The City of Ragusa is one of the province of Sicily. It is called the “city of bridges”, due to the presence of three very picturesque and historic buildings. In 1693 a devastating earthquake caused the almost total destruction of the entire city, claiming more than five thousand victims. The reconstruction, which took place in the eighteenth century, divided it into two large districts: on the one hand upper Ragusa, situated on the plateau, on the other Ragusa Ibla, built from the ruins of the ancient city and rebuilt according to the ancient medieval layout.
The architectural masterpieces built after the earthquake, together with all those present in the Val di Noto, were declared World Heritage by UNESCO in 2002. Ragusa is one of the most important places due to the presence of Baroque art, such as its churches and its eighteenth-century buildings.
Geography
The city of Ragusa, which extends over the southern part of the Iblei mountains, is the southernmost provincial capital of Italy, the eleventh for altitude and an average distance of 20 km from the sea. The highest peak is Mount Arcibessi (906 m s.l.m.), for this it is among the municipalities lapped by the sea that have the highest elevation gain. The oldest district of the city, Ragusa Ibla, stands on a hill. To the east the city is surrounded by the hill of San Cono, and in the middle there flows the river Irminio, one of the most important in south-eastern Sicily. To the north the city is bounded by the Cava of the San Leonardo torrent and by Mount Patro. To the south is Mount Bollarito which is divided from Ragusa by the Fiumicello stream. Finally in the west rises Ragusa Superiore on the Patro and Cucinello hills, the most recent part of the city instead on the Corrado, Pendente and Selvaggio hills, the first two detached from the surrounding hills by two deep gorges, the typical “quarries” of the Iblean plateau, the Cava Gonfalone and the Cava Santa Domenica.
Climate of Ragusa
The city of Ragusa enjoys a hilly Mediterranean climate: its altitude indeed determines colder average temperatures than those of the Sicilian coast. Snow events are rare in the lower areas of the city like Ibla; they occur more frequently, however, in the higher areas, located on the plateau, which have a Mediterranean mountain climate. Winter is very rainy: rainfall is abundant from October to the end of March. Together with Messina, Ragusa is one of the wettest provincial capitals, having an annual average of about 700 mm per year. The greater the amount of rain falling on the elevated areas of the Iblei mountains, where they can exceed 1000 mm per year. The greatest rainfall occurs, in addition to the intense stormy phases typical of autumn, during the most persistent winter levantages, which manage to easily bring quantities even around 200 mm in one day on all the Ibleis, with the exception of the lowland vittoriese which is unfavorable if eastern winds blow. There is a ten-year oscillation between 650 mm and 1 481 mm overall.
The History of the city of Ragusa
Ancient History
The origins of Ragusa date back to the Neolithic exactly to the culture of Castelluccio; the first settlements date back to the 20th century BC the city has always played a fundamental role in the history of the island. If the ancient Hybla Heraia – whose location is currently unknown – was paid to the territory of Ragusa, then it could be linked to the legend that tells of the Sicilian king Hyblon, founder of a first inhabited nucleus, after having expelled the ancient Sicans, less advanced than siculi [no source]. It would have been besieged several times by the Greeks, but to no avail. In 491 BC – is supposed at Hybla Heraia – Hippocrates of Gela died in battle against the Sicilian iblei. In 450 BC Falaride, tyrant of Agrigento, repeatedly threatened the independence and freedom of the Ibla people with his army. But the tyrant was rejected tenaciously and easily, also thanks to the help of Kamarina – founded by the Syracusans on the ibleo territory – and of Siculi, who intervened with their armies to fight the Agrigento people.
In Hybla (not in Ragusa), for his honey, the Roman poet Silio Italico attributed the nickname “Audax” (bold) because he compared it to that of Mount Imetto in Attica.
The inhabitants of the coastal site of Kamarina, twenty kilometers from the mountainous one of Ragusa, after the destruction of their city sought shelter in the nearby towns and villages; Comiso increased it more.
Later, under the Romans, Ibla would have become a decuman city (but there is no agreement on this point) together with Modica; that is, obliged to pay the tenth part of the harvests, this suggests a favorable treatment, probably due to the fact that the cities surrendered without a fight.
