San Filippo bend is a road landmark just before Capo Massaria headland, and the site of Giorgio Zicari’s fatal crash. The car came to rest on rocks below the bend; its discovery there brought the search for Giorgio to an end and connected the landscape to the grief that had overtaken him after his father’s death.

Setting and Discovery

The bend lies shortly before Capo Massaria headland. On Sunday afternoon, a fisherman in a boat saw that a car had fallen onto the rocks below it. He rowed toward the vehicle, saw a body in the driver’s seat, and left to report what he had found.

Giorgio had not returned, and his cousin said that the family had alerted the police and the Italian Carabinieri the following morning. The searches were described as superficial. The fisherman’s sighting eventually located both the car and its dead driver at the bend.

The Crash

The account of the accident links the road’s curve to Giorgio’s state of mind. After his father died, he had lived in near-constant derangement and taken too many tranquillizers and sedatives. Driving very fast, he went straight instead of taking the curve and broke through the small guard wall.

His cousin explained the crash through Giorgio’s continuing grief: he had never recovered from his father’s death and had loved him. The bend is therefore not merely a point on the route to Capo Massaria; it is where that account of grief and reckless driving ends in a fatal plunge onto the rocks.