Aci Sant'Antonio
Aci Sant'Antonio is a comune in the Metropolitan City of Catania in the Italian region of Sicily, located about 160 kilometres southeast of Palermo and about 10 kilometres northeast of Catania. The frazione of Santa Maria La Stella is home to an annual Presepe degli Antichi Mestiere, a presepe vivente or animated crib, presented every Christmas by the parish and visited by many people from all over Sicily. Official website
Nino Bixio
Nino Bixio was an Italian general and politician, one of the most prominent figures in the Italian unification. He was born Gerolamo Bixio in Genoa. While still a boy, Bixio was compelled by his parents to embrace a career in the navy of the Kingdom of Sardinia. After numerous adventures in various places of the world, he returned to Italy in 1846, joining the Giovine Italia. On 4 November 1847, he made himself conspicuous at Genoa by seizing the bridle of Charles Albert's horse and crying, "Pass the Ticino, we are all with you."He fought through the campaign of 1848, became captain under Giuseppe Garibaldi at Rome in 1849, taking prisoners an entire French battalion, gaining the gold medal for military valour. In 1859 he commanded a Hunters of the Alps battalion, fought in the Battle of Varese, gained the Military Cross of Savoy. One of the organizers of Garibaldi's 1860 Expedition of the Thousand against the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, he turned the day in favor of the Thousand at the Battle of Calatafimi.
Meanwhile, the Sicilian peasants had hoped for – and did not get from Garibaldi – reforms from the restrictive conditions imposed by noble landowners. This hope had been reinforced by Garibaldi's decree of 2 June 1860. At the little village of Bronte, Sicily in Catania province, a revolt took place, claimed by Garibaldi to have been led by local criminals and bandits, which caused the massacre of 16 people including peasants, nobles and a priest. On 4 August 1860, Garibaldi decided to send Bixio to suppress the revolt and punishing the responsible. Once he arrived with two battalions of Red Shirts, Bixio besieged and secured the village. Most of those who had caused the revolt had run away. Bixio organised a military court which sentenced 5 of them to death; this episode reflected Bixio's bias about Sicily, bringing him to write to his wife: "In these regions it is not enough to kill the enemy, it is necessary to torment them, to burn them alive in a slow flame... they are regions that need to be destroyed or at least depopulated, their people sent to Africa to become civilized."By August 21, Bixio and the Garibaldines entered in Reggio Calabria, in the Neapolitan mainland.
He took part in the Battle of the Volturno. Elected deputy in 1861, he endeavored to reconcile Garibaldi. In 1866, at the head of the seventh division, he covered the Italian retreat from the Battle of Custoza, ignoring the Austrian summons to surrender. Appointed senator in February 1870, he was in the following September given command of a division during the movement against Rome, took Civitavecchia, on 20 September 1870, he participated in the capture of Rome, which completed the unification of Italy. On 16 December 1873, he died of cholera at Aceh Bay in Sumatra en route for Batavia, where he was slated to take command of a commercial expedition; this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "Bixio, Nino". Encyclopædia Britannica. 4. Cambridge University Press. Staglieno, Marcello. Nino Bixio. Milan: Rizzoli
Pistachio
The pistachio, a member of the cashew family, is a small tree originating from Central Asia and the Middle East. The tree produces seeds that are consumed as food. Pistacia vera is confused with other species in the genus Pistacia that are known as pistachio; these other species can be distinguished by their geographic distributions and their seeds which are much smaller and have a soft shell. Pistachio is from late Middle English "pistace", from Old French, superseded in the 16th century by forms from Italian "pistacchio", via Latin from Greek "pistakion", from Persian "pesteh". Archaeology shows that pistachio seeds were a common food as early as 6750 BC. Pliny the Elder writes in his Natural History that pistacia, "well known among us", was one of the trees unique to Syria, that the seed was introduced into Italy by the Roman Proconsul in Syria, Lucius Vitellius the Elder and into Hispania at the same time by Flaccus Pompeius; the early sixth-century manuscript De observatione ciborum by Anthimus implies that pistacia remained well known in Europe in Late Antiquity.
