According to the illustrious historian Paolo Vetri (1826-1891), Saint Elijah the Younger, who was born and lived in Enna in the ninth century AD and led the resistance against the Arabs, built both the Tower of St. Thomas and that of the Carmine. Indeed, their shape is similar. They dominate two picturesque squares.
Probably, Paolo Vetri wrote this way because he was influenced by the popular legend that linked the Tower of the Carmine to Saint Elijah the Younger.
Legend says that on moonlit nights some people saw the ghost of its builder, St. Elijah the Younger, wandering near the tower. Is the legend true?
I can only say that a few years ago the renovation works of the Church of the Carmine and the adjoining tower began. While the church was restored immediately and smoothly, the works in the tower suffered a setback. The builders did not finish their job and left the scaffolding, the pulleys and everything there. The mystery of the ghost of the builder of the tower, Saint Elijah the Younger, remains!
Ettore Grillo author of these books:
– November 2: The Day of the Dead in Sicily
– A Hidden Sicilian History
– The Vibrations of Words
– Travels of the Mind
Ettore Grillo's Blog 