleged apparitions of spirits and ghosts of Arab warriors, the urban artery dividing the district from north to south was named "Ghost Street." However, some sources report that during reconstruction work following the '68 earthquake, in the ancient Arab quarter, in the subinhabited area of the old residences... it was not uncommon to find human remains, a memory of that legendary past.
From door to door. The thousand colors of the Saracen Quarter.
In 2019, the Gianbecchina Institution and the Municipality of Sambuca di Sicilia promoted the project "The Thousand Colors of the Saracen Quarter" to enhance and redevelop the ancient Zabut neighborhood through the creation of a widespread contemporary art hub, called "Di porta in porta." For two days, this ancient urban area-where a great architectural heritage is preserved, a memory of the Arab domination, to which we owe the founding of the city-became the protagonist of the initiative of strong artistic and identity value, "Let's paint the Saracen quarter." 25 Sicilian artists (some international), inspired by the characteristic conformation of the Arab quarter, the historic heart of the village, its typical narrow and winding streets, houses with low wooden porches, and structures made of warm, bright and malleable local sandstone, painted doors and windows in the areas made available by the municipality and private citizens. Sicilianity, the Mediterranean, Sambuca Zabut and the Arab world, along with illustrious quotes and great paintings of international renown were the inspiring themes of Calogero Abruzzo, Massimo Barbaro, Antonio Bartellino, Alessandro Becchina, Chiara Becchina, Antonino Bellitto, Eddy Bettiol, Michele Cacioppo, Paola Campanella, Maria Rita Chicchi, Alessia Ciaccio, Leonardo Cutrano, Marcella Di Giovanna, Antonio Di Prima, Chiara Di Prima, Pietro Ferreri, Giorgio Gristina, Sonny Inzinna, Lorenzo Maniscalco, Anne Novado, Nicasio Pizzolato, Giuseppe Porretta, Eleazar Sanchez, Anastassija Sofia Tortorici, and Giusy Viola. Through their work, "The Seven Saracen Alleys" have become a place for the production, experimentation and enjoyment of art and culture to affirm a renewed sense of identity for the Sambucese community.
The Places of Identity and Memory (LIM) of the Saracen Neighborhood
In the Saracen District, the Purrère ("archaeologized" places of extraction, harvesting, production) and the Via Fantasma (place of legend on the ghost road), have been included by the Region of Sicily among the LIMs (Places of Identity and Memory), respectively in the sections of Historical Places of Work and Places of Myth and Legends: they represent, in fact, a heritage of enormous importance, the subject of an enhancement project, an opportunity to define the development strategies of the community that hosts them.
Art and urban regeneration in Italy's most beautiful village
"Di porta in porta" (From door to door) is one of the urban regeneration projects carried out in the village to consolidate its strong natural attractiveness through the combination of art and history. The "setti vaneddi" were chosen for the artistic and cultural initiative by virtue of their historical and evocative strength, capable of attracting talents eager to express their creativity, putting it at the service of the common good and of a center that has earned the title of Italy's Most Beautiful Village. During the days dedicated to the project, visitors to the historic center had the opportunity to immerse themselves in an open-air art laboratory, amid artistic and cultural, literary and entertainment events.
