The Sicilian writer Stefano D’Arrigo (1919-1992) and the Sicilian painter Renato Guttuso (1911-1987) shared a lasting friendship as well as a fascination for the Strait of Messina and their contemporary inhabitants. In their respective artistic production they portrayed the fishermen of the Strait, for example when going out at sea fishing for swordfish, according to a practice that can be traced back to ancient sources. In this small stretch of sea that has sparked Mediterranean imagination for thousands of years, where does myth end and reality begin?
