Aeolian Islands
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The Aeolian Islands. |
The
Aeolian Islands (
Italian Isole Eolie) are a
volcanic archipelago in the
Tyrrhenian Sea north of
Sicily. They are a popular tourist destination in the summer, and attract up to 200,000 visitors annually.
The largest island is
Lipari, and tourism marketing often names the entire archipelago the
Lipari Islands because of the ease of pronouncing Lipari compared to Aeolian. The other islands include
Vulcano,
Salina,
Stromboli,
Filicudi,
Alicudi, and
Panarea. The town of Lipari has about 11,000 inhabitants. Vulcano is famous for its
fango baths.
The
Cnidian settlers under
Pentathlos arrived at Lipara in 580 BC and settled on the site of the modern village known as Castello or la Cittade. They named the islands after the
Greek keeper of the winds,
Aeolus, whose benevolence was essential. Outside Lipara, on the road to the necropolis, a sanctuary to
Demeter and
Persephone has been discovered. The islands were the site of the
Battle of the Lipari Islands in
260 BC between
Rome and
Carthage. Biblical historian
Josephus mentioned a group that is probably related to the Aeolian islands: "Elisa gave name to the Eliseans, who were his subjects; they are now the Aeolians." Elisa refers to the biblical figure
Elishah, grandson of
Japheth, son of
Javan.
In
1544, when
Spain declared war on
France, the French king
Francois I, asked the
Ottoman Sultan Suleiman for help. The latter sent a fleet headed by
Khair ad Din (also known as
Barbarossa) who was victorious over the Spaniards, and managed to retake
Naples from them. In the course of the battle the Aeolian Islands were depopulated. Later immigrants from mainland Italy, Sicily and Spain re-established communities on the archipelago.
The Aeolian Islands have been listed by the
UNESCO as
World Heritage Sites.
*
UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Aeolian Islands*
Aeolian Islands tourism website (in Italian).*
Richard Stillwell, ed. Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, 1976: "Aeoliae Insulae (Lipari Islands), Messina, Sicily"