Archaeologists have found evidence from excavations at Jarmo in northeastern Iraq for the consumption of Atlantic pistachio. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were said to have contained pistachio trees during the reign of King Merodach-Baladan about 700 BC; the modern pistachio P. vera was first cultivated in Bronze Age Central Asia, where the earliest example is from Djarkutan, modern Uzbekistan. It appears in Dioscurides as pistakia πιστάκια, recognizable as P. vera by its comparison to pine nuts. Additionally, remains of the Atlantic pistachio and pistachio seed along with nut-cracking tools were discovered by archaeologists at the Gesher Benot Ya'aqov site in Israel's Hula Valley, dated to 780,000 years ago. More the pistachio has been cultivated commercially in parts of the English-speaking world, such as Australia along with New Mexico and California in the United States, where it was introduced in 1854 as a garden tree. David Fairchild of the United States Department of Agriculture introduced hardier cultivars collected in China to California in 1904 and 1905, but it was not promoted as a commercial crop until 1929.
Walter T. Swingle’s pistachios from Syria had fruited well at Niles, California, by 1917. Pistachio is a desert plant and is tolerant of saline soil, it has been reported to grow well. Pistachio trees are hardy in the right conditions and can survive temperatures ranging between −10 °C in winter and 48 °C in summer, they need well-drained soil. Pistachio trees do poorly in conditions of high humidity and are susceptible to root rot in winter if they get too much water and the soil is not sufficiently free-draining. Long, hot summers are required for proper ripening of the fruit; the tree grows up to 10 m tall. It has deciduous; the plants are dioecious, with separate male and female trees. The flowers are unisexual and borne in panicles; the fruit is a drupe, containing an elongated seed, the edible portion. The seed thought of as a nut, is a culinary nut, not a botanical nut; the fruit has a cream-colored exterior shell. The seed has light green flesh, with a distinctive flavor; when the fruit ripens, the shell changes from green to an autumnal yellow/red and abruptly splits open.
This is known as dehiscence, happens with an audible pop. The splitting open is a trait, selected by humans. Commercial cultivars vary in how they split open; each pistachio tree averages around around 50,000, every two years. The shell of the pistachio is a beige color, but it is sometimes dyed red or green in commercial pistachios. Dye was applied by importers to hide stains on the shells caused when the seeds were picked by hand. Most pistachios are now picked by machine and the shells remain unstained, making dyeing unnecessary except to meet ingrained consumer expectations; the pistachio tree is long-lived up to 300 years. The trees are planted in orchards, take seven to ten years to reach significant production. Production is alternate-bearing or biennial-bearing, meaning the harvest is heavier in alternate years. Peak production is reached around 20 years. Trees are pruned to size to make the harvest easier. One male tree produces enough pollen for eight to twelve drupe-bearing females. Harvesting in the United States and in Greece is accomplished using equipment to shake the drupes off the tree.
After hulling and drying, pistachios are sorted according to open-mouth and closed-mouth shells roasted or processed by special machines to produce pistachio kernels. In California all female pistachio trees are the cultivar'Kerman'. A scion from a mature female'Kerman' is grafted onto a one-year-old rootstock. Pistachio trees are vulnerable to numerous diseases and infection by insects such as Leptoglossus clypealis. Among these is infection by the fungus Botryosphaeria, which causes panicle and shoot blight, can damage entire pistachio orchards. In 2004, the growing pistachio industry in California was threatened by panicle and shoot blight first discovered in 1984. In 2011, anthracnose fungus caused a sudden 50% loss in the Australian pistachio harvest. Several years of severe drought in Iran around 2008 to 2015 caused significant declines in production. In 2016, world production of pistachios was 1.1 million tonnes, with the United States and Iran as le
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté, was a British flag officer in the Royal Navy. He was noted for his inspirational leadership, grasp of strategy, unconventional tactics, which together resulted in a number of decisive British naval victories during the Napoleonic Wars, he was wounded several times in combat, losing the sight in one eye in Corsica at the age of 36, as well as most of one arm in the unsuccessful attempt to conquer Santa Cruz de Tenerife when 40 years of age. He was shot and killed at the age of 47 during his final victory at the Battle of Trafalgar near the Spanish port city of Cádiz in 1805. Nelson was born into a moderately prosperous Norfolk family and joined the navy through the influence of his uncle, Maurice Suckling, a high-ranking naval officer himself, he rose through the ranks and served with leading naval commanders of the period before obtaining his own command at the age of 20 in 1778. He developed a reputation in the service through his personal valour and firm grasp of tactics but suffered periods of illness and unemployment after the end of the American War of Independence.
The outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars allowed Nelson to return to service, where he was active in the Mediterranean. He fought in several minor engagements off Toulon and was important in the capture of Corsica and subsequent diplomatic duties with the Italian states. In 1797, he distinguished himself while in command of HMS Captain at the Battle of Cape St Vincent. Shortly after the battle, Nelson took part in the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where his attack was defeated and he was badly wounded, losing his right arm, was forced to return to England to recuperate; the following year, he won a decisive victory over the French at the Battle of the Nile and remained in the Mediterranean to support the Kingdom of Naples against a French invasion. In 1801, he was dispatched to the Baltic and won another victory, this time over the Danes at the Battle of Copenhagen, he subsequently commanded the blockade of the French and Spanish fleets at Toulon and, after their escape, chased them to the West Indies and back but failed to bring them to battle.
After a brief return to England, he took over the Cádiz blockade in 1805. On 21 October 1805, the Franco-Spanish fleet came out of port, Nelson's fleet engaged them at the Battle of Trafalgar; the battle was Britain's greatest naval victory, but during the action, aboard HMS Victory, was fatally wounded by a French sharpshooter. His body was brought back to England. Nelson's death at Trafalgar secured his position as one of Britain's most heroic figures; the significance of the victory and his death during the battle led to his signal, "England expects that every man will do his duty", being quoted and referenced up to the modern day. Numerous monuments, including Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square and the Nelson Monument in Edinburgh, have been created in his memory and his legacy remains influential. Horatio Nelson was born on 29 September 1758 in a rectory in Burnham Thorpe, England, the sixth of eleven children of the Reverend Edmund Nelson and his wife Catherine Suckling, he was named after his godfather Horatio Walpole 2nd Baron Walpole, of Wolterton.
His mother, who died on 26 December 1767, when he was nine years old, was a great-niece of Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, the de facto first Prime Minister of Great Britain. She lived in the village of Barsham and married the Reverend Edmund Nelson at Beccles church, Suffolk, in 1749. Nelson's aunt, Alice Nelson was the wife of Reverend Robert Rolfe, Rector of Hilborough and grandmother of Sir Robert Monsey Rolfe. Rolfe twice served as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. Nelson attended Paston Grammar School, North Walsham, until he was 12 years old, attended King Edward VI’s Grammar School in Norwich, his naval career began on 1 January 1771, when he reported to the third-rate HMS Raisonnable as an ordinary seaman and coxswain under his maternal uncle, Captain Maurice Suckling, who commanded the vessel. Shortly after reporting aboard, Nelson began officer training. Early in his service, Nelson discovered that he suffered from seasickness, a chronic complaint that dogged him for the rest of his life.
HMS Raisonnable had been commissioned during a period of tension with Spain, but when this passed, Suckling was transferred to the Nore guardship HMS Triumph and Nelson was dispatched to serve aboard the West Indiamen Mary Ann of the merchant shipping firm of Hibbert and Horton, in order to gain experience at sea. He twice crossed the Atlantic, before returning to serve under his uncle as the commander of Suckling's longboat, which carried men and dispatches to and from the shore. Nelson learned of a planned expedition under the command of Constantine Phipps, intended to survey a passage in the Arctic by which it was hoped that India could be reached: the fabled North-East Passage. At his nephew's request, Suckling arranged for Nelson to join the expedition as coxswain to Commander Lutwidge aboard the converted bomb vessel HMS Carcass; the expedition reached within ten degrees of the North Pole, unable to find a way through the dense ice floes, was forced to turn back. By 1800 Lutwidge began to circulate a story that while the ship had been trapped in the ice, Nelson had seen and pursued a polar bear, before being ordered to return to the ship.
