A story about Sicily is one of sun, the kind that burns the skin and dazzles the eyes, one of grey stone walls, burnished stone roads, rugged stone mountains, and sculpted stone churches. And it’s one of the sea, which comes back again and again to shape the island it shields and silences, its waves like pages speckled with the salt of stories. Enter venerable writer Andrea Camilleri (whose kitchen is never short of salt). His tireless imagination cooked up the Inspector Montalbano novels, the protagonist of which allegedly pays tribute to the writer’s colleague Manuel Vázquez Montalbán. Since 1999, Carlo Degli Esposti’s production company Palomar has been turning the pages of Camilleri’s novels into a TV drama that successfully holds together the original strength of the story with the protagonist centre stage, accessible staging and – and this is where we come in – an elegant mix of locations.
Print itineraryBecause Montalbano’s town, Vigata, doesn’t actually exist, like half of all literary towns. And yet it does exist, thanks to some clever redesigning of the map, a written invitation (yes written, because writing is the key to this journey) to visit Western Sicily, which we’re about to introduce you to in a sort of rosary of beauties that takes us to Val di Noto. The first thing we see is an aerial shot of Ragusa Ibla, Scicli and Modica in the opening theme of each episode, which covers the main locations used in the series in one shot, following in the footsteps of the Inspector as he goes about his investigations.
Right from the start we are guided through centuries-old streets, a maze as tangled as the mysteries of a case. And moving through them isan exercise, a pilgrimage to be carried out before surprising churches like the Cathedral of San Giorgio in Ragusa Ibla or the cathedral of the same name in Modica. Their lavish Baroque façades, made to look taller by where they sit, set the stage for revelations, movement, telephone calls, encounters and funerals: the feisty profile of the Inspector, played by Luca Zingaretti, as he discusses cases with his trusty team, is engraved in these images.
Montalbano’s everyday life revolves around his job at the police station in Scicli, actually the 20th-century town hall that looks out over Via Mormina Penna, a Baroque ‘parlour’ and UNESCO world heritage site, like Ragusa Ibla.
The cross-examinations, brief masterpieces in the art of dialect, with mafia boss Balduccio Sinagra, take place at his home, Donnafugata Castle in Ragusa; corpses pop up in the stone mazes of the castle, or at the Penna furnace, known as ‘la Mànnara’, on the cliffs of the Pisciotto in Sampieri. Donnalucata, Pozzallo, Scoglitti, Favignana, Vittoria, Brucoli, Marzamemi, Siracusa, Custonaci, Scopello, Scurati, Tindari: they’re like the cadences of the verses of a poem in dialect, to be explored with eager strokes in a sea you’ll always come back to, like the Inspector at dawn before diving into a new case. His house is a stone’s throw from the sea in Marinella, or rather Punta Secca, in Santa Croce Camerina. The sea is always present, cradling this lavish yet rugged Sicily. And although our viewing is interrupted by the credits, our own journey has yet to begin.