Sicily, at the epicentre of the Mediterranean, has endured its fair share of invaders and Imperial viceroys. It is a cruicible European culture, a place where the Phoenicians, Athenians, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Habsburgs, Bourbons and Byzantines all flourished, stimulating them to produce some of the finest and most distinctive work. Yet this always co-existed with a resilient indigenous culture, expressed in its own mythology, cuisine, wine and monumental architecture as well as in its attachment to secret societies, from the Sicilian Vespers to the moders-day Mafia.