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Description
moves everything here and deletes old bios yis
laughs at the lazy shading i'm sleepy
please correct me if you see anything wrong, especially in the facts and history ; w ;

Name; Elvira Vecchio, Elvira being the first queen of Sicily, Vecchio meaning "old".
Nyo! Name; Michele Vecchio, after Michele Amari, Sicilian born historian who pushed for regional autonomy.
2p! Name; Giovanna Vecchio, after anthropologist Giovanni Aurispa, the feminine variant of the name.
2p!nyo Name; Antonello "Anton" Vecchio, after the painter, Antonello di Giovanni di Antonio

Personifies; the region of Sicily
"Birthday"; May 15th ( day of Sicilian Autonomy ) or May 25th ( anniversary of the first session of the Sicilian Regional Assembly )
Region Age; 3113 ( based on the Phoenician settlements from 11th century BC )
Human Age; 30
Government; Unitary Parliamentary Constitutional Republic ( Italian Government )
Current Leader; Rosario Crocetta
Official Name; Regione Sicilia
Nicknames; God's Kitchen, the southeast area is known still as the Granary of Rome, the ancient Greeks referred to the region as Trinacria ( triangle ) as a reference to the island's shape
Flower; "Zagara"- Orange Blossom Flower
Religion; Roman Catholic
Language; Italian, might remember some Greek. Sicilians do actually speak their own regional dialect; Sicilian. Learning English, intermediate.
Largest City; Palermo
Interests; Gardening, dancing, cooking, painting, reading
Likes; Reminiscing, taking walks, boasting, oranges, wine
Dislikes; Being compared with the Mafia, being called "Italian" ( While Sicily is an Italian region, Sicilians prefer to be called Sicilian. ), being talked down to because she's just a region now.

Personality;

Elvira is argumentative, outspoken, and blunt, don't go easy on the sarcasm and pride. She is rather arrogant, if even a bit egotistical, though she does try hard to keep it toned down when conversing with tourists. She loves tourists, she wouldn't want to scare them off- Elvira can, in fact, be kind to others, normally the people she deems friends. With others she dislikes, she'll simply sneer or come up with snippy remarks. She also has a thing for boasting about her regions importance. While she'll always have that bit of her personality, she's not so bad once you get past that. She does retain an excessive amount of modesty from the Muslim period, along with a more formal attitude from her time as the Kingdom of Sicily. She normally spends her days either cooking, gardening, or letting the tourists know just how great the island is.

Appearance;
Elvira is a tan, dark haired woman with olive green eyes. She stands at 5'2" and weighs about 131 lbs. Her near curly hair is normally worn down, though she will go for low ponytail or messy up-do while in the garden or during warmer weather. While out and about, Elvira normally goes for an outfit similar to the one on the right in the above picture, though that is one of her less vibrant outfits; a favorite of her is actually a light blue button up tucked into a light flowered skirt with flats and a yellow cover-up. The outfit in the center of the above picture is her WWII uniform, similar to that of Southern Italy's, with a red button up underneath and yellow silk ribbon around her neck. The outfit in the left of the picture is one of the region's many traditional dresses. Of course, she does have several scars, the most prominent being three along her side from each Punic war and a burn mark on her upper back/shoulder from the Allied invasion of Sicily, all of which are easily kept under her choice of modest clothing.

Extra/Trivia;
- Elvira's personality is based more on history and not modern stereotypes, just f.y.i
- Elvira has a Sicilian Hound named Odessa, a reference to how Sicily is believed to be in the Greek epic, The Odyssey The dog itself is so rare, it's hardly found outside of Italy and Sicily, with only about 200 in America.
- While she'll dismiss it, Elvira has an undying fear of tarantulas, a reference to the Sicilian traditional song- Tarantella- which is about a boy being bit by a tarantula and having to dance the venom from his system. ( please correct me if I'm wrong about the song's meaning- )
- She also has a yard full of Sicilian orange trees and a few patches of wheat.
- Sicily has long been associated with the arts and has seen many poets, writers, musicians, philosophers, architects and painters. Elvira is well educated because of this. She especially loves music and architecture, closely followed my painting and music.
- The yellow silk ribbon she wears symbolizes the great silk trade that came along with the Spanish period.
- Elvira has green eyes from both Greek and Norman influence, her fly away double curl represents her being an Italian region but of Greek foundation
( from here, just facts i thought were interesting u v u )

- Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean.

