Vito Finocchiaro

A wound that still bleeds; a memorable event in the history of the most active volcano in Europe ... Etna. The only eruption in the last three centuries that has reached and buried an entire country. The last occurred in 1669, when the city of Catania was destroyed.

Almost ninety years have passed since that fateful date that has forever marked the history of Sicily. Today, as then, the people continue to invoke the protection of its saints against the devastating fury of nature. A procession that, from 1928, brings an Apocalypse to mind every year.

In the night between November 2 and 3, around 2.30 am, an eruptive mouth opens at 1850 meters north of the Citelli Refuge, from which a lava river flows into the Magazzeni torrent and head towards the Town of Sant'Alfio. Between fright and terror, the population relies on its Patron Saints. At the mercy of the weather and the brutal force of the volcano, a crowd of weeping pilgrims takes the relics of the saints in procession and kneels in front of that incandescent lava riverthat wants to devour everything. A roar shakes the bowels of the earth. The people run frightened. It looks like an apocalypse. Under a rain of water, mud and stones everyone tries to escape from what seems like a destiny marked, abandoning everything. Suddenly the lava stops its way.

It looks like a miracle. November 4 at 9 pm a new fracture opens at a height of between 1200 and 1400 meters, reaching the Ripa of Naca area. A horrible river of lava heads to the Town of Mascali. It's November 6, 1928 ... The impetuous and destructive descent does not stop. A stream, red and hot as blood, creeps into the country. The whole inhabited is reached and completely destroyed on November 7th. Mascali is buried with lava along with its memories.