Lutwidge's version, in 1809, reported that Nelson and a companion had given chase to the bear, but on bei
Calatabiano
Calatabiano is a comune in the Metropolitan City of Catania in Sicily, southern Italy. Calatabiano is located about 60 metres above the sea level, it is located about 42 kilometres northeast of Catania. About 58 kilometres about 175 kilometres east of Palermo; the population is about 75% in the center of the town, about 25% is located in Pasteria Lapide. Calatabiano borders the following municipalities: Castiglione di Sicilia, Fiumefreddo di Sicilia, Giardini-Naxos, Piedimonte Etneo, Taormina; the municipality of Calatabiano is a part of Parco fluviale dell'Alcantara. The history of Calatabiano is linked to its castle, located 160 meters above the sea level. Calatabiano Castle was founded by the Arabs, who moved from Calatabiano to conquer Taormina in 902; the Arab presence in Calatabiano is visible from the name of the town, divided in قلعة and'to Bian name of the local lord. After the death of Frederick II, the castle was given to Giovanni Moro by Conrad IV. In 1254, the Pope gave to Giovanni Moro some possessions, including Calatabiano Castle, in exchange for guarantee military aid in the defense of the Kingdom of Sicily.
The Cruyllas built the church of Santissimo Crocifisso. In 1544 the pirate Dragut landed on the shore of San Marco beach and ransacked the village. In 1693 due to the earthquake felt in Sicily and Malta accompanied by the eruption of Mount Etna, the village and castle were abandoned. In 1813 the Sicilian parliament marked the end of feudalism in the island. In the same year Calatabiano was declared an autonomous municipality, the boundaries has been maintained until this day. Thanks to the excavations done between the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the next century, there has been found traces of a castle in the Byzantine era; because of its military importance, the Hohenstaufen first and the Aragonese improved the Castle’s defence. The Cruyllas enlarged the fortress up to its current appearance. Main features include the “Salone dei Cruyllas” and the entry portal. In the last few decades the castle became a tourist attraction; the castle could be reached by a winding road or by a cable car, built during the restoration of the castle in 2011.
Despite its name, San Marco’s Castle is a noble residence on the San Marco’s shore. The construction was being built in 1689 by the lord of the time, Ignazio Sebastiano Gravina Prince of Palagonia, completed in two years; the actual castle looks different from the original building, this is due to the numerous changes made over the decades. In 1856 it was leased to Baron Pasquale Pennisi of Floristella; the Baron changed the Castle with the construction of some houses for farmers. The church of Santissimo Crocifisso is the first church of Calatabiano and it was inaugurated on 4 March 1484, its Gothic architecture include a massive crenellated bell tower and two ogival entrances and south. Inside the church there is a statue of St. Philip of Agira. In the bell tower, on the west wall, is a 16th century fresco of the Madonna and Child; the church of Madre di Maria Santissima Annunziata was built in 1740 with a single nave. It is located in the central of Vittorio Emanuele III square. Internally it houses a wooden crucifix from 1502 of Giovanni Salvo D'Antonio.
The Church of Gesù e Maria dates from 1697. The traditional descent of St. Philip takes place during the feast of St. Philip Syriac, protector of the town, on the Saturday before the third Sunday of May; the tradition started back in 1766. During the descent, the statue of the saint has to be carried by the devotees from the Church of the Holy Cross to the center of the town; the procession begins at the devotees run through the bumpy roads of Calatabiano. The feast ends on the fourth Sunday of May; the historical Medieval parade takes place on the feast of St. Philip Syriac; the parade commemorates the customs of Cruyllas’ lords and peasants of the fifteenth century village. The Cannici bonfire happens on the December 13th during the feast of Saint Lucy; the Loquat festival is held every year on the second Sunday of May. Muzikfest, independent music festival, takes place in the summer on the San Marco beach; the medieval evenings of Calatabiano. Official website
Cyclops
A cyclops, in Greek mythology and Roman mythology, is a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the center of his forehead. The word cyclops means "round-eyed" or "circle-eyed". Hesiod described three one-eyed cyclopes who served as builders, blacksmiths and craftsmen: Brontes and Arges, the sons of Uranus and Gaia, brothers of the Titans. Homer described another group of the sons of Poseidon. Other accounts were written by the playwright Euripides, poet Roman epic poet Virgil. In Hesiod's Theogony, Zeus releases three cyclopes from the dark pit of Tartarus, they provide Zeus' thunderbolt, Hades' "helmet of darkness", Poseidon's trident, the gods use these weapons to defeat the Titans. In an episode of Homer's Odyssey, the hero Odysseus encounters the cyclops Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon and Thoosa, who lives with his fellow cyclopes in a distant country; the connection between the two groups has been debated by modern scholars. It is upon Homer's account that Virgil based their accounts of the mythical creatures.
