The Story of Sicily flag & The Legend Behind Sicilian Ceramic Heads

The flag is characterized by the presence of the triskelion (trinacria) in its middle, the (winged) head of Medusa (Gorgon) and three wheat ears. The three bent legs allegedly represent the three points of the triangular shape of the island of Sicily or the historical three Valli of the island.

The present design became the official public flag of the Autonomous Region of Sicily on 4 January 2000, after the passing of an apposite law which advocates its use on public buildings, schools, city halls, and all the other places in which Sicily is represented.

The flag is bisected diagonally into regions colored red and yellow, red representing the municipality of Palermo, yellow representing Corleone, which in medieval times was an agricultural city of renown. Palermo and Corleone were the first two cities to found a confederation against the Angevin rule. Today, the triskelion (or triskele) is also widely considered the actual symbol of Sicily.

The legend of the Moorish head goes back in the XI century, during the Moors domination in Sicily and as in most legends, is once again Cupid’s fault (or credit).

One day, a beautiful and honorable young girl living in the Kalsa, the Arabic district of Palermo, was taking care of plants and flowers in the balcony of her house as she was used to. Suddenly, a Moor merchant who was passing by fell in love with the beautiful girl who immediately returned his love.

They started having a love story until when she discovered he already had a wife and children waiting for him in his native land. She went suddenly crazy of jealousy and one night, while he was sleeping she thought of a way to make him stay with her forever!

She, therefore, cut off his head and cleverly decided to use it as a vase to grow her beautiful basil plant.

People walking down her balcony started looking at her flourishing plant of basil and became jealous of how bloomed her plants were, so they began to forge colorful clay heads pots wishing to have the same magic green thumb.

Today there are several varieties of ceramic heads, but the traditional ones show a black man and a beautiful girl.