Saint Rosalia from Palermo - The Thornless Rose for the Boy with the Thorn in his Side

Today my beloved Palermo celebrates, for the second time every year, its principal Patron Saint: Rosalia Sinibaldi, the beautiful, pious and mysterious hermite who left her rich family, refused to marry and embraced Nature and Contemplation instead.

From my family home, which is in a working-class periphery by the sea, I can admire the Promontory of Monte Pellegrino: as I child, I dreamt of living there like Saint Rosalia, enjoying the company of animals and trees.

I drew a wolf, thinking of the one that was rescued from the furious crowd in Gubbio by Saint Francis of Assisi and became his companion, and also as a tribute to the last Sicilian wolf, killed in 1924 in Bellolampo, near Palermo, who was stuffed and exposed at the Museo Civico of Terrasini, always near Palermo: I visited this museum when I was twelve, with my middle (finger) school, and the Taxidermy Horror Show terrified and saddened me immensely, causing me more bullying from the usual bullies who made fun of me, the very shy, too clever and oversensitive (from their unsensitive point of view, of course) little girl, as they did with these poor defunct animals.

It seems that few wolves still lived until the Seventies, and they could still live nowadays near Palermo.

I do hope so: maybe they hide themselves as Rosalia lived hidden on Monte Pellegrino.

The idea to quote Morrissey's new song and upcoming single Zoom Zoom the Little Boy came to me while I was drawing the quiet Wolf chilling with a dreamy Rosalia.

The tiny Bird on Rosalia's bird is an homage to all the lovely birds I rescued since my childhood, and especially a lovely orphaned chick who used to jump on my hand, run over my arm to my shoulder, rests near my neck, covered with my hair like her mom's feathers, then climbing on the top of my head. He lived with his dad and his older sister in a jardin partagé I uses to spend time gardening and feeding these lovely creatures. Unfortunately, I could not take him home for the night because he would have become even more attached to me and when I would have left Paris during the Summer, as I would have not been allowed to travel with a baby chicken, he would have been so depressed that he would have certainly died. Eventually, the poor chick died in June, when I was still in Paris, because somebody stupidly let their home's door open. I terribly miss him and his "aunt", a lovely chick with a very strong character who died on the same night.

The rest of the family (the dad, his older sisters and eight lovely chicks who were born two weeks after the tragedy) left Paris for the countryside. The chicken mom and her chicks were sent to somewhere in Normandy, while the dad with the other daughter settled elsewhere.

I do not know what happened to the young mom and her chicks; the other chicken had a baby, but shortly after poor dad was killed and served on plates as "coq au vin" and the news depressed me so much that I stopped asking news of the survivors because I feared other bad news and, as I could not anything for them, I surely would have been very sad.

If only I could have taken them in Dublin, one month later, and give them to Morrissey before his first concert at Vicar Street!

I guess he would have been surprised and very pleased, and he would have certainly found a safe barn for them to stay (there is nothing like this in Paris and in the banlieue, and unfortunately I do not drive and nobody at the jardin partagé cared about them, except me), but it was obviously impossible to hand them to Morrissey's crew.

Pictures below: details and whole drawing made by me early this morning with my usual technique, i. e., just a black Bic pen without preparatory sketch.

Article, drawing, details and photos by me, of course.

[Evening Update]

I have just found a video in my smartphone a video of the little orphaned chick and me, on the very day (it was Italian Mother's Day) he chose me as his adoptive mamma, few days after his mom's death. I was the only one he trusted. As all the other beautiful creatures who lived in this jardin partagé, I gave him a name, but I will keep it secret.

Below: screenshot from my video.

Vera da Pozzo

Paris, Saint Rosalia, 4th September 2026

(C) Vera da Pozzo

(C) Italy is Mine

(C) Italy is Mine and It owes Me a Living

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