How the French lost control of the island they were ruling
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| Women fleeing from the violent uprising known as the Sicilian Vespers, as depicted by the artist Domenico Morelli |
As the citizens of Palermo walked to vespers - evening prayers - in the church
of Santo Spirito on this day in 1282, a French soldier grossly insulted a
pretty young Sicilian woman.
The girl’s enraged fiancé immediately drew his dagger and
stabbed the soldier through the heart.
The violence was contagious and the local people exploded in fury against the French occupying forces. More than 200 French
soldiers were killed at the outset and the violence spread to other parts of
Sicily the next day resulting in a full-scale rebellion against French rule.
This bloody event, which led to Charles of Anjou losing
control of Sicily, became known in history as the Sicilian Vespers.
King Charles was detested for his cold-blooded cruelty and
his officials had made the lives of the ordinary Sicilians miserable.
After he was overthrown, Sicily enjoyed almost a century of
independence.
There have been different versions given of the events that led to
the rebellion against the French and it is not known exactly how the uprising
started.
But to many Italians the story of the Sicilian Vespers has
always been inspirational and Guiseppe Verdi even created an opera about it in
1855.
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| The 12th century Chiesa dello Spirito Santo in Palermo (Photo: Enzian44 CC BY-SA 3.0) |
Travel tip:
The 12th century Church of the Holy Spirit (Chiesa dello
Spirito Santo), where the violence known as the Sicilian Vespers exploded, used
to be in a park outside the city walls but it is now part of the Sant’Orsola
cemetery in Palermo.
Travel tip:
The Teatro Regio in Parma was the setting in 1855 for the
premiere of Verdi’s five-act opera, I Vespri Siciliani, which was loosely based
on the story of the Sicilian Vespers. The theatre had been built with a 1,400
seat auditorium and inaugurated in 1829. It now honours Verdi, who was born at
nearby Busseto, with a festival every October.
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