Buccheri, with about 2.000 inhabitants, is a town and commune in the Province of Syracuse in the south part of the Sicily island; near we can visit the commons of Buscemi, Carlentini, Ferla, Francofonte, Giarratana (in the province of Ragusa) and Vizzini (in province of Catania).
At times, when the wind blows among the leafy branches of the pines and the ilexes, you almost seem to be able to hear the flute of Daphnis, the handsome shepherd that pastured his flocks here. And the soft lowing of the cows of Hera, sacred animals whose presence - and here history and legend intertwine - gave the name to a village of shepherds and farmers, Buccheri (from bous, oxen, and Hera).
Certainly these are fables, stories that colour the remote and unknown origins of this village with mythological imagination. And if it is true that archaeologists have drawn out of the earth the remains of huts that testify ancient settlements, it is also true that the traces of the remotest past are very few in number. In the seventeenth century an earthquake saw to sweeping everything away: houses, churches and the castle of the seignior were reduced to rubble.
Of the medieval village, which grew up around the castle, very little remained - and to think that Buccheri, in addition to the residence of its seignior, had fine churches and brick cottages. You can still make out something in the oldest part below of the tumbledown towers of the castle, among alleys and courtyards that take the memory back to the nucleus of the 11th-12th centuries, but the people of Buccheri preferred to move down the hill.
The main church, for instance, was moved down to near Piazza dei Canali, where, around the drinking trough with its fountain, people were wont to meet to get the animals to drink on returning from the fields, to wash clothes and to gossip (today only the fountain, known as the Quattro Canali fountain, from 1585, remains). And the Maddalena church, which has a scenographic façade, was also moved: from the old building the statue of the saint was recovered, a delicate sixteenth-century marble sculpture by Antonello Gagini that can now be seen in the right aisle.
The Sant'Antonio church, instead, was simply turned the other way: now it looks to the south, from atop a flight of steps in lava stone. For San Nicola, instead, no work was necessary: the very old little church, a cavern dug out in the rock and decorated with frescoes that can still partly be seen, suffered no damage. The thirteenth-century Sant'Andrea church, eight kilometres from the village, also resisted the shock of the earthquake quite well: today, with its Gothic nave, it is an excellent example of religious architecture in the Swabian epoch.
However, it is not only religious buildings that bear witness to the past of Buccheri: there are for instance the snow trenches, small constructions in stone where snow was hoarded, being very much in demand for making sherbets, and, starting from a few years ago, the fine Medfest festival that, inspired by the history of the village, every year brings medieval feasts back to life. Instead, local Buccheri produce is exhibited in the oil and olive festival held in December.
Buccheri, with about 2.000 inhabitants, is a town and commune in the Province of Syracuse in the south part of the Sicily island; near we can visit the commons of Buscemi, Carlentini, Ferla, Francofonte, Giarratana (in the province of Ragusa) and Vizzini (in province of Catania).
