The town Santo Stefano Quisquina is located 732 meters above sea level, in the fertile Magazzolo river
valley, about 73 kilometers away from the town of Agrigento in the province of
the same name. The Voltano and Prisa springs feed the Magazzolo river, as well
as the Platani and Turvoli rivers. It is not rash to think that a so pleasant
land, over many centuries, has attracted so many people of different races, and
it is possible to find the remains of ancient settlements all over the region.
We can see that Sicans, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Muslims and
Normans have all left their distinctive marks with the passing of their dominion
in this region.
To begin, there are historically documented clues
referring to the Arab domination of Sicily. Beginning with the expansionist
phase of arab-muslim civilization, led these people to Pantelleria's conquest in
700 A.D., and subsequently to a phase of raids all along Sicily's western
coast. This culminated with the landing in Marsala in 827 A.D., and
levelled the way to the conquest of the whole island completed in the following
decades.
There were two predominant races at that time on the
island: Arabs and Berbers. It seems that in Santo Stefano, Berbers were
predominant. Muslims pioneered important agricultural innovations in this
region, especially concerning irrigation. They introduced citrus cultivation, as
well as increased animal breeding, destined to became the economic base of the
future town. In the religious framework, they granted some tolerance. There was
freedom to worship in non-public areas; there was a people-tax, paid by everyone
for their own (incolumity??), the so called gizia, (not paid by converted to
islam?). Consequently under Arab's domination thrived the important Santo
Stefano di Melia Basilean Greek monastery, where San Vitale and his nephew Elia
probably stayed.
Civil wars broke out between Arab and Berbers in
the ninth century, and continued in the following centuries, leading the way for
the Normans. The Normans were driven by the brothers Roberto Guiscardo and
Ruggiero di Altavilla, who conquered the island in thirty years. However, traces
of the former Arab domination remained, and it is possible to find them here and
there.
The Arab influences can also be seen in the place-names of
the area. For example, the word Quisquina derives from the arab word "coskin",
meaning "darkness". It also refers to the centuries-old shady oak-grove
surrounding the town, and particulary with the area now called Serra Quisquina,
where the abbey consecrated to Santa Rosalia is
located.
Enormous castles arose in the Sicily conquered by the
Arabs, and in Quisquina's fiefdom it appears that Sinibaldi's family found
residence. A stone plaque found east of town upon which is written "Domus
Sinibaldi" (Sinibaldi's house) gives evidence. The village, called Sancti
Stefani, likely owes its name to the fact that the entire area is crowned by
mountains, coming from the greek word Stefanos, meaning crown.
By 1279, the village of Santo Stefano had grown around the Capo's spring waters to
an area called Favara by the Arabs. The village began to assume the features of
a small town. During the reign of Frederick the Second of Aragona, the fief was
ruled by the Caltagirone baron, who is considered the first lord of the town.
Fredrick was succeeded by his son, Nicolò, who is remembered for building the
fortification to protect the village, and then Antonio, Giovanni and Ruggero
Sinibaldi followed in succession. The last baron turned against the king
Marcello d'Aragona, and he lost his lands which were transfered to the royal
crown. Ruggero lived the last part of his life probably in Palermo and he
married Maria Guiscarda, related to Ruggero the Second, the Norman king, and
with her he had a daughter named Rosalia who later became the village's famous
patron saint.
Meanwhile, Santo Stefano's lands were put under the
care of Guiscardo degli Agiis. This family held power until 1504, when Giovanna,
the last heir, married Giovanni Larcan. Larcan's family became the new owner of
the land. In June 1569, Lord Vincenzo Larcan was forced by debt and military
reparations to sell the Santo Stefano barony with all its land and vassals to
Antonio Ruiz, governor of Sicily's kingdom, in exchange for two fiefs and 60,000
florins.
In turn, Antonio Ruiz gave as a present the barony to
Elisabetta, his mother, in 1574. Elisabetta was married to Carlo Ventimiglia.
Their son Pietro Ventimiglia became the lord of the barony on the 16th of
September in 1599.
The village was increasingly becoming a little
town, and was the setting of various political manuevering and other remarkable
events.
In the beginning of sixteenth century, in a place near town
still referred to as Blood's valley, occurred a rather bloody engagement between
the army of Count Luna, related to the lords of Caltabellotta and Bivona, and
the Spanish vanguards sent by Viceroy Pignatelli to help the Perollo family, the
lord of Sciacca, who had been in discord with Count Luna for some time.
