History

Ragusa has ancient origins, the hill of Ibla was in fact inhabited since the fourteenth century. A. C. by the Sicilians.

Of these ancient inhabitants have significant traces of the necropolis around Ragusa.

A group of oven graves, caves dug into the rock, the we can see along the road from Ragusa Ibla rises to just below the church of S. Maria delle Scale; another group of Sicilian tombs located near the confluence of the river S. Leonardo by the Irminio and can be seen even in the valley overlooking the Garden Ibleo.

A Greek necropolis of the sixth century. AC in the hill Rite shows the presence of a group of Greeks of Camarina in that place where undertook the business with the Sicilians, however, respecting the autonomy of Hybla.

Independence was finally lost however with the Roman conquest in the third century. A.C.

In 330 A.D. Sicily went under Byzantine rule and will remain there for about five centuries.

The Byzantines thought to fortify Ragusa and built a castle. An important catacomb called Trabacche, just in this period you can visit in the district Centopozzi.

In 848 Ragusa was conquered by the Arabs who introduced, as in Sicily, new and important crops.

In 1081 the Normans began the conquest of Sicily and also Ragusa was conquered in 1091. Ruggero d’Altavilla takes itself Modica, Scicli, Ispica and Giarratana and grants to his son Goffredo, Ragusa with the title of County.n

With the marriage of the heir to the throne of Sicily Costanza d’Altavilla with the German Emperor Henry VI begins the Swabian domination.

In 1266 Sicily was conquered by the Anjou sol that a few years later were driven out by the revolt of the Vespers (1282). Came the Aragonese in Sicily is restored the feudal system and Ragusa assigned Chiaramonte as a county, whose seat was moved to Modica under Cabrera (1448) due to a revolt against the feudal lords that was held in Ragusa.

The Cabrera gave in lease the lands of the county to take advantage of the privilege to export duty-free up to 12,000 corpses of cereals, which would not have been able to scrape up with a simple lease.

From censurazione temporary ran early in the lifetime and perpetual. Begins a radical transformation of the local economy. The disruption of the feudal system and the birth of a strong class of farmers “the farmers”.

Although the territory undergoes a transformation, born the massaria and dry stone walls that mark the passage of the district. The stone walls, are a way to fence the fields with the most abundant element, stone, also allow the rotation of crops and grazing of semi-wild cattle.

In 1693 a terrible earthquake destroyed Ragusa (5000 deaths) along with the entire south-eastern Sicily (60,000 victims in total) . The reconstruction of Ragusa began immediately and while the nobles (Sangiorgiari) prefer to rebuild on the same site before, stewards and bourgeoisie (Sangiovannari) went to build on the nearby hill of Patro.