- Mount Etna, the tallest active volcano in Europe and one of the most active in the world, is located on Sicily.

- Palermo hosts the largest opera house in Italy and the third largest in all of Europe.

- There are around 10 million people of Sicilian descent around the world. They are located mostly in North America, Argentina, Uruguay, Australia, and other European and Latin American countries.

- Sicily is the eighth richest region of Italy.

- Agriculture is the most important part of the economy.

- In recent years the service industry has grown as well. Tourism and hospitality are important to the island as well

- There has been a rise in African and Eastern European immigration to the island

- Unemployment is higher in Sicily than the rest of Italy.

- Over the years there has been a negative influence from the Mafia, although its influences weaker than in the past. Their income is largely from drugs and extortion/protection rackets.

- Heavy deforestation has been practiced in Sicily since Roman times. As a result, the central and southwest provinces are practically without any forests.

History;
Sicani, Sicels, & Elymians
The very first inhabitants of the region. The Elymians settled in the north-west while the Sicanians moved eastward until the arrival of the Sicels, believed to have come from Italy, which forced the Sicanians to move towards the middle of the island. Among other inhabitants of the island were Ausones, Egyptians, Iberians, and Phoenicians.
Headcanon; The Sicani would have been the ones to care for little baby Sicily, at least until the Phoenicians, and eventually, the Greeks came along to 'civilize'.

Phoenicia;

The Phoenicians were the first major civilization to inhabit the region in 11th century BC, aside from the indigenous people of Sicily that had settled beforehand. Sicily was one of the major Phoenician colonies, with Carthage and its base location in modern Lebanon being the more important.

Ancient Greece;

The Greeks came along in the 8th century BC, leaving behind plenty of influences. The most important settlement by the Greeks was Syracuse. With all the Greek settlements, this led to Sicily being included in Magna Graecia, or, Great Greece, the coastal areas of southern Italy that were inhabited by the ancient Greeks. Sicily also takes part in many of the Greek myths, including how MT. Etna came to be and the Odyssey.
Phoenician and Greek culture clashed in Sicily, so the island was pretty much split between the two; Phoenician in the south-west and Greek in the north-east.

Carthage;

Carthage and the ancient Greeks were forever fighting for control over the region, leading to some not-so-friendly relations between the Carthaginians and the Sicels and Sicanians.

Roman Empire;

The Romans came along after the Punic Wars between Carthage and the Greek city-states. In 210 BC the Roman consul M. Valerian told the Roman Senate that "no Carthaginian remains in Sicily", and for the next six-hundred years, Sicily became a province of the Roman Republic, and later, the Roman Empire. Sicily was important chiefly for its grain fields, which were a main source of the food supply of the city of Rome until the annexation of Egypt. The empire made little effort to Romanize the region, leaving it mainly of Greek population. Sicily also had some of the first Christian settlements during this time.

Germanics;

With the fall of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Vandals took over Sicily in 440 AD. Ostrogothic invasion of Sicily later took place in 448 AD, and despite them being a Germanic tribe, the Goths wished to revive the Roman culture.

Byzantine Empire;

The Gothic war took place between the Ostrogoths and the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantine Empire. Sicily was the first part of Italy taken over under Byzantine Emperor Justinian I's orders, and Sicily would be used later as a base for the Byzantines for conquering the rest of Italy. Syracuse became the capital of the Byzantine Empire when Emperor Constans II moved it from Constantinople to Syracuse in 663 AD. As a result, Latin was slowly replaced with Greek as the main language. ( of course, the capital of Byzantium did return to being Constantinople. )

Muslim Period;

Euphemius, the commander of the Byzantine fleet, was forced from Sicily to North Africa after he'd murdered general Constantine. Euphemius requested the help of Ziyadat Allah, the Aghlabid Emir of Tunisia, in regaining the island; and so, an Islamic army of Arabs, Berbers, Moors, Cretan Saracens and Persians, was sent. The local population resisted the invasion fiercely and it took over a century to complete the conquest. Throughout the Muslim reign, Byzantine Sicilians revolted regularly. By the 11th century AD, Norman mercenaries were being hired; it was under the Norman Roger I that Sicily was conquered Sicily from the Muslims.

The Byzantine Greeks referred to these Arabs as 'Saracen', which was widely used in Medieval Europe as synonyms to "Muslim". In Ptolemy's Geography from the second century AD, Sarakene is used to refer to the the region in northern Sinai Peninsula, while he also mentions people called Sarakenoi living in north-western Arabia, near neighbors to the Sinai. The Arabs who took hold of Sicily may or may not have been of either region, though many of which were notably from Northern Africa.