Following this, the Black Plague devastated Santo Stefano in 1575.
Finally, a strong ecclesiastical activity culminated with the
foundation in 1500 of the St. Rosario Dominican monastery, a few kilometers from
town. The blessed Vincenzo Traina was born in Santo Stefano around 1525 and died
in Palermo in 1598, and Carmine's convent was also built. Towards the end of the
century, San Calogero's little church was finally built.
During the
following century, under the Ventimiglia government, town development continued
on fast pace, in particular the civil hospital, where the poor were freely
treated, was built and later enlarged in the second half of sixteenth century.
Ventimiglia's family ruled into the eighteenth century. During the rule of
Giuseppe Emanuele Ventimiglia, the town had a great increase in population and
in building activity. In this period was founded the boarding school of Maria,
and in 1745 the baronial castle was rebuilt and founded the St. Rosalia's
sanctuary. Finally it was re-built the "Matrice" main church.
The
inhabitants of the town, who lived in prevalence of agriculture and
sheep-rearing, reached a population of 5486. Some of them distinguished
themselves in the medical sciences. Among them, Giovanni Albergo, the surgeon,
and Andrea Jacoponelli, who worked in Naples and died, poisoned, at the age of
32.
In 1812, Castronovo's marquisade was abrogated, and Santo
Stefano was included in the new district of Bivona. In 1848, the town was upset
by theft and murder for political reasons. The inhabitants of Santo Stefano
welcomed the events of the 1860's (Garibaldi?). At that time, bandit gangs grew
in the region, causing many bloody incidents. Particularly feared were the Santo
Meli gang and the gang of the Padella brothers. In response to disorder between
the Security Committee and some armed civilians, with involvement of the Padella
gang, Garibaldi sent General Bixio to reestablish order in the area. It was an
order that Bixio energically followed.
On Chrismas night 1860,
three Cannella family members, being faithful to the Borboni crown, were killed
by a mob in Santo Stefano, who saw in them the living symbol of governmental
oppression and abuse. Paying the price of other bloodshed, the rebellion was
quelled. In 1863, after the proclamation of Italian unity, the town officially
acquired the name, Santo Stefano Quisquina, after having been called Santo
Stefano di Melia, and earlier, Santo Stefano di Bivona.
The second
half of the century was characterized by a worsening quality of life and
increasing misery for the people of Santo Stefano. It helped the spawn a
wave of emigration. The United States was the preferred destination, and there
many Stefanesi settled and began to work. Many of them came to the state
of Florida, where there was an abundance of factory related jobs in the budding
cigar industry of Tampa's Ybor city.
In the meantime, the ideals of
socialism, that strongly etched Santo Stefano’s community in the beginning of
the century, had in Lorenzo Panepinto, a primary school teacher, an
indefatigable supporter. Returning from the United States, where he worked as a
stage designer and a painter, he became editor of "La Plebe", a socialist
newspaper in Santo Stefano. He was elected a member of the regional steering
committee of the Socialist Party, and he become a leader of the peasant’s fight.
For them he organized, in "Maidda" land, the first collective leasing, and he
requested the Bank of Sicily to institute an agrarian fund in order to lend
money to the peasants, allowing them to resolve their problems of debt. These
initiatives drew hostilities against him and eventually caused his death. On the
evening of May 16, 1911, Lorenzo Panepinto was assassinated in Madre Chiesa
street, in the center of town, near his home next to the police
station.
In the following years, Spanish influenza, spreading
across Europe at the end of the great war took a large number of victims in
Santo Stefano, who joined the town's 62 heros of the world war. After the war,
socialist activities resumed, and there was the occupation of some lands and
other disorders.
In the same period, electricity was finally
introduced to Santo Stefano.
The Second World War lead to more
mournings and poverty, and by the end of the conflict, a national referendum in
June 1946 tallied 2189 votes for the republic and 1081 for the monachy. From the
end of the war until today, the town has had a slow but steady economical and
cultural development. There has been a strong migratory movement, mainly to
Europe, especially Germany, and to the big industrial and metropolitan cities of
northern Italy, and a smaller number to America.
Calogero Messina,
S. Stefano Quisquina. Studio storico-critico., U. Manfredi editore - Palermo
1972
