Lercara Friddi rises almost at the foot of Colle Madore and its Sican archeological site, between the Landro valley and the valley of Fiumetorto and Platani. It is located on the Palermo – Agrigento route, at a height of 670 metres above sea level. Lercara Friddi was home to many sulfur mines. When they closed in the 1950s; many of the miners immigrated to Belgium, to work in the coal mines
History
It was founded, as part of the new cities established by the Spanish administration of King Philip II of Spain to repopulate the abandoned feudaries, with the licentia populandi of September 22, 1595. It was granted to Baldassarre Gomez de Amezcua; who was married to Francesca Lercaro, daughter of Leonello, who had some marriage dowries in the feudary of Friddi, Friddigrandi, and Faverchi, dedicated to the production of wine and wheat.
Leonello Lercaro was a Genoese entrepreneur of Armenian origin who came to Sicily in 1570 in search of better luck, and thanks to whose resourcefulness the original city nucleus was created.[4] The family was Catholic, of Greek rite, and this can be seen in Lercara with the icon of the Madonna of Constantinople, was found by the sixteen-year-old Oliva Baccarella in 1807. The graffiti effigy, bearing the date of 1734, came presumably from a Lercarese church that followed the rite of the Lercari. The church, was found outdoors near a nearby stream: the popular tradition passes on that event as miraculous, from which were the origins of the patronal feast and the church of Maria Santissima of Constantinople (which preserved the graffiti).[5]
For a long time, the major urban areas of Lercara Friddi were mainly places of worship: after the church of St. Gregory of Armenia, built by Leonello Lercaro between 1573 and 1580 in the area of Via dei Martiri, there were the church of Our Lady of the Rosary, built by Baldassarre Gomez de Amezcua between 1595 and 1604 on Pucci Street; the church of St. Anne, built by Francesca Lercaro between 1605 and 1610 on the same street of the same name; and the church of San Gregorio Traumaturgo, initially built by Raffaella Lercaro de Amezcua between 1627 and 1640 and then rebuilt several times until the early 19th century, corresponding to the upper part of Giulio Sartorio Street (all disappeared over time).
The initial development of the settlement suffered from the dangerous conditions imposed on the settlers, but it found impulsed in 1618 with the arrival of Francesco Scammacca Gravina, heir to the Lercaro barony, who in addition to residing in the nascent center favored improvements such as new roads, beverage works and additional churches. In 1708, the barony of Lercara was elevated to the rank of principality.[6]
In the book About Noble Sicily, written in 1754 by Francesco Maria Emanuele Gaetani, Lercara delli Friddi turns out to be "Baronial land with a mere and mixed empire [...] inhabited by 1536 souls, for which there are 483 houses [...] six Churches."
In 1801 the poet Giovanni Meli mentions Lercara Friddi (with the place-name of Alcara de freddi), in a passage of his reflection of the current state of the Kingdom of Sicily about agriculture and farmers:[7] "...Those few, who remain in the villages, attached to their little families, finding themselves weak, and ill-fed, or falling into rhapsodization[8] (terrible disease, first described by the cel. Linnaeus) which between weakness, and contraction takes away the use of their knees, and legs or they do not have the strength to withstand the aerial vicissitudes of autumn, or the rigors of winter, hence the frequent epidemics, which depopulate the villages, and the countryside; as we have seen in this year that in Alcara alone of the colds between the space of a few months one thousand were missing, half dead and half fled for misery, and debts. And oh the great loss, which is this to the state! [...]"
With the Sicilian Constitution of 1812 and the repeal of the feudality, Lercara Friddi was also given the title of "Free University."
It was the discovery of sulfur that changed the fortunes of the town, making it an important mining center, the only one in the province of Palermo, for the extraction and processing of Sicilian sulfur, spurring its growth from 1828. The development led to an unprecedented population increase.
