This is the story of the two most charming ghost towns in Sicily. They are two forgotten villages, by now, because an unforgettable tragedy erased them from the surface of my beloved island.
These two ghost towns are named Poggioreale and Gibellina. The first one became very popular thanks to articles published in the CNN, while the second one went unnoticed, and buried in the labyrinth of our memory.
But, as history always teaches us, things are never equal to the reported news. For this reason, as a Sicilian, I decided to tell you the charming true story of these two forgotten Sicilian ghost towns.
Poggioreale and Gibelllina: Tourist Information
Poggioreale and Gibellina are two small villages tucked in the beautiful Belice Valley. The latter is located in Western Sicily, in the province of Trapani.
This part of the island is considered the most picturesque of the entire Sicilian territory. The two towns are a few kms away from their original sites, which went destroyed in 1968, by an awful earthquake.
This tragic and unexpected event broke everything down, leaving only death and ruins behind itself.
The true villages of Poggioreale and Gibellina ended up literally razed to the ground, and, afterwards, rebuilt in new zones. The new towns were named Poggioreale Nuova and Gibellina Nuova, but these ones have nothing to do with the original villages, which remained deserted and abandoned.
Over time, these two destroyed ghost towns became an open-air museum that you must absolutely visit when you arrive in Sicily.
The Earthquake in Poggioreale and Gibellina: Story of a Tragedy
In the night between 14 and 15 January of 1968, a catastrophic earthquake hit Belice Valley, in the West of Sicily.
The epicenter of the seism, localized in the towns of Poggioreale, Gibellina and Salaparuta, caused 231 deaths and around 700 and 1,000 injured.
The inhabitants were forced to live in tents and slums for many months. In the following years, the Italian Government tried to rebuild these villages.
The new towns of Poggioreale and Gibellina were built 20 kms away from the old ones. But they were not the same as the old towns.
As the old Poggioreale and Gibellina endured a rapid death because of the earthquake, the new two villages went through an implacable decline for the fault of building speculators.
The homes designed by architects chased the dream of the garden city and eliminated the ancient custom of the elderly to sit before the home doorstep.
Moreover, the new urban design removed that evocative structure of quaint alleys, historical squares, courtyards and narrow lanes where the locals used to spend the most of their life.
The aged people say that they feel as mere guests in their new village, while the young people have been deprived by a never known Sicilian lifestyle.
What to See in the ancient Poggioreale and Gibellina
While the two new villages are only a small bulk of modern houses, the old Poggioreale and the old Gibellina are an eternal testimony of what remained after the earthquake.
Today, the ruins in Gibellina are the magical location of an artwork crafted by Alberto Burri. The artist compacted and covered the rubble with a thick layer of white concrete, made of artistic cracks that follow the old road path. That big artwork is named “Cretto di Burri” (see the image).
This way, he defied the catastrophe by creating beauty where once was only death.
In the old site of Poggioreale, the landscape is spooky, so much that the famous movie director Giuseppe Tornatore used it as the set of his films.
The original structure of the ancient Poggioreale remained the same, almost untouched, like the old times.
There, in that desolate and dilapidated land, you can also admire: the theater, the main square “Piazza Elimo”, the ruined schools, the mother church, the hospital, the palace of princes, the watering spot, along with a succeeding of solitary niches used in the past as votive altars.
What to See in the New Poggioreale and Gibellina
The new villages of Poggioreale and Gibellina begin where the old towns end.
In the new Poggioreale, you can see the modern version of the main square Piazza Elimo, the municipal palace, the Clock Tower and Sant’Antonio Chapel.
The town must not be mistaken with the namesake Poggioreale located near Naples. The latter is the seat of a notorious prison reserved for mafia and camorra bosses.
The new Gibellina, instead, has been embellished and decorated with architectural details which turned it into the most relevant modern art museum of Belice Valley.
Among these architectures, you can enjoy the steel star (see the image) and the communicating square system, formed by squares connected among them through a large side porch.
Extremely relevant is the Trame Mediterranee Museum, a stunning collection of modern and classic artistic items located halfway between the new and the old Gibellina. The museum has been set up in an ancient Sicilian farmhouse called Stefano’s Houses or Baglio Di Stefano, which also is the address of this place.
The artifacts come from the culture and the Mediterranean countries. In this museum, Western and Eastern worlds coexist without rivalry and in peaceful harmony. Jewels, charming clothes, pictures, decorations, arabesques, finds, ceramics and pottery merge the present with the past, in an exciting path between modern and ancient art.
The collection is placed amid the external spaces, in the barn and in the central houses of Baglio Di Stefano.
The Museum opens from Tuesday to Friday from 9 – 1 AM to 3 – 6 PM.
While you visit these two Sicilian ghost towns, you’ll also have the opportunity to taste the delicacies of Belice Valley, such as the cheese from sheep milk, called Vastedda or Pecorino cheese. These are the few traditional sheep cheeses which is still possible to find in Sicily.
