Castle of Eufemio

On Wednesday, September 19, at 6:00 p.m. 2007
at the new location of the AIS,
Professor Blaise Tobia of Drexel University,
will present his new book and the exibition,
Castle of Eufemio.

Blaise Tobia is Professor of Media Arts at Drexel University and a long-time student of Italian language and culture at the America-Italy Society. He has extensively photographed in Italy, especially Sicily. During the fall of 2006 he was a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome. His work has been featured in numerous publications as well as in galleries locally and nationally.

Professor Tobia's new book, Castle of Eufemio, is both a bound fine-art photography portfolio and a documentary work on the extraordinary Festival of the Most Holy Crucifix (Festa del Santissimo Crocifisso) of the Sicilian town of Calatafimi. This three-day event, which can bring more than one-hundred-thousand people into the small paese, occurs ever more infrequently—now only every seventh or eight year. It combines religious tradition with civic history and pride. “Castle of Eufemio” is a translation of the town name Calatafimi—known throughout Italy because Garibaldi fought the first battle of the Risorgimento there and because it is the site of the beautiful 5th-century BC temple of Segesta. Tobia has a special relationship with Calatafimi: all four of his grandparents were born there; his father was raised there, and he still has strong family ties to the town.

In this presentation for the America-Italy Society, Professor Tobia will be showing and discussing images of Sicily made during twenty years of documenting the island. He will begin with the specifics of the current festival and move to the larger context of the town and its history, the surrounding area, and Sicily as a whole. This is the first in a series of presentations that he will be doing throughout the region to promote his new book.

This event will also be a celebration of the relocation of the America Italy Society into a larger facility after fifty years of growth in Philadelphia. Signed copies of Castle of Eufemio will be available; part of the proceeds will benefit the nonprofit Society, which is the book’s associate publisher.