The Happy Summer Days: A Sicilian Childhood
Fulco Santostefano della Cerda, Duke of Verdura, was born in the 1890s at the Villa Niscemi on the outskirts of Palermo. In this memoir of his idyllic Sicilian childhood, he renders an enchanting portrait of a bygone era of palaces, gardens, and parties. Through the eyes of young Fulco, we meet the many characters who made up his world: the aloof grandmother, tender mother, and adored sister; a host of amusing servants and vigilant governesses; his handsome, dashing father who lived a curious separate existence in the Palazzo Verdura in town; his innumerable eccentric relatives and neighbors; and a menagerie of beloved animals (including a camel). With its reminiscences of fancy-dress parties, of ladies with boas and gentlemen with boaters, of garden parties remembered as a vision of “lace parasols against a background of palm trees and cypresses,” this is a beautiful memoir of childhood and an avowedly indulgent ode to “those golden days.”