The red

Since ancient times, the color red has had profound meanings both in Sicily and in the rest of the world. The Carthaginians, people of the Middle Eastern region of the Levant, also known as the Phoenicians from the Greek word “PHOINIKES” or “PURPLE RED”, they sailed the Mediterranean Sea in search of “MURICE” shells from which Purple was extracted, a substance used for coloring fabrics. From this it follows that the owners of red colored clothes were rich and powerful as not everyone could afford the luxury of purchasing the colored fabric. In mythology we remember "Medusa", a powerful monster, famous for her petrifying gaze, beheaded by the valiant Perseus. It is said that the blood that flowed from her jugular vein reached the sea, transforming the algae into precious red corals used against negativity, still an apotropaic symbol today. In the Christian era, coral took on a meaning of sacredness and spirituality linked to the blood of Christ, so that even today in SICILY children receive an object made of gold and coral for baptism, a symbol of protection. But no less famous was the red Phoenix, a mythological animal, also called the firebird. Protagonist of a Jewish legend it is said that the Phoenix itself was the only one not to eat the forbidden fruit, so GOD rewarded it by granting it a 1000 year long life, at the end of which, the bird would be burned in a regenerating fire and rising from an egg generated from his own ashes. Described in Ovid's Metamorphoses and also represented in the mosaics of the Villa Romana del Casale in Piazza Armerina (ENNA), the phoenix is also found in the Christian catacombs as a symbol of resurrection of the flesh. In art red was used to paint ANGELS, ARCHANGELS, THE DRAP OF CHRIST IN THE CROSS. Saints Agata of Catania and Lucia of Syracuse received the purple veil, symbol of conversion to Christianity. But red is also the color of the passion of love, red like energy, red the color of fire. Red is the color of the most important royal tombs such as the tombs of the Norman royals in Palermo made of red porphyry. The cassocks are sometimes red, the cardinal red, the red of our heart, of our blood. The lava of our volcano Etna is red, which destroys everything in its passage, but from which life, fertility and wealth are subsequently generated. The primary color red, together with yellow, colors the Sicilian flag which together with the Trinacria symbolizes our island.