The ancient Greek geographer Strabo describes another group of seven Lycian cyclopes known as "Bellyhands" because they earned from their handicraft. They had built the walls of Tiryns and the caverns and the labyrinths near Nauplia, which are called cyclopean, it is assumed that Polyphemus lives, along with the other cyclopes, on an island. That is a possibility but all, known from Homer's Odyssey is that Polyphemus resided in a "land" somewhere farther on from the Lotus-Eaters, in a place, not close or distant from an uninhabited and unexploited island, where Odysseus arrives; the map location that can be drawn from this episode and the surrounding episodes in the Odyssey is variously described and discussed divergently by scholars. Euripides in his satyr-drama, appears at times to follow the story found in Homer, at other times contributes variations. In Euripides' play there is no mention of the unexploited island, Euripides keeps the action of the play in one location – the place where the cyclopes live, where Odysseus' ship landed.
Euripides makes a significant variation from Homer to the setting: he imagines the location to be Mount Etna "where the one-eyed sons of the sea god, the man-slaying Cyclopes, live in their desolate caves". Another source for the story of Polyphemus is Idyll XI; the Cyclops by Theocritus, in which the cyclopes' home is, following Euripides, near Mount Etna in Sicily. Since Euripides and Theocritus, the Sicilian location has become attached to the cyclops story, it is estimated that Homer's Odyssey was composed sometime in the 50-year period from 725 to 675 BC, it is thought that it shows the influence of earlier oral poetic traditions of different peoples. In the Odyssey the episodes that are placed on the Black Sea, which would include the cyclops story, appear to incorporate parts of the Gilgamesh tradition, as well as the Caucasian myths of a one-eyed monster. There are striking parallels between Homer's story and the Caucasian stories of Urzmaeg, where the hero outwits a one-eyed giant, blinds him with a torch.
It is thought that the Caucasian myths came to the Greeks through the epic Anatolian song tradition. Homer does not state that Polyphemus has only one eye; some scholars suggest this is implied in the passage that describes Odysseus asking his men to cast lots to select a group that will join with him "to lift the stake and grind it into his eye when sweet sleep should come upon him". However others suggest, it is pointed out that in the Odyssey when the actual blinding occurs there is a reference to plural brows and lids. Homer describes in some detail the entire race of cyclopes, critiquing their agricultural techniques, in what may be literature's first anthropological study, never mentions their monocularity, it is noted that the first artistic or graphic depiction of the blinding episode appears on an amphora, created by the Polyphemos Painter c. 680–650 B. C, the artist shows the blinding stake has two prongs, as though two eyes are being targeted. In the Theogony by Hesiod, the cyclopes – Brontes and Arges – were the primordial sons of Uranus and Gaia and brothers of the Hekatonkheires and the Titans.
As such, they were blood-related to the Olympian gods and goddesses. They were giants with a single eye in the middle of a foul disposition. According to Hesiod, they were stubborn. Collectively they became synonyms for brute strength and power, their name was invoked in connection with massive masonry or blacksmithery, they were pictured at their forge. Uranus, fearing their strength, locked them in Tartarus. Cronus, another son of Uranus and Gaia freed the cyclopes, along with the Hecatoncheires, after he had overthrown Uranus. Cronus placed them back in Tartarus, where they remained, guarded by the female monster Campe, until freed by Zeus, they fashioned thunderbolts for Zeus to use as weapons, helped him overthrow Cronus and the other Titans. The lightning bolts, which became Zeus' main weapons, were forged by all three cyclopes, in that Arges added brightness, Brontes added thunder, Steropes added lightning; these cyclopes created Poseidon's trident, Artemis' bow and arrows of moonlight, Apollo's bow and arrows of sun rays, Hades' helm of darkness, given to Perseus on his quest to kill Medusa.
Accor
Adrano
Adrano, ancient Adranon, is a town and comune in the province of Catania on the east coast of Sicily. It is situated around 41 kilometres northwest of Catania, the capital of the province to which Adrano belongs, it lies at the confluence of the Simeto and Salso rivers. It is the commercial center for a region where citrus fruit are grown. Neighbouring towns include: Biancavilla, Paternò, Santa Maria di Licodia and Centuripe; the settlement was founded by Dionysius the Elder around 400 BC, intending to strengthen Syracusan power in the region. He named the town Adranon in honour of Adranus, a deity of Phoenician origin. In 344 BC the troops of Timoleon fought the forces of the Syracusan commander Iketas of Leontini near Adrano. During the following years, Adrano was harried by Campanian mercenaries, called the Mamertinians; the Romans conquered the growing township in 263 BC and declared it a civitas stipendiaria, obliging it to pay a costly tribute to Rome. The consul Valerius ravaged the town, enslaved the inhabitants and sold them as workers and slaves to the aratores residing in the near city of Centuripe.
