"This is the preface to the volume that the Italian Touring Club has dedicated to Sicily in 1933. Looking to a few old pictures, we realize that the time has left its mark on the island; squares and streets are filled with cars, Sicilians have got rid of black scarves and their ancient customs, they have changed the face of the countryside. During the past Palermo was a prize mecca for the rich and powerful, today Sicily has to be thought as an island with thousand faces, poor and rich at the same time, closed and diffident in its noble decadence and so anxious to be integrated in the modern world and modern times, "a nation rather than a region, a nation with different identities".