Sicilians III

1530-1650 CE

From 1530 to 1650 CE, the Sicilians bore the weight of Spanish grandezza — their wheat feeding Habsburg armies, their ports watching for Ottoman sails, their nobles adopting Castilian pretensions while their peasants spoke a language Madrid could not understand. Palermo's viceroys held court in borrowed splendor, the island's ancient parliament reduced to voting taxes, yet Sicilian identity endured beneath the Spanish veneer like fire under ash.