Ragusa stands on some hills which belong to the mountain range called Monti Iblei, in the south-estern part of Sicily. It is the Capital of a little province ,with 12 municipalities, situated in the extreme south of Italy. It has a 44.250 square kilometres 's surface and it has about 70.000 inhabitants. Marina di Ragusa's hamlet and the one of San Giacomo di Bellocozzo belong to this province , but there are also other small villages all along the road which link the province with the seaside. Rich in Art and Sights to visit, with handsome natural landscapes and places of mystical beauty, Ragusa is a place of interest for everyone. Sun, sea,soil:this is what people who comes to Ragusa like, but it is not just Nature, great works of art and architecture are preserved in this town; evocative archeological finds are underneath the Town as witness of it very old origin. Ragusa, where Nature and Men live in perfect armony from ages. HISTORY Ragusa is a very old Town. It foundation can be dated back to the period in which the Siculi's population founded a small village called " Hybla " about the year 1000 BD, by going up the river Irminio which at that time was navigable , near the nowadays Town. Then it was colonized by the Greeks (in 706 BD)from whom the Siculi learned the art of building. In fact in this period on the top of the hill (where now there is the Ex Distretto building) they built a temple for the cult of the divinity called Hybla. Greeks changed the name of the village in Hybla Heraea. After the Greek domination the Romans succeeded and ruled the village until the division of the Roman Empire. Hybla Heraea became a decuman town and it changed again the name: Hereum and then Hereusiem. In 330 AD the Town passed under the control of the Bizantin Empire. At that time the barbaric invasion started , so to protect the Town they built a party wall all around the Town using very big rocks and giving it the characteristic form of fish. Even in this case the Town changed the name, that became Reùsa. After that the Arabs controlled this land for less than 2 centuries, starting from 848 AD, but in this period they made a lot of improvements above all for agricolture and architecture. Under the Arab's nomination the name of the Town had the last and most important changes, becoming Ragus at first and then Rackusa. In 1090 Ragusa became a County, under the Norman power. The Town became bigger and it fortification stronger; it also began a process of social stratification and the families that in the future centuries would be very important, started emerging.There was also the construction of Churches and Palaces all over the Town. In this period the Church of " Santa Maria delle Scale " and the old Church of " San Giorgio " were built. In 1194 the Norman domination ended and Sicily passed under the control of Svevi's family. Under Federico II of Svevia, the actual symbol of Ragusa was introduced. This gouvernment did not ruled for a long time because in 1265 Sicily became a French pssession, even if for a short time. Ragusa's county passed to Earl Giovanni Prefoglio, and after his death to his nephew Manfredi who belonged to an aristocratic french family, the Chiaramonte's. With the Chiaramonte's Ragusa could increase its beauty and it economy. In 1392 Sicily was captured by General Bernardo Cabrera who came from Aragon , in Spain, so the aristocratic families that ruled the counties were usurped and lost either their political power or their economical power. In Ragusa arrived the Cabrera's family. In 1448 Ragusan citizens rebelled against the new rulers and has punishment for this rebellion the Earl decided to move the capital of the County from Ragusa to Modica. For the first time of it history Ragusa, that had been a very strategic place lost it importance until 1927. After the Cabrera's family , the Enriquez came to Sicily thanks to a marriage between Anna Cabrera (who had inherited the County) and Federico Enriquez with whom she lived in Spain. For Ragusa it was a great moment of development.Other families became rich and influential and to show their social status of aristocrats they built churches near their big palaces. Between 1500 and 1600 more than 40 churches were built. 11/01/1693: an incredible and violent earthquake hit the south-estern part of the Sicily, destroying a lot of towns so it did not remain anything of the medieval Ragusa.After the disaster caused by the earthquake, that destroyed almost everything , the Ragusa'citizens had to decide where to build the new town. There was a division: a group of people (above all aristocrats)did not wanted to move from the old Ragusa , instead another group (above all people who lived in the suburbs and farmers) wanted to reconstruct it on the slope of the hill, in a district called " Patro ". They built 2 Ragusas: the old one and the modern one. The reason why they disagreed was almost political , because some families wanted to take the lead over the ancient aristocracy, but there were also religious problems: the already unsolved

a touristic guide of the town of ragusa

Passeggiata semiseria ad uso degli appassionati di storia, arte, natura e tradizioni popolari attraverso i maggiori centri del Val di Noto, ricostruiti dopo il terremoto disastroso del 1693. Itinerario n.16 da "Il primo fu Odisseo", di Massimo Crispi. Fuori Thema, Bologna 2000 con aggiunte del 2014

La tesi di laurea mira a mettere in luce lo straordinario esempio di stratificazione architettonica della Chiesa di San Francesco all'Immacolata in Ragusa Ibla, annoverata fra i 18 monumenti riconosciuti patrimonio dell'Unesco. Il testo, oltre ad approfondire gli aspetti che hanno portato allo stato attuale, indaga la storia dell'edificio, dalla sua data di fondazione, da sempre oggetto di una diatriba fra gli storici locali, al perché - erroneamente - si faccia riferimento al Palazzo Chiaramonte. Con il terremoto del 1693 il convento rovinò sin dalle fondamenta nonostante fosse stato fondato non molto tempo prima, a differenza della chiesa che, seppur risentendone, mantenne il suo impianto e che, stando ai documenti, risulta già agibile subito dopo il terremoto. In appendice alla tesi vi è la trascrizione del libro dei conti tenuto dai Frati Francescani nel XVII secolo, dal quale è possibile desumere un’aggiornata evoluzione dei lavori che si sono operati all’interno della fabrica dal gennaio 1628 al settembre 1666.

“Barocco del Val di Noto” è una opera fotografica e di approfondimento sul Barocco del Val di Noto ed in particolare del barocco dei comuni inseriti all’interno del sito UNESCO "Le città tardo barocche del Val di Noto (Sicilia sud orientale)". I comuni interessati sono 8: Noto, Palazzolo Acreide, Scicli, Modica, Ragusa, Militello Val Di Catania, Caltagirone, Catania. L’opera multivolume è così costituita: • Vol.1: Barocco e Patrimonio dell’Umanità • Vol.2: Ragusa • Vol.3: Modica e Scicli • Vol.4: Noto e Palazzolo Acreide • Vol.5: Caltagirone e Militello in Val di Catania • Vol.6: Catania Il primo volume illustra lo stile barocco, la sua storia e i principali personaggi italiani e siciliani che hanno influenzato lo stile da alcuni chiamato il “non stile”. Inoltre, viene illustrata la scheda di riconoscimento UNESCO e spiegata la differenza tra monumenti e siti effettiva-mente inseriti nella World Heritage List (Lista del patrimonio dell'Umanità). Tutti gli altri volumi invece descrivono, accompagnati da una ricca documentazione fotogra-fica (oltre 500 immagini), i principali monumenti testimonianza del tardo barocco ricadenti negli 8 comuni interessati al riconoscimento UNESCO. Per ogni monumento segnalato è inserito un link alla scheda web della Banca Dati multime-diale 3.0 realizzata dal Centro Studi Helios “Data Maps Heritage”. La scheda è caratterizzata dal fatto di essere georeferenziata e quindi visibile su mappa interattiva e con la possibilità di individuare il percorso per raggiungere il monumento.

L'articolo mostra l'originalità del paesaggio archeologico ibleo caratterizzato dall'architettura strutturale, dallo scavo nella roccia con cui si è modellato il paesaggio ibleo dalle tombe di età preistorica fino ai grandi complessi rupestri su più livelli di età altomedievale.