In 1910, the Lercara Friddi Cemetery was moved from the main town square, to the outskirts of the city. Families who had relatives buired in the old cemetery had the opportunity to move their relatives to the new cemetery, but at the family's cost. Only a few families paid. The families that didn't pay had their relatives moved for free, but they had no tombstone, only a small stone marker.
However, after the Unity of Italy the conditions of much of the population of the Mezzogiorno (and Sicily in particular), still remained largely unsatisfactory. The Southern question saw the upsurge of brigandage, which in 1863 and 1876 also involved two members of the Rose-Gardners, who were kidnapped and freed upon payment of a ransom. In 1893, the year of the beginning of the crisis in the sulfur industry, several Lercarean miners complained of serious wage delays. And during the Sicilian Fasci, Lercara paid a toll of eleven victims in the Christmas Day protest.[9]
The slow decline of the sulfur economy was associated with dramatic labor conditions, particularly child and female labor, denounced by Alfonso Giordano[10] and Jessie White-Mario.[11][12] Over half a century later, they were echoed by Carlo Levi in 1951 and the journalist and poet Mario Farinella.
Symbol
Symbol of the city
The coat of arms of the municipality is blazoned with four bands of red and three bands of gold; the shield timbered by a prince's crown.
Historical Sights and Monuments
Religious Sights
Cathedral of Lercara Friddi
Cathedral of Saint Mary of Snow (1702–1721)
Church of Saint Anthony (17th century)
Church of Saint Matthew (end of the 17th century)
Church of Saint Rosalia
Church of Holy Mary of help (1749)
Church of Saint Joseph (1756)
Church of Saint Francis of Saverio (1800)
Church of the Holy Mary of Constantinople (1840)
Parish of Saint Alphonsus Maria of Livuria (Building started in 1854–1858, and was stopped in 1860 and restarted In 1924; finished in 1932, expanded in 1960)
Chaple of the institute of the Cappucine Nuns (20th Century)
Altar of the Holy Cross (1814)
Civil Buildings
On Croce Hill, abutting the built-up area, there is valuable 19th-century structure: the Holy Cross and the water reservoir that fed the public fountains (the basin). Deserving attention are the elevations of the Sartorio Plexus and the array because of the semiotic clash between the Catholic Church and local Freemasonry in the late 19th-early 20th century period.
Lercara is also home to the War Memorial, built in 1922[13] by sculptor Cosmo Sorgi, and several public monuments that, among others, celebrate the memory of distinguished local personalities (some are the work of fine artists of the past such as Mario Rutelli, Antonio Ugo and Domenico De Lisi).
Notable civil buildings are:
Miceli Building (18th century)
Palagonia Building
Riso-Ferrara Building
Sartorio Building
Scammacca Building (18th century)
Villa Lisetta (1840)
Villa Rose-Gardner (1840)
Archeological Sites
The archaeological finds started in 1992 when citizen Antonino Caruso handed over to the municipality a group of valuable finds, recovered accidentally, from Madore Hill. On this high ground near the town was "the temple of Aphrodite/tomb of Minos," according to the thesis of Danilo Caruso,[14] A scholar who also attributed anonymous canvases, kept at the Cathedral and in San Matteo, to Zoppo di Gangi (stage name of two Sicilian artists of the late 16th-early 17th-century) and the 19th-century painter Giuseppe Carta.[15][self-published source?]
Culture
The Municipal Library "Giuseppe Mavaro" (Lercarese teacher and scholar of literature and municipal history) houses "Costume in the Pup," by Vito Giangrasso, and the archaeological museum. The Lercarese 'cassa rurale' was founded by Giusto Favarò and Archpriest Giuseppe Marino.
Administrations
Below is a list of the recently succeeding administrations:
^Pietro Castelli, Leone Rosalinda, Sferlazza Silvia, Nuccio Lucrezia, Angela Campanella, Antonino Nuccio, Giuseppe Lucania, Paride Disparti. "Cenni Storici - Comune Lercara Friddi". Archived from the original on 13 February 2018. Retrieved 12 February 2018.((cite web)): CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
