Trinacria: The Symbol of Sicily

The original Greek name for the island of Sicily was Trinacria (Tre-three, Nacria-promontory) meaning the land of the three promontories. The island had already acquired this name and was referred to as such in Ulysses Travels.From Homeric times, Sicily was characterized by its triangular shape. These angles are considered to be Capo Peloro at Messina in the northeast, Cape Correnti in the southeast, and Capo Lillibeo at Marsala on the west coast.In the symbol's centers is the head of a Gorgon. In Greek mythology, the Gorgon represented three monstrous females with huge teeth, brazen claws, snakes for hair; the sight of whom turned beholders into stone. Medusa was the best known of the three mythological Gorgon, who personified the terrors of the sea.The Trinacria is represented as a Medusa-like woman with three legs in a running position. The three legs point in the direction of Sicily's three angles, since the island is said to "rest on three legs." The three-legged symbol was undoubtedly derived from the ancient Greeks in the eighth century B.C. when they colonized the island. Legend says that when Perseus, the son of Jupiter, approached Medusa while she slept, and taking care not to look at her, cut off her head and gave it to Minerva, who fixed it in the middle of her Aegis: the shield or breast plate of Jupiter made by Vulcan on the island of Lemnon (one of the Aolian isles). It became the characteristic attribute of Minerva, and the symbol of the island of Sicily.