Trinacria first of all is a symbol with very ancient origins, for the reason that some literary man make it belong to the first solar cults (head with three legs = solar rays).
For Ovid
Trinacria, the vast isle of Sicily, had been heaped over the giant’s limbs, and with its great mass oppressed buried Typhoeus, he who had dared to aspire to a place in heaven.
He struggles it’s true and often tries to rise, but his right hand is held by the promontory of Pelorus, and his left hand by you, Pachynus. Lilybaeum presses on his legs, Etna weighs down his head, supine beneath it, Typhoeus throws ash from his mouth, and spits out flame.
Often, a wrestler, he throws back the weight of earth, and tries to roll the high mountains and the cities from his body, and then the ground trembles, and even the lord of the silent kingdom is afraid lest he be exposed, and the soil split open in wide fissures, and the light admitted to scare the anxious dead.
The symbol
The face of Medusa is present in the central part. It is a sort of talisman against negative energies, because the goddess had the power to petrify, with her eyes, her enemies. Countless snakes frame the face of Medusa, like a beautiful but frightening hair crown. Snake represents knowledge and wisdom, is the symbol of the ability to evolve and to be reborn.
Legs are the three promontories: Pachynus to the southeast, Pelorus to the northeast and Lilybaeum to the west. The bent leg, muscular, also represents the strength of the warrior, as for the Spartan shields, gives the idea of the movement as well as the spiraling progression of life.
The wings indicate the eternal passage of time and the spiritual nature of the Sicilian people.
Moreover wheat spike represent the fertility of the earth and the fact that in Roman times, Sicily was considered the “granary” of the Empire.
Unveiled the mystery around the symbolism of Trinacria, we like to think that it represents the deepest soul of her people.
A people that has always risen on its legs and has reinvented itself. From a strictly agricultural reality it has developed over time a multifactorial identity, which like an infinite number of snakes branches off in every field of knowledge, from services related to tourism to industries, from prestigious universities to the most modern startups.
Today the Sicilian defines himself as a lover of the past but with a deep sight to the future.
This is the Trinacria for us … this is our Sicily.
