SiracusaCarlentini.
Founded on the Meta hill by the viceroy Giovanni Vega in 1551, and called Carlentini in honour of Char1es V and the town of Lentini, whose population it was intended to receive after an earthquake in 1542. But the inhabitants of Lentini never actually went there, and the town was inhabited by people from the surrounding country areas, especially af ter the next earthquake in 1693.

The town layout is carefully planned and regular; it is divided by the main thoroughfare, Via Cavour. The stucco-decorated Chiesa Madre, rebuilt after 1693, stands in Piano della Matrice (Piazza Diaz). Not far from the town it is interesting to visit the Basìlica del Murgo, on which work began in 1224, when Frederick II returned to the Cistercian monks property that had been confiscated from them. It was never completed. Less than a km away, to the N, there is the archaeological zone of Leontinoi, where we can also visit the casa dello scirocco (scirocco house), built in the 18th c. inside a vast cave and designed to give some respite from the great heat of the Sicilian summer.