 |
S. MARGHERITA DEL BELICE : Cenni storici
Surrounded by prickly pears, vineyards
and olive groves, which cover the flanks of its hilly territory
and indicate that we are in one of the areas of Sicily whwre precious
wines and olive oil are produced, Santa Margherita was founded at
the end of the sixteenth century by Antonio Cornera on the remains
of a remote Arabian strong-hold. It develops around Filangeri Palace,
Tomasi's house, which "Placed in the town centre, right in
the shady Square, spread over an enormous extension and numbered
counting large and small three hundred rooms (…) it enclosed
official apartments, living-rooms, guestrooms for thirty people,
rooms for the servants, three enormous courtyards, stabled and stores,
private theatre and church, a huge and very beautiful garden and
a larghe orchard…". This is how Tomasi remembers it and
this is how Maria caterina d'Asburgo Lorena, Ferdinando IV Bourbon's
wife, saw it when sent there into exile for some months by the English
military governor of Sicily, Lord Bentick, who had grown impatient
of her talents in political intrigue. It was the year 1812 when
the Neapolitan court baished by Murat was forced into its second
sicilian exile. The queen was received in santa Margherita by the
prince Niccolò Filangeri di Cutò, who on that occasion
had the palace widely restored according to the late Luois XVI style,
still current in Sicily at a time when the English fleet had preserved
it from Napoleonic occupation.
The memory of the queen's flyght seems to have inspired the name "Donnafugata" given by Tomasi to the summer residence of the Leopard . Santa Marghetita is only a few kilometres away from the beaches that lie on the southern coast of Sicily, from the thermal bath in Sciacca and from the Greek temples in Segesta and Selinunte, which, as is common knowledge, is the largest archaeological basin in the Mediterranean. But the whole Valle del Belìce is scattered with archaeological sites and finds belonging to different periods, starting from the Neolithic one, which bear witness to its millenary civilization. Most relevant among them are certainly those on Monte Adranone, in the Sambuca territory, and the Cave di Cusa, from which the materials for the construction of the temples in Selinunte were extracted. |