Via Ettore Majorna

 And speaking of roads that cut down from the Cala Rossa to the Lungomare and the sea, here's one I take almost every day: the Via Ettore Majorna (1906-1938). He was a child prodigy, in a family that produced child prodigies, and grew up to become a recognized genius in physics. Along the way he studied under and worked with both Fermi and Heisenberg. He attained a professorship in Naples, but left it almost immediately, heading home to Sicily to rest up (he was born in Catania), and then suddenly one day, at only thirty-one of age, he disappeared. His last few letters hinted at suicide without actually mentioning suicide, and then later walking away from the idea. He spent only two days in Sicily before heading back to Rome, or maybe he didn't, no one knows.

Sadly, but I guess unavoidably, Majorna's fame as a brilliant physicist is shrouded by ongoing fascination with his mysterious disappearance. According to the Interweb, the theories relating to his disappearance (which are almost a cottage industry in their own right) break up into five general categories: 1) he did in fact commit suicide, and his body was never found; 2) he joined a Jesuit monastery to find the mental and spiritual peace that life never gave him; 3) he disappeared into Germany, and this includes the possibility of a murder/suicide, which builds upon his troubling, although maybe only temporary, interest in the Nazis and some anti-Semitic statements; 4) his travel to Argentina and disappearance after the war, which is sort of a continuation of #3 above; or 5) disappearing into Sicily itself, becoming sort of a travelling wise man, displaying an unusual amount of knowledge about physics for what appeared to be a homeless man (including helping local children with their homework).