RagusaScicli.
A Sicel settlement, an Arab village, and later a royal city under the Normans, it was enfeoffed by Frederick II of Aragon to the Count of Modica. It was seriously damaged by the earthquake in 1693 and to a large extent rebuilt with a new street layout which is easy to distinguish from the mediaeval arrangement because of the presence of baroque architecture.

The centre of Scicli is the ample Piazza Italia, which is green with trees. We reach it from Via Nazionale, the main street. It can also be reached, from the Modica side, by way of Via San Nicola and Piazza Busacca. Busacca was the nickname of Pietro di Lorenzo, a 16th c. philanthropist of Scicli, to whom the monument by Benedetto Civiletti in the middle of the square is dedicated. Here also, to one side, is the Chiesa del Carmine (1751). The Chiesa di Santa Maria la Nova, well known for its great size, is in the street named after it. The neoclassical façade is really impressive. The altars in the naves and aisles and in the sacresty contain various figurative and sculpted works that merit an attentive examination; among them is the Madonna della Pietà, a cypresswood statue, perhaps of Byzantine origin, which arouses great veneration among the faithful. Equal veneration is reserved for the papier-mache Madonna dei Milici, who crushes two Turks with her white horse: this is in the Chiesa Madre, Sant'Ignazio, in Piazza Italia which, as we have said, is the centre of the town; it is there that we retum in order to climb to the Chiesa di San Bartolomeo, another impressive and scenographic building, looking out over a rocky landscape of ever-changing colour. Scicli also has characteristic civil architecture: the Town Hall, Palazzo Spadaro and Palazzo Beneventano, with their unusual baroque decorations. well reward the visitors attention.