Venture inside the Ballarò market – a lively and historic city market in Palermo’s Albergheria district – and you will find yourself catapulted into a sensory experience: the colors of the fruits and vegetables, the smoke from the grills clouding the alleys, the smell of spices mingling with the smell of survival. And then the voices: they all shout here. Or rather: they “abbannìano.” “Abbanniari” is the ancient custom of Palermo street vendors to sing out their goods to attract customers’ attention. Derived from the times and from a world in which marketing studies and advertising techniques had not yet arrived, in which even noticeable signage was a quantum leap that not all merchants could afford, the abbanniata was the democratic and free tool available to street vendors, because all they needed was their own voice.

The Borgo Vecchio neighborhood in Palermo is sandwiched between the affluent Politeama-Via Libertà district and the historic fishing community of Castellammare, also known as la Loggia. On one side you have the Via Libertà, an arterial road peppered with theaters and gardens that the legendary composer Richard Wagner once described as the Champs-Élysées of Sicily. On the other, you have the scent of the foamy sea. In 1556, the neighborhood stretched from the San Giorgio gate to the Santa Lucia church. As a result, it adopted the name of this physical boundary and became known as Borgo di Santa Lucia. Lured by the promise of development of a nearby port, the street quickly attracted artisans and merchants from other regions and the district grew in stature.

As the sun dawns over the city of Palermo, warming the narrow streets still dampened by the night, merchants in the old quarter set up stands with their products: plentiful fruits, vegetables, meat and fish await the Palermitans who prefer to do their shopping here rather than in supermarkets illuminated by cold neon lights. At the Vucciria, one of the city's historic markets, Andrea Vattiato is setting up the fish counter where he has worked for half a century. He displays on ice a selection of the best fish the Mediterranean Sea has to offer, and with the help of a hose he wets the fish.