Poggioreale and Gibellina are about 70 km away from Trapani, near Belice River. You can even take advantage to move to Trapani beaches or admire the valley and the river during your stop in these two fascinating ghost towns of Sicily.
Families of Poggioreale and Gibellina in Sicily
Maybe you don’t know that the Sicilian city of Poggioreale had belonged to the municipality of Palermo until 1819. In reality, it was a baroque town built in 1642 by the marquis of Gibellina. Indeed, the latter was a baroque village, as well. The two ghost towns, hence, share an historical, cultural and geographic vicinity that has never been broken down, despite the earthquake of 1968.
However, over the years, many Poggioreale and Gibellina families relocated from the original villages to the new ones, and many of them even fled abroad over the centuries.
The ancient families have dispersed around the globe and many of their heirs look for information on their forefathers.
Well, today, the true number of people who reside in Poggioreale is 1394, of which 80 are foreigners.
The residents in Gibellina are 3836, and only 3 are foreigners.
The common surnames of Poggioreale families are: Salvaggio, Vella, Corte, Maniscalco, Augello, Ippolito, Palermo, Giarratano, Tritico, Tusa, Cangelosi, Salvato, Strada, Calamia, Campisi, Capodicasa, Caronna, Di Carlo, Falco, Fazzino, Gianmalva, Milazzo, Lombardo, Oliveri, Palazzotto, Pendola, Roppolo, Sansone, Suppa.
The latter derives from an ancient idiom of the Sicilian language. In the baroque villages, suppa means pleasure or enjoying something. But it is used in the opposite sense nun ci sentu suppa means I don’t feel pleasure or I don’t enjoy it in Sicilian.
We also find the surnames of Loria and DeNina in Poggioreale. These families emigrated from Sicily to Texas in the past centuries, taking American surnames. For more information on the most common past and present surnames of the Sicilian town of Poggioreale, you can see this website.
The common surnames of Gibellina families are: Fontana, Tramonte, Palermo, Bonanno, Ferro, Manfrè, Pace, Di Giovanni, Zummo, Binaggia, Di Girolamo, Messina, Verde, Calamia, Ippolito, Bonura, Balsamo, Bivona, Capo, Navarra, Polizzano, Saluto, Ienna, D’Aloisio, Tarantolo, Tritico, Maltese, Pirrello, Pizzolato, Bonino, Cascio, Di Benedetto, Cionino, Civello, Corona, Gallo, Girlando, Lanfranca, Ragona, Stabile, Sutera, Abbate, Ala, Barbiera, Bianco, Camizzi, Campo, Casciola.
The last surname derives from a Sicilian word, as well: casciola is the female noun of casciolu, that means counter or drawer in Sicilian.
The offspring of those who moved abroad in the past would go back to these two Sicilian ghost towns, to rediscover and embrace their Sicilian roots and maybe meet their far Sicilian cousins.
The names of these families may be a nice start point, but, often, many Sicilian American people want the most: they would like to have a house in the new sites of these two Sicilian villages. The following paragraph has been written just for that!
Houses for Sales in Poggioreale and Gibellina
Currently, there aren’t dilapidated homes for sale in Poggioreale and Gibellina. I mean that you can’t buy these houses for 1 euro with the purpose of renovating them to your liking.
A few cheap homes are offered by real estate agents. These are old houses and villas you can buy with a price which goes from 27,000 to 39,000 euros. Obviously, these homes need strong renovation to get habitable.
The low-cost houses often come from judicial auctions, but this type of sale often veils sorrowful tragedies. Generally, the homes which in Sicily ends up to judicial auction belonged to poor peasants, craftsmen or entrepreneurs who failed to pay taxes.
Left alone by the Italian State during the financial crisis in 2008-2012, deprived of their homes by tax officers, many of these unlucky Sicilians committed suicide. And, at last, their homes were auctioned off…
For this reason and to respect the history of these two Sicilian ghost towns, I suggest that you visit them carefully, before buying your home. You can book a temporary accommodation here, to see how life works in Poggioreale and Gibellina.
Conclusion
As is often the case, even beautiful Sicilian towns hide sad stories and small and big grieves. I talked about a few of them in this post. There is a great beauty to admire in the ancient villages of Poggioreale and Gibellina. Once, they were baroque cities. Today, they are open air museums to enjoy for your Sicilian vacation and for your life.
Photocredits:
Anci.it
LaSicilia.it
Avvenire.it
Gianni Faraci for Fonndazione Orestiadi
Artwort.com
Guidasicilia.it
Fondazioneorestiadi.it
Rosalba Mancuso is a freelance journalist born in Sicily. Passionate about her loved island and with extensive writing experience, Rosalba worked as a contributor to the main Sicily’s newspapers and as a bilingual Italian – English writer. Thanks to her skills, she also founded four websites in English. On Sicilyonweb, Rosalba tells every corner of her beloved Sicily. Furthermore, she writes this blog thanks to your help. Rosalba, in fact, earns a small commission, with no cost for you, when you book your travel or buy products through the affiliate widgets or links you find in her posts.