Antica Avola

Avola did not always occupy the shore. Until the earthquake of 11 January 1693, it was a fortified town of castles and churches high on an Iblei hillside; its terraces, tombs and cave dwellings still cling to the slope above the Baroque city that replaced it.

Why it matters

Municipal historians describe the old town — "l'antica Abola" — as a walled settlement with a castle and more than twenty churches, perched on a high hill of the Iblei range. The sisma of 1693 levelled it so completely that the marchesi of Avola chose to abandon the hill altogether and lay out an entirely new city on the coastal plain, with a hexagonal street plan drawn by the Jesuit architect Angelo Italia. That decision makes the deserted hillside unusually legible: one site holds the town that died in the earthquake, and the town below preserves the rational plan conceived in its place. The site is part of the broader history of the Val di Noto's post-earthquake reconstruction.

What to notice

The hill, also called Colle Aquilone, preserves traces of the medieval town: cave dwellings hollowed into rock, necropolis areas and platforms where churches and houses stood. The surviving ruins are sparse and at risk from neglect. Cut slopes, cisterns and views toward the Ionian coast and Cassibile valley preserve traces of the settlement. In the surrounding countryside, prehistoric burial grounds multiply the timeline: oven tombs of Sicul culture at Cozzo Tirone, other rock tombs at San Marco, and the megalithic monument in contrada Borgellusa.

Context and history

The site's roots run far deeper than the medieval walls. Ancient authors knew a town called Abolla here, and local tradition long identified it with the fabled Hybla Major; pottery and tombs from the Bronze Age onwards show occupation long before Greek colonists reached eastern Sicily. Byzantine-era catacombs near the locality of Casa Romano were recorded by the archaeologist Paolo Orsi. In the Middle Ages Avola grew into the fortified centre recorded by the municipality, seat of a marquisate that passed to the Pignatelli Aragona Cortés family. After the earthquake, refoundation in the feudo Mutubé began within weeks, and by the early eighteenth century the hexagonal new Avola functioned as a working city while the old hill emptied. In recent decades the slope became a summer residential quarter for Avolese families, and the adjoining Cava Grande gorge was designated a nature reserve in 1984, changing the area's role again.