Middle Ages
The Byzantines built a large city wall in Ibla around AD 700. Basil and Nicola were also named patrons of the city. By the early 9th century the Arabs had conquered most of the island, in 844 AD the ally Modica is conquered. The Arabs tried several times to conquer the city but conquered it only in 848 after various and exhausting wars against the Iblean populations; in 866 AD the Iblean population expelled the Arabs from all over the territory due to a violent rebellion, only in 878 was it regained again. However, during the Arab domination, dozens and dozens of farmhouses were formed, cotton cultivation, irrigated crops, terracing. In less than 200 years the Arabs gave a great boost to agriculture. In 1090, an imposing popular revolt supported by Norman spies finally drove the Arabs from all over the Ragusa, triggering a tremendous hunt for the invader. From the Norman period, except for some brief interruptions, the city was for more than five hundred years administered independently by various accounts, even within other dominations such as the Angevin and Aragonese, thanks to the ancient privileges that in 1091 the Great Count Ruggero granted to his own son Goffredo, first count of Ragusa, who was able to administer it with ample autonomy. During the Swabian period the city was incorporated into the state domain, however some privileges were re-established thanks to King Frederick II. The Angevins, on the other hand, administered Sicily and Ragusa very badly and were hunted thanks to the famous Sicilian Vespers, in particular Giovanni Prefoglio led the Ragusa revolt which exterminated the French garrison. Following this, under the Aragonese, Ragusa regained the ancient Norman autonomy and was granted in Signoria to Donna Marchisia Prefoglio, wife of the aforementioned Giovanni. The county of Ragusa merged with the county of Modica in 1296 thanks to Manfredi I Chiaramonte, who married Isabella Mosca, daughter of the Count of Modica. In 1366, with Manfredi III Chiaramonte, the county reached its maximum splendor with the acquisition of the lands of Terranova and of the whole Maltese archipelago. The County of Modica enjoyed an autonomous administration completely separate from the Palermo government; no king had the right to govern it, but only the count. Thus it became one of the most important Italian feudal states. But it was above all under the powerful Count Bernardo Cabrera that the fostering had the greatest prestige.
Modern History
From 17th century
On 11 January 1693 a devastating earthquake destroyed the ancient city and caused about five thousand deaths on a population of thirteen thousand inhabitants. This led to the reconstruction of the entire city, giving rise to the splendid Baroque style that characterizes the Val di Noto. From the old medieval village remained only the urban conformation, made of narrow streets, stairs and alleys, a part of the Byzantine walls near the Church of the Holy , the Gothic-style portal of the old cathedral of San Giorgio, currently located near the Iblei Gardens, Porta Walter, recently built, and the remains of the Frederick’s castle, then completely removed in the first decade of the twentieth century to make way for the construction of the Military District, active during the First World War, which currently houses the premises of the branch of the Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Catania.
From 19th Century
In 1848 together with the cities of Modica and Scicli he rebelled against the Bourbon government, in order to obtain the freedom and independence of the island. In 1860, armed volunteers were immediately sent to help Garibaldi who had just landed in Marsala and therefore became part of the Kingdom of Italy under the guidance of Senator Corrado Arezzo de Spuches of Donnafugata. In 1889 the Banca Popolare Cooperativa di Ragusa was founded, the first embryo of the current Banca Agricola Popolare di Ragusa; the bank was born thanks to the huge wealth and the flourishing agriculture that belonged to the now ex county and immediately became an important point of reference for all the iblea economy.
XX Century
At the beginning of the twentieth century also in the Ragusa area socialist ideas spread particularly strongly with respect to the region, and from many fascist historians Ragusa was described as “a fiefdom of the reds, not unlike that of Bologna”. Because of a strong political dialectic, fascism was imposed in Ragusa, provoking a violent response similar to that of the Po Valley. On January 29, 1921, a group of fascists destroyed Vittoria’s socialist circle, killing one man and wounding ten and two months later in Ragusa four people were killed and sixty were injured. In particular, Totò Giurato, grandfather, promoted the fascist ideology in Ragusa. of the television presenter Luca Giurato. He, in the aftermath of the First World War, enlisted in the Arditi of Italy and followed D’Annunzio in the river business, returning to the Hyblaean city, imbued with the myth of the mutilated victory. The city was the first Sicilian to have given birth to this political movement, to such an extent that the following sentence was engraved in the Littoria Tower built at the behest of Mussolini himself: “Fascism ibleo Tu first to rise in the generous land of Sicily”. Later, in 1927 thanks to Filippo Pennavaria, a well-known fascist exponent, Ragusa became the capital of the province of the same name, and at the same time united the neighboring municipality of Ragusa Ibla.