Norman Period/The Kingdom of Sicily;

Palermo continued to be the capital under the Normans. Roger I's son, Roger II, was able to raise the islands status, along with the hold on Malta and Southern Italy, into a kingdom. Norman kings relied on mainly the local Sicilian population for the more important government and administrative positions. Greek remained the main language while the Norman language was used by the royal courts. Immigrants from Northern Italy and Campania arrived during this time, resulting in a change from Christian to Roman Catholic for Sicilians over time. With the beginning of Hohenstaufen reign, many schools were built in Sicily, the Sicilian School of Poetry, for example. During this time, though, Frederick II passed an order that repressed Sicilian Muslims to please the Popes who could not tolerate Islam, resulting in Muslim rebellion. When the rebellion died down, pressure from the Popes forced Frederick II to mass transferred all his Muslim subjects deeper into Italy, to Lucera. In 1224, all Muslims were expelled from Sicily.

Spanish Period;

With the union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon in 1479, Sicily was ruled directly by the kings of Spain via governors and viceroys. However, local royal influence never was clearly defined, and various local political entities within the viceregal system competed for power, rendering Sicily often ungovernable. The 16th century was the golden age for Sicily's wheat export, along with inflation, rapid population growth, and international markets, brought Sicily social and economic changes. In the 17th century, Sicily's silk exports exceeded the wheat exports. Sicily suffered an outbreak of the Black Death in 1656, followed by a severe earthquake in the east in 1693. Sicily was also frequently attacked by Barbary pirates from North Africa. The rebuilding following all this led to an architectural style called Sicilian Baroque. Periods of rule by the house of Savoy from 1713-1720 and then the Austrian Habsburg gave way to union in 1734 with the Bourbon-ruled Kingdom of Naples.

Bourbon Period;

The Bourbon kings officially resided in Naples, except for a brief period during the Napoleonic War between 1806 and 1815 when the royal family lived in exile in Palermo. The Sicilian nobles welcomed the British military intervention during this time. The British were committed to preserving the security of the Kingdom of Sicily for the sake of keeping Mediterranean Sea naval operations open against the French. The Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily were officially merged in 1816 by Ferdinand I to form the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. The ascension of Ferdinand II as king of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies was hailed by Sicilians who dreamed of autonomy returning to the island. Simmering discontent with Bourbon rule and hopes of Sicilian independence was to give rise to a number of major revolutions in 1820 and 1848 against Bourbon denial of constitutional government. The 1848 Revolution resulted in a sixteen month period of independence from the Bourbons before its armed forces took back control of the island on 15 May 1849.

Unification of Italy;

Sicily was merged with the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1860, which later became the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. Local elites across the island systematically opposed and nullified efforts of the national government to modernize the traditional economy and political system. In 1866, Palermo revolted against Italy. The city was bombed by the Italian navy. Italian soldiers summarily executed the civilian insurgents, and took possession once again of the island. The Sicilian economy did not adapt easily to unification, and in particular competition by Northern industry made attempts at industrialization in the South almost impossible.

Mafia;

The Mafia became an essential part of the social structure in the late 19th century because of the inability of the Italian state to impose its concept of law and its monopoly on violence in a peripheral region. The government was forced to compromise with these "bourgeois mafiosi," who used violence to impose their law, manipulated the traditional feudal language, and acted as mediators between society and the state. Ongoing government neglect in the late 19th century period ultimately enabled the establishment of organized crime networks commonly known as "La Cosa Nostra" or Mafia. These were gradually able to extend their influence across all sectors over much of the island (and many of its operatives also emigrated to other countries, particularly the United States).

Early 20th Century/Fascist Period;

After Mussolini came to power in the 1920s, he launched a fierce crackdown on organized crime, but they recovered quickly following the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943 once the Allies freed imprisoned Mafia leaders under the mistaken notion that they were political prisoners. Although Sicily fell to the Allied armies with relatively little fighting, the German and Italian forces escaped to the mainland largely intact. Control of Sicily gave the Allies a base from which to advance northward through Italy.

Post-War Period;

Following some political agitation, Sicily became an autonomous region in 1946 under the new Italian constitution, with its own parliament and elected President. In the 21st century Sicily, and its surrounding islets, has become a target destination for illegal immigrants and people-smuggling operations.

