Centuripe Sicily City

Centuripe is an Italian municipality of the free municipal consortium of Enna in Sicily.

The town, of Sicilian origin, was soon Hellenized and from the 4th century BC. it entered the orbit of Syracuse, enjoying great prosperity in the Hellenistic and Roman age attested by important vestiges.

The origins of Centuripe are very remote and have their roots in prehistory; there is evidence of sedentary colonization at lower altitudes and in various parts of the territory in the Neolithic; the Paleolithic documentation is less clear. Anthropization can be seen to increase during the Ancient Bronze Age, but it seems to depopulate during the Middle and Final Bronze Ages.

The town saw a period of relative prosperity in conjunction with the exploitation of the sulfur mines present in the area and now abandoned. The population reached 15,000 inhabitants around the twenties but with the crisis of Sicilian sulfur exports, then world leader, demographic regression began to reach just over five thousand inhabitants today.

In 1926 the province of Enna was established with a royal provision and Centuripe was aggregated to it with all its surroundings.

In August 1943, following the Allied landings on Centuripe Island, it found itself to be a cornerstone of the German resistance and suffered heavy bombings that caused serious damage to the city's historical and architectural heritage.

Between 2 and 3 August, its conquest by British troops forced the Wehrmacht to abandon the entire western part of the Piana di Catania and the Simeto valley.

Map: Centuripe Sicily City