During the Second World War the city was suddenly shaken by bombing, starting in 1942 and throughout 1943, due to the presence of the Comiso military airport; the Axis fighter-bombers departed from its runway. In 1943 the Iblean coast was then the theater of the Landing in Sicily by the Allies, returning rapidly to normality at the end of the war. On 4 January 1945, the young Maria Occhipinti gave rise to a popular uprising; in fact the woman, five months pregnant, lay down on the ground in front of a military truck, and in the whole city a violent revolt broke out, especially in the most popular areas and in particular in the neighborhood nicknamed Russia. Calmness was quickly restored, not without injuries, and many Ragusans were imprisoned or forced to be expelled from the city. On 6 May 1950, with a regular papal bull, Ragusa was erected to the dignity of a diocese, thanks to the shrewd and constant commitment of Monsignor Carmelo Canzonieri, then pastor of San Giovanni Battista who later became auxiliary bishop of Messina first and then Caltagirone, obtaining the territory from the archdiocese of Syracuse and from the diocese of Noto.
Today Ragusa presents itself as a dynamic and affluent city: it is home to numerous companies and institutions and is also the most important financial center in the south for the presence of BAPR, which is the fourth Italian popular bank. Since the nineties the Ragusa economy has been developing towards the industrial sector, which is still growing rapidly in contrast with the Italian situation; the scarce presence of infrastructures has limited the great potential of this territory which in any case remains the most important export area of Sicily; furthermore, the city has been a university since 1993.
Monuments of Ragusa
In 2002 the historic center of Ragusa for its baroque architecture was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, along with seven other municipalities in the Val di Noto.
The reconstruction of the city after the earthquake of 1693 has had famous protagonists such as Vaccarini, Palma, Giovanni Vermexio, Sebastiano Ittar, Vincenzo Sinatra and above all the famous Rosario Gagliardi. These, with the help of a crowd of local sculptors and master builders, contributed to creating a unique and particular phenomenon: the Baroque of the Val di Noto. It is adorned with local stone, with volutes, voids and full, columns and capitals, statues and architectural compositions, of which probably the Cathedral of San Giorgio is the maximum expression. As early as the end of the sixteenth century, important books circulated in Ragusa such as the seven architecture books by Sebastiano Serlio, the Four books of architecture by Andrea Palladio, the works by Domenico Fontana and other texts by famous architects.
In general, the Ragusa Baroque is a reworking of works or drawings, a starting point for the artist’s refined and eclectic taste, in fact many master-sculptors formed the basis on which the imagination, inspiration and ability of these, reproduced and customized models and schemes, obtaining effects with the local, warm and golden stone referable only to the Iblean baroque. Most of the artistic heritage, with the sole exception of the cathedral of San Giovanni Battista and some eighteenth-century palace, is located in the ancient district of Ibla. The Ragusa Ibla district alone contains over fifty churches, most of which are in the late Baroque style. Even the historic buildings are numerous.
Of all the structures built between late antiquity and the end of the seventeenth century there are only fragments: a short section of the circle of walls, near the church of the S.S. Found, the portal of the Swabian period and the bell tower in the church of San Francesco all’Immacolata, the portal of the ancient church of San Giorgio, the only remnant of the ancient temple; the Walter gate, one of the gates that opened into the walls of the Byzantine era; a small Gothic portal walled outside the church of Sant’Antonino; the chapels annexed to one of the naves of the church of Santa Maria delle Scale; the sculptures in the sacristy of the Cathedral of San Giorgio, dated 1570 attributed to Antonio Gagini, son of the great Antonello Gagini, who died in 1536; some fragments of the tombstone of Count Bernardo Cabrera.
Countless were the works brought to an end in the thirties in a very short time, to coordinate the projects was called the architect Ugo Tarchi of the real academy of Brera, who in particular took care of the urban study and the construction of Piazza Impero, with the majestic Palazzo del Beam characterized by the high central tower, designed by the architect Ernesto Lapadula. Construction of the Palace of the Provincial Council of Corporations, now the seat of the Chamber of Commerce, was also started on the same square, based on a project by the architect Fichera. On the side of the Cathedral is the Monument to the Fallen, a bronze work by the sculptor Sindoni, on a marble clad base, inaugurated on 12 May 1924 on the occasion of Benito Mussolini’s first visit to Ragusa.
