0615 (posted on 25.04.2013) - RAGUSA
Can be said that Val di Noto (Province of Noto), a area located in south-eastern Sicily, owes its notoriety to a disaster, the enormous earthquake of 1693. After that, the representative of the king of Spain, the ruler of the time, received the permission to redesign the damaged towns based on rational and scenographic town plans. So these new towns were redesigned according to renaissance and baroque town planning, with streets crossing each other or starting from a central square, in what came to be known as the Sicilian Baroque style. In 2002, UNESCO inscribed eight of these towns on the World Heritage List as "representing the culmination and final flowering of Baroque art in Europe". One of this city is Ragusa (in the first postcard), formed from two distinct areas, the lower and older town of Ragusa Ibla, and the higher Ragusa Superiore (Upper Town), separated by the Valle dei Ponti, a deep ravine crossed by four bridges. Ragusa Ibla (in the postcard) hosts a wide array of Baroque architecture, including nine major churches and seven major palazzi.
Another city is Catania (in the second postcard), located between Messina and Syracuse, at the foot of the Mount Etna. Founded in the 8th century BC by the Greeks, it has had a long and eventful history, and has been buried by lava of seventeen times. In the 14th century and the Renaissance it was one of Italy's most important and flourishing cultural, artistic, and political centers. Originally constructed in 1078-1093, Catania Cathedral (in the postcard), dedicated to Saint Agatha, has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. Today, traces of the original Norman edifice include part of the transept, the two towers and the three semicircular apses, composed of large lava stones, most of them recovered from imperial Roman buildings. In the right can be seen the Palace of the Seminary of the Clerics, a very complex structure built by the architect Alonzo Benedict, connected to the Cathedral through a step above the Porta Uzeda.
1251 (posted on 27.09.2014) - CALTAGIRONE
Caltagirone, located about 70km southwest of Catania, has been long famous for the production of pottery, particularly maiolica and terra-cotta wares. Virtually all buildings in the old town are decorated with ceramic tiles, shops spill their delightfully crafted wares onto the pavements and the effect is one of multichromatic vivacity. The highlight is undoubtedly the 142 steps of the Scalinata di Santa Maria del Monte (Staircase of Santa Maria del Monte), built from 1609, that connect the lower town with the older upper town. The peculiarity is that each step is decorated with different hand-decorated ceramics, using styles and figures derived from the millennial tradition of pottery making. At the end of July (24th and 25th), in honour of the town's patron saint, San Giacomo, and in the middle of August, the steps undergo yet another transformation, the "Illuminata". Thousands of candles flicker away creating a truly breathtaking sight.
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