Description
moves everything here and deletes old bios yis
laughs at the lazy shading i'm sleepy
please correct me if you see anything wrong, especially in the facts and history ; w ;

Name; Elvira Vecchio, Elvira being the first queen of Sicily, Vecchio meaning "old".
Nyo! Name; Michele Vecchio, after Michele Amari, Sicilian born historian who pushed for regional autonomy.
2p! Name; Giovanna Vecchio, after anthropologist Giovanni Aurispa, the feminine variant of the name.
2p!nyo Name; Antonello "Anton" Vecchio, after the painter, Antonello di Giovanni di Antonio

Personifies; the region of Sicily
"Birthday"; May 15th ( day of Sicilian Autonomy ) or May 25th ( anniversary of the first session of the Sicilian Regional Assembly )
Region Age; 3113 ( based on the Phoenician settlements from 11th century BC )
Human Age; 30
Government; Unitary Parliamentary Constitutional Republic ( Italian Government )
Current Leader; Rosario Crocetta
Official Name; Regione Sicilia
Nicknames; God's Kitchen, the southeast area is known still as the Granary of Rome, the ancient Greeks referred to the region as Trinacria ( triangle ) as a reference to the island's shape
Flower; "Zagara"- Orange Blossom Flower
Religion; Roman Catholic
Language; Italian, might remember some Greek. Sicilians do actually speak their own regional dialect; Sicilian. Learning English, intermediate.
Largest City; Palermo
Interests; Gardening, dancing, cooking, painting, reading
Likes; Reminiscing, taking walks, boasting, oranges, wine
Dislikes; Being compared with the Mafia, being called "Italian" ( While Sicily is an Italian region, Sicilians prefer to be called Sicilian. ), being talked down to because she's just a region now.

Personality;

Elvira is argumentative, outspoken, and blunt, don't go easy on the sarcasm and pride. She is rather arrogant, if even a bit egotistical, though she does try hard to keep it toned down when conversing with tourists. She loves tourists, she wouldn't want to scare them off- Elvira can, in fact, be kind to others, normally the people she deems friends. With others she dislikes, she'll simply sneer or come up with snippy remarks. She also has a thing for boasting about her regions importance. While she'll always have that bit of her personality, she's not so bad once you get past that. She does retain an excessive amount of modesty from the Muslim period, along with a more formal attitude from her time as the Kingdom of Sicily. She normally spends her days either cooking, gardening, or letting the tourists know just how great the island is.

Appearance;
Elvira is a tan, dark haired woman with olive green eyes. She stands at 5'2" and weighs about 131 lbs. Her near curly hair is normally worn down, though she will go for low ponytail or messy up-do while in the garden or during warmer weather. While out and about, Elvira normally goes for an outfit similar to the one on the right in the above picture, though that is one of her less vibrant outfits; a favorite of her is actually a light blue button up tucked into a light flowered skirt with flats and a yellow cover-up. The outfit in the center of the above picture is her WWII uniform, similar to that of Southern Italy's, with a red button up underneath and yellow silk ribbon around her neck. The outfit in the left of the picture is one of the region's many traditional dresses. Of course, she does have several scars, the most prominent being three along her side from each Punic war and a burn mark on her upper back/shoulder from the Allied invasion of Sicily, all of which are easily kept under her choice of modest clothing.

Extra/Trivia;
- Elvira's personality is based more on history and not modern stereotypes, just f.y.i
- Elvira has a Sicilian Hound named Odessa, a reference to how Sicily is believed to be in the Greek epic, The Odyssey The dog itself is so rare, it's hardly found outside of Italy and Sicily, with only about 200 in America.
- While she'll dismiss it, Elvira has an undying fear of tarantulas, a reference to the Sicilian traditional song- Tarantella- which is about a boy being bit by a tarantula and having to dance the venom from his system. ( please correct me if I'm wrong about the song's meaning- )
- She also has a yard full of Sicilian orange trees and a few patches of wheat.
- Sicily has long been associated with the arts and has seen many poets, writers, musicians, philosophers, architects and painters. Elvira is well educated because of this. She especially loves music and architecture, closely followed my painting and music.
- The yellow silk ribbon she wears symbolizes the great silk trade that came along with the Spanish period.
- Elvira has green eyes from both Greek and Norman influence, her fly away double curl represents her being an Italian region but of Greek foundation
( from here, just facts i thought were interesting u v u )

- Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean.

