On the western slope of Mount Etna, close by the village of Bronte, lies the Duchy of Brontea bit of England on Sicilian soil. Grateful King Ferdinand of Naples and Sicily presented the 17,000-acre estate and its great baroque castle to Horatio, Lord Nelson and made him Duke of Bronte. It was the King's way of thanking Britain's mighty sea hero for saving the Neapolitan monarchy from the French in 1799.
The duchy passed on to Nelson's heirs; in 1937, it fell to the present modest and serious viscount, Rowland Arthur Herbert Nelson Hood, descended from the families of three British naval...
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