In 137 BC, Eunus led an unsuccessful slave revolt against the Roman suppressors, from on, Adrano was nothing more than part of Centuripe. The Romans referred to the city as Hadranum; the township was pillaged several times by Germanic tribes during the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Only through the reign of Theodoric the Great, the conditions improved due to the administration by Cassiodorus. In the mid-6th century it was conquered by the Eastern Roman Empire. Around 950, the Arab Musa occupied the city of Centuripe and its vicinity, thenceforth Adrano became part of the emirate of Sicily; the ruined town of slaves meanwhile was little more than a settlement of various primitive shacks, but the Islamic occupants, who showed themselves skillful farmers and quite tolerant towards the Sicilians, build up a functioning infrastructure around Adrano. Several of their buildings and structures, like the Ponte dei Saraceni can still be visited around the region; the Arabs ruled the region until in 1075 the Normans, led by Hugo of Yersey, succeeded in conquering the region against the resistance of Caid Albucazar.
Adrano became part of the Diocese of Catania, administered by the monk Ansgerius. The citizens of the prospering township continued the successful agricultural and economic work the Arabs had initiated. Therefore, the Norman era was enormously influenced by winegrowing, leather work and silk manufacturing; the arrival of the Hohenstaufen around the end of the 12th century brought enduring difficulties and disputes over Sicily and its inhabitants. The remaining Arabs were vehemently pursued by the administration, which forced them to gather inside the fortresses of Troina and Centuripe, offering armed resistance; the insurrection was ended violently, the survivors were massacred or kidnapped. Pope Clement IV made Charles of Anjou king of Sicily in 1265, which ended the Hohenstaufen rule of southern Italy. During that time, Adrano was rather a small settlement of hunters, the number of inhabitants had decreased from 1,000 to 300. In 1282, the Sicilian Vespers ended the French reign in Sicily, Peter III of Aragon became king.
The following years were characterized by constant conflicts between the residing farmers and the Bourgeoisie of the region. Adrano fell to the property of the Catalan landholder Garzia de Linguida, in 1286, to the ownership of Luca Pellegrino; the estates and soils of the region were subject to immense disputes between several landowners and noblemen in the following time until the 15th century. From the 15th century on, Sicily was reigned by the socalled vice kings. Between 1412 and 1515, Adrano was under administration by the Moncada family. Giovan Tommaso Moncada fortified it, he allowed a couple of refugees from the northern Greek region of Epirus to settle down in the vicinity of Adrano, how the town of Biancavilla was founded. The relatives of earl Moncada build many manors in the centre of the town, among, the latter town hall, the centre of the city, the piazza, became popular meeting place for the residents, who meanwhile numbered around 6,000. Around the same time began the construction of the Monastero di Santa Lucia.
In 1693, a severe earthquake inflicted heavy damage to the town. Since the beginning of the 18th century and until around 1820, Adrano suffered from enduring riots and changes taking place in Italy and Sicily, as was the Risorgimento. Adrano hosted the local court. Giuseppe Garibaldi landed in Sicily in 1860 and many reforms took place. On July 1, 1860, a town council was installed in Adrano, don Lorenzo Ciancio was made chairman; the famous Teatro Bellini dates from that time and testifies to the various diversifications the city underwent in that period. A hospital was instituted as well, meanwhile Adrano was considered the wealthiest town in the region. In the 1920s, the reformist preacher don Vincenzo Bascetta appeared in Adrano, together with the young anti-fascist professor Carmelo Salanitro he passionately fought for the peasants' rights. Due to their initiative, large parts of the surrounding lava landscape were transformed into olive and almond plantations. Carmelo Salanitro died in Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in 1945.
Adrano was the scene of much fighting during the latter phases of Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily, during World War II. Nazi forces were driven from the
-Stemma.png)
