Caltanissetta
The Sicilian landscape shows major variations, being now soft and green, now arid and rugged, while in other placet there is the azure of the sea, the black of the volcano, the grey of wrinkled mountains. The yellow colour of corn, sulphur and sun is the colour of Caltanisseta. This town, built on a hill 600 metres high, was perhaps the ancient Nissa mentioned by Thcydides, or perhaps it only came into being with the Arabs, born of that Pietrarossa castle to which houses and cottages clung. In 1086, when it was conquered by the Normans, its feudal history began, to go on until a quite recent past. Great prosperity came to it from sulphur mining, reaching its climax at the start of our century. Today, overwhelmed by international competition, many mines are closed, and the times of the "carusi" who worked there appear very remote. Whih intelligent promotional action, attempts are being made to recover the mines as places of collective memory, so that they can take on a tourist function. A visit to Caltanissetta takes one day. Artistic heritage The cathedral- Dedicated to Santa Maria La Nova and St.Michael, it was built in Piazza Garibaldi in 1570-1622. Itsbroad facade is divided by pilasters and to its sides there are two campaniles (1840), with a middle portal in Baroque-like portal. The ceiling in the main nave was decorated with frescos by the Flemish painter Wilhem Borremans in 1720. In the barrel vault three big composition stand out: the Immaculate Conception, the Crowning of the Virgin an the Triumph of St. Michael. Around these there are placed "Saints", "Stories of St. Peter and St. Paul" and "The Old Testament". The decorations in the nave are completed by elegant stuccoes. Borremans also did the big altarpiece of "The Immaculate Virgin and Saints" placed in the presbytery. Among the works of art Kept in the cathedral, there is a fine seventeenth-century wooden statue of "The Immaculate Virgin" with drapings in silver foil by Li Volsi; a sumptuous seventeenth-century organ with choir loft and painted, inlaid and gilded panels, and, in the left wing of the transept, a Crucifix attributed to Brother Umile da Petralia. Lastly, in the treasure there is a fine fifteenth-century Gothic censer. Opposite the cathedral, in the centre of the square, there is the fine Fountain of Triton, with a bronze group done in 1956 on a reproduction of famous mythological groups by the Caltanissetta sculptor Tripisciano. Palazzo Moncada- It stands to the left of the town Hall in Salita Matteotti. Built in 1635-1638 for Don Luigi Guglielmo Moncada, viceroy of Sardinia and Sicily and count of Caltanissetta, it was left unfinished, perhaps because of lack of money or becaus Don Luigi moved to Spain. A summing-up of Sicilian Baroque, it has monumental exterior spaces; on the lively facade there are big ledges in the shape of human and animal figures perhaps the catalysing symbol of the power of the seigneur. The palace, whose inposing walls are two metres thick, was begun on design by the Capuchin Brother Pietro da Genova, using architectural reliefs and stones taken from Pietrarossa castle and sandstone from Monte Gebel-Habib. The interior of the palace-which for 150 years, starting from 1819, was used has a Tribunal, Assise Court, Royal prosecutor's office and district prosecutor's office-underwent serious alterations for the rooms to be adapted to the various functions. There is still an underground tunnel (referred to as 'u trabuccu'), which started from the prison under the palace to come out near the Capuchin monastery in Viale Regina Margherita. In it, according to the tradition, anyone out of favour with the seigneur disappeared. Sant'Agata al Collegio church- Begun in 1605 for the Jesuits, its exterior is marked by a severe facade, done on a design by Natale Mesucci. The interior has a Greek cross layout. It is decorated with rich marble inlays in evident Baroque taste. There is a fine altar with the Madonna del Carmine at the back of the right lateral arm, whose altarpiece is also profusely decorated with polychrome marble. Opposite, in the left arm, another similar altar was decorated by Ignazio Marbitti with a big marble altarpiece of "St. Ignatius in Glory". Marabitti also did the marble cornice enclosing the altarpiece over the high altar, done in the seventeeth-century by Antonio Scilla. Pietrarossa Castle-This castle, the only one in inland Sicily which is inserted in the urban texture, stands on the top of a solitary rock. It is of Arab origin and documents the new town settlement around the rock after the abandonment of the Sabucina-Santo Spirito territory, where people had settled in pre-Christian times. It suddenly collapsed on the night of 27 February 1567, perhaps because of an earthquake, leaving only a high tumble-down wall, a watch tower in open stone, embankements, bastions and a communication bridge. The ruins of the castle now bear witness to a very important historical epoch for Caltanissetta, when it was a stonghold of royal power in the Middle Ages in the centre of Sicily and divided by struggles for supremacy. Santo Spirito Abbey- It is tree Km from the centre, immersed in a charming landscape which comprises the Imera valley, Pietrarossa castle, the outlines of Enna and Calascibetta and, on very clear days, Etna in the background. It is the oldest church in Caltanissetta province, built long before its consecration on 2 June 1151. Founded by the Norman Count Roger and his wife Adelasia, it is a Romanesque church in the early Christian style with three small apses divided by pilasters connected by little arches. In the lunettes of the portal we note "Christ Blessing", a fifteenth century fresco (for safety reasons and to avoid weather damage, the fresco on the portal is a replica of the original, which is kept inside); immediately to the right of the main entrance there is a Romanesque bath for bath for baptism with immersion (practised from the beginning of Christianity undil the twelfth century) and a seventeeth-century crucifix on a board. In the apse to the left of the arcade there is the epigraph of the consecration. In the sacristy there is an original Arabic ark, a little Roman urn and a tin chalice, the use of which was forbidden first in 220 and then, once and for all, by Pope Leo IV in 855. Tree are also paintings of mayor artistic value, a sixteenth-century chaise and ancient sacred texts.