- Mount Etna, the tallest active volcano in Europe and one of the most active in the world, is located on Sicily.

- Palermo hosts the largest opera house in Italy and the third largest in all of Europe.

- There are around 10 million people of Sicilian descent around the world. They are located mostly in North America, Argentina, Uruguay, Australia, and other European and Latin American countries.

- Sicily is the eighth richest region of Italy.

- Agriculture is the most important part of the economy.

- In recent years the service industry has grown as well. Tourism and hospitality are important to the island as well

- There has been a rise in African and Eastern European immigration to the island

- Unemployment is higher in Sicily than the rest of Italy.

- Over the years there has been a negative influence from the Mafia, although its influences weaker than in the past. Their income is largely from drugs and extortion/protection rackets.

- Heavy deforestation has been practiced in Sicily since Roman times. As a result, the central and southwest provinces are practically without any forests.

History;
Sicani, Sicels, & Elymians
The very first inhabitants of the region. The Elymians settled in the north-west while the Sicanians moved eastward until the arrival of the Sicels, believed to have come from Italy, which forced the Sicanians to move towards the middle of the island. Among other inhabitants of the island were Ausones, Egyptians, Iberians, and Phoenicians.
Headcanon; The Sicani would have been the ones to care for little baby Sicily, at least until the Phoenicians, and eventually, the Greeks came along to 'civilize'.

Phoenicia;

The Phoenicians were the first major civilization to inhabit the region in 11th century BC, aside from the indigenous people of Sicily that had settled beforehand. Sicily was one of the major Phoenician colonies, with Carthage and its base location in modern Lebanon being the more important.

Ancient Greece;

The Greeks came along in the 8th century BC, leaving behind plenty of influences. The most important settlement by the Greeks was Syracuse. With all the Greek settlements, this led to Sicily being included in Magna Graecia, or, Great Greece, the coastal areas of southern Italy that were inhabited by the ancient Greeks. Sicily also takes part in many of the Greek myths, including how MT. Etna came to be and the Odyssey.
Phoenician and Greek culture clashed in Sicily, so the island was pretty much split between the two; Phoenician in the south-west and Greek in the north-east.

Carthage;

Carthage and the ancient Greeks were forever fighting for control over the region, leading to some not-so-friendly relations between the Carthaginians and the Sicels and Sicanians.

Roman Empire;

The Romans came along after the Punic Wars between Carthage and the Greek city-states. In 210 BC the Roman consul M. Valerian told the Roman Senate that "no Carthaginian remains in Sicily", and for the next six-hundred years, Sicily became a province of the Roman Republic, and later, the Roman Empire. Sicily was important chiefly for its grain fields, which were a main source of the food supply of the city of Rome until the annexation of Egypt. The empire made little effort to Romanize the region, leaving it mainly of Greek population. Sicily also had some of the first Christian settlements during this time.

Germanics;

With the fall of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Vandals took over Sicily in 440 AD. Ostrogothic invasion of Sicily later took place in 448 AD, and despite them being a Germanic tribe, the Goths wished to revive the Roman culture.

Byzantine Empire;

The Gothic war took place between the Ostrogoths and the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantine Empire. Sicily was the first part of Italy taken over under Byzantine Emperor Justinian I's orders, and Sicily would be used later as a base for the Byzantines for conquering the rest of Italy. Syracuse became the capital of the Byzantine Empire when Emperor Constans II moved it from Constantinople to Syracuse in 663 AD. As a result, Latin was slowly replaced with Greek as the main language. ( of course, the capital of Byzantium did return to being Constantinople. )

Muslim Period;

Euphemius, the commander of the Byzantine fleet, was forced from Sicily to North Africa after he'd murdered general Constantine. Euphemius requested the help of Ziyadat Allah, the Aghlabid Emir of Tunisia, in regaining the island; and so, an Islamic army of Arabs, Berbers, Moors, Cretan Saracens and Persians, was sent. The local population resisted the invasion fiercely and it took over a century to complete the conquest. Throughout the Muslim reign, Byzantine Sicilians revolted regularly. By the 11th century AD, Norman mercenaries were being hired; it was under the Norman Roger I that Sicily was conquered Sicily from the Muslims.

The Byzantine Greeks referred to these Arabs as 'Saracen', which was widely used in Medieval Europe as synonyms to "Muslim". In Ptolemy's Geography from the second century AD, Sarakene is used to refer to the the region in northern Sinai Peninsula, while he also mentions people called Sarakenoi living in north-western Arabia, near neighbors to the Sinai. The Arabs who took hold of Sicily may or may not have been of either region, though many of which were notably from Northern Africa.

