In June 1996, my wife and I were fortunate to be able to join Cornell's Adult University study tour focusing on art and architecture in Sicily. Initially, I expected the two-week tour to serve as little more than a scouting opportunity for a more extensive visit to photograph the many monumental treasures of Sicily at a later date. To my pleasant surprise, the very deliberate pace and thorough nature of the tour, coupled with the tolerance and understanding of its leaders, made for a welcome opportunity to make photographs very productively right from the start. For this opportunity, I particularly want to thank Ralph Janis, Director of  Cornell's Adult University, William McMinn, then Dean of Cornell University's School of Archi

tecture, and Jeffrey Blanchard, Professor of Cornell Abroad in Rome.
      As a crossroads of the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily is a veritable treasure trove of the artistic expression of all of the civilizations known to inhabit this region of the world for the last three millennia. The exhilaration at being able to experience so many of Sicily's treasures first-hand is tempered, however, by a feeling of sadness generated by their vulnerability to both neglect and the encroachment of development. Here then, I  present a small sample of those treasures: please admire them for their beauty, but also be conscious of their fragility.