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Updated: May 19, 2025
The Mountain Threatens The Signs Increase We Leave Catania Gardens Among the Lava Etna Labors Aci Reale The Groans of Etna The Eruption Gigantic Tree of Smoke Formation of the New Crater We Lose Sight of the Mountain Arrival at Messina Etna is Obscured Departure.
A merchant of this city informed me yesterday that his whole family had slept for two months in the vaults of his warehouse, fearing that their residence might be shaken down in the night. As we rode along from Aci Reale to Taormina, all the rattling of the diligence over the rough road could not drown the awful noise.
For a tour of a few weeks, I can fancy no place more interesting than this fair island. The enchanting Straits of Messina, Catania, Mount Etna, and lovely Aci Reale; the ancient Girgenti and Syracuse with their Greek and Roman ruins; Marsala and Palermo. It is also close to the interesting island of Malta, and is the highway for steamers to all parts.
Handel was by this time fully accepted as one of the leading musicians in Italy, for in June he composed a pastoral, Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, for the marriage of the Duke of Alvito at Naples on July 19.
I was really sorry not to be able to spend a few days at Catania, and view more closely the lovely region around Aci Reale; but it was just here that we suddenly branched off to the west, and plunged into the heart of the island. Away we went up the mountain heights, the night closing in, and a glorious moon uprising.
The road skirted the coast through the oldest and most picturesque part of Sicily, and it amazed them to observe that however far they travelled Etna was always apparently next door, and within reaching distance. At Aci Castello they were pointed out the seven Isles of the Cyclops, which the blind Polyphemus once hurled after the crafty Ulysses.
It was a most striking contrast to the lovely scenery we had already passed, and also to that we were approaching Aci Reale and Catania, in particular, comparing even with Monte Carlo and Monaco; groves of orange and olive trees and picturesque vineyards adorning the fine coast heights, and the blue sea beyond.
From Rome he went to Naples, where he spent his second Italian summer, and composed the original Italian "Aci e Galatea," which in its English version, afterward written for the Duke of Chandos, has continued a marked favorite with the musical world.
The air was perfectly still, and as yet there was no cloud in the sky. When we stopped to change horses at the town of Aci Reale, I first felt the violence of the tremor and the awful sternness of the sound. The smoke by this time seemed to be gathering on the side towards Catania, and hung in a dark mass about half-way down the mountain.
It is fairly certain that Boschi must have sung the part of Polyphemus in Handel's Italian Aci e Galatea at Naples, for it bears a striking resemblance to other songs written for Boschi, whose voice was of exceptional range. The opera ran for twenty-seven nights.
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