Norman Period/The Kingdom of Sicily;

Palermo continued to be the capital under the Normans. Roger I's son, Roger II, was able to raise the islands status, along with the hold on Malta and Southern Italy, into a kingdom. Norman kings relied on mainly the local Sicilian population for the more important government and administrative positions. Greek remained the main language while the Norman language was used by the royal courts. Immigrants from Northern Italy and Campania arrived during this time, resulting in a change from Christian to Roman Catholic for Sicilians over time. With the beginning of Hohenstaufen reign, many schools were built in Sicily, the Sicilian School of Poetry, for example. During this time, though, Frederick II passed an order that repressed Sicilian Muslims to please the Popes who could not tolerate Islam, resulting in Muslim rebellion. When the rebellion died down, pressure from the Popes forced Frederick II to mass transferred all his Muslim subjects deeper into Italy, to Lucera. In 1224, all Muslims were expelled from Sicily.

Spanish Period;

With the union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon in 1479, Sicily was ruled directly by the kings of Spain via governors and viceroys. However, local royal influence never was clearly defined, and various local political entities within the viceregal system competed for power, rendering Sicily often ungovernable. The 16th century was the golden age for Sicily's wheat export, along with inflation, rapid population growth, and international markets, brought Sicily social and economic changes. In the 17th century, Sicily's silk exports exceeded the wheat exports. Sicily suffered an outbreak of the Black Death in 1656, followed by a severe earthquake in the east in 1693. Sicily was also frequently attacked by Barbary pirates from North Africa. The rebuilding following all this led to an architectural style called Sicilian Baroque. Periods of rule by the house of Savoy from 1713-1720 and then the Austrian Habsburg gave way to union in 1734 with the Bourbon-ruled Kingdom of Naples.

Bourbon Period;

The Bourbon kings officially resided in Naples, except for a brief period during the Napoleonic War between 1806 and 1815 when the royal family lived in exile in Palermo. The Sicilian nobles welcomed the British military intervention during this time. The British were committed to preserving the security of the Kingdom of Sicily for the sake of keeping Mediterranean Sea naval operations open against the French. The Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily were officially merged in 1816 by Ferdinand I to form the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. The ascension of Ferdinand II as king of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies was hailed by Sicilians who dreamed of autonomy returning to the island. Simmering discontent with Bourbon rule and hopes of Sicilian independence was to give rise to a number of major revolutions in 1820 and 1848 against Bourbon denial of constitutional government. The 1848 Revolution resulted in a sixteen month period of independence from the Bourbons before its armed forces took back control of the island on 15 May 1849.

Unification of Italy;

Sicily was merged with the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1860, which later became the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. Local elites across the island systematically opposed and nullified efforts of the national government to modernize the traditional economy and political system. In 1866, Palermo revolted against Italy. The city was bombed by the Italian navy. Italian soldiers summarily executed the civilian insurgents, and took possession once again of the island. The Sicilian economy did not adapt easily to unification, and in particular competition by Northern industry made attempts at industrialization in the South almost impossible.

Mafia;

The Mafia became an essential part of the social structure in the late 19th century because of the inability of the Italian state to impose its concept of law and its monopoly on violence in a peripheral region. The government was forced to compromise with these "bourgeois mafiosi," who used violence to impose their law, manipulated the traditional feudal language, and acted as mediators between society and the state. Ongoing government neglect in the late 19th century period ultimately enabled the establishment of organized crime networks commonly known as "La Cosa Nostra" or Mafia. These were gradually able to extend their influence across all sectors over much of the island (and many of its operatives also emigrated to other countries, particularly the United States).

Early 20th Century/Fascist Period;

After Mussolini came to power in the 1920s, he launched a fierce crackdown on organized crime, but they recovered quickly following the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943 once the Allies freed imprisoned Mafia leaders under the mistaken notion that they were political prisoners. Although Sicily fell to the Allied armies with relatively little fighting, the German and Italian forces escaped to the mainland largely intact. Control of Sicily gave the Allies a base from which to advance northward through Italy.

Post-War Period;

Following some political agitation, Sicily became an autonomous region in 1946 under the new Italian constitution, with its own parliament and elected President. In the 21st century Sicily, and its surrounding islets, has become a target destination for illegal immigrants and people-smuggling operations.