Like the rest of Sicily the south eastern corner was the focus of attention of virtually every invader since time immemorial.  The original Siculi were gradually beaten back by the advent of the Greeks, whose major city Siracusa, became –the greatest Greek city of them all.  Smaller outposts under diverse tyrants gave rise to the much destroyed and rebuilt Kamerina, Eloro and there is evidence that Modica was already the breadbasket of the empire before the Romans moved and subjugated the south east of the island.  The Byzantine Empire took over when the Romans left a void, and remained the stronger force even during the Arab conquest in the early medieval period.  It took the Normans to take over the whole island, though 30 years passed between the taking of Palermo and the final bringing to heel of the Val di Noto in 1096.

It says  much that the 100 years of Norman rule laid such firm foundations, and with the Angevins and then the Spanish invaders, the Contea of Modica was officially born in 1296 as a fief granted to the Chiaramonte family by the Aragonese rulers.   Successive kings elevated and by turn punished the counts of Modica, giving them the woods of Santa Croce, the lands of Chiaramonte Gulfi and Ispica, before taking them away again with a change of ruler.  The borders of the county were in constant flux, though the heartland remained relatively untouched.   These momentous years laid the foundation for the following 500 years of history.  The latifondi or the huge estates that grew wheat for export were the personal domains of single families, jealous of their rights and powers. 

For Modica it was the Chiaramonte family who were the greatest of the counts.  A relatively enlightened system of feudalism gave the serfs a piece of land that they could call their own, unlike in the rest of the island where the natives were slave labour for the Spanish overlords.  This enfiteusi - the granting of land, not on short term contracts, but for a family to run and even leave to their heirs, gave the county of Modica a headstart in civil liberties as well as a commercial mindset that still exists to this day.

The Chiaramonte were dispossessed and the Cabreras came to power.  Now the Cabrera name exists for the imposing tower on the beach at Pozzallo, but they ruled the county of Modica for 150 years,before the Colonna family moved in.  At the turn of the 1600s the County was ruled by a widow, as regent, for her son and she founded the city of Vittoria more as a means to make some money than leaving her stamp on the county. 

Everything changed in the 17th century as a huge earthquake, possibly of 9 or 10 on the Richter scale destroyed the south east of Sicily on January 11 1693.  It flattened everything between Etna and Agrigento, and killed well over 60.000 people. 

It was the catalyst that created the ‘new’ Ragusashire.  Ragusa itself was rebuilt on a neighbouring hill, much against the barons wishes.  Modica, Scicli, Chiaramonte, Acate, Comiso were all rebuilt in a hurry in the latest Baroque style.  It is strange how as the baroque was becoming old fashioned in the north of Europe, Sicily welcomed it with open arms, and making it even more baroque, with the typical Sicilian effusion of emotions that it became possibly the greatest final fling of an architectural style that the world had yet seen.

 

Throughout the early 1700s the cities rose from the ashes, greater and grander than before, leaving Carlo Borbone, the new King of the House of Bourbon, a greater legacy that he could have imagined.   Subsumed into the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies,  the island itself was being neglected and forgotten as Naples became the glittering center of the court.  A brief change in ruler to the Savoia brought some long needed reforms, before the island reverted to the Borbone.   Again Sicily was being used as a granary for the occupying power, and nothing was to change until Garibaldi landed at Messina in 1860 and declared Sicily part of a united Italy. 

The unification of Italy did very little for Sicily, and still less for the south east of the island.  Promises of agrarian reform came to nothing, and for the peasants who worked on the land, a united Italy brought only the further duty to be available for military service / something which Sicilians have always avoided if at all possible.   Perhaps the Sicilian could see, even 1000 years ago, that he was being used as cannon fodder for other peoples arguments, and little changed until  WW2. 

The mass emigration from the region at the end of the 1800s left its mark on the county of Modica,  and more so when the emigrants sent money or returned with tales of opportunities in far off lands. 

By the turn of the 20th century Modica was prosperous, Modica itself was called the Venice of the South with its rivers and bridges running through streets of gracious palazzi. Scicli was the same, and both suffered in the great flood of 1902 which washed away the greater part of the lower towns. 

The grand tours undertaken by wealthy foreigners throughout the 18th and 19th century had had their obligatory stops at Etna, and Agrigento, but also at the Cava d-Ispica where they marveled at the early Christian catacombs and troglodyte existence of the citizens of Spaccaforno as it was then called.  Siracusa had slumped into a state of squalour,  and the city of Modica was now the third city of Sicily, though some would helped by the earthquake which leveled Messina in 1901.

With the advent of fascism things changed.  Not only was Mussolini requiring soldiers for his foreign empire, but the south east of Sicily was not by nature fascist.  Indeed Modica itself was not greatly enamoured of Il Duce, and it was 1926 when Mussolini arrived in the city to less than a hero’s welcome that he immediately changed the provincial capital to Ragusa, where he was guaranteed a warmer welcome. 

The province of Ragusa was born and suffered in the second world war.  After the surrender of Italy, the Americans bolstered the Mafia presence in Sicily, but fortunately the mafia had never made headway in the south east except for isolated pockets near Noto and Pachino, and Ragusashire carried on as before, with an eye on commercial development.  The agrarian reforms broke up the huge estates, which meant that farmers couldgrown something other than wheat, and the province became a natural home for soft fruits, the cherry tomato was invented in Pachino in 1953, and agriculture became a sound basis for business. 

As in most parts of Italy, the migration was towards the towns, which led to some unedifying developments in the 1960s and 1970s when speculation and the political system allowed easy money to be made by those with contacts in the right places. However, despite the politicians, the Ragusani have always maintained a contact with their countryside, it is one of the few places where families live in the country and commute to work, much like the UK.  Old habits die hard, and every family has a little plot of land to grow olives or grapes.  It is this that has kept the countryside alive, even though for some people there is too much cement being mixed.

In the 1980s tourism for the area made its first tentative steps, but t wasn’t until the hit series of Montalbano hit the screens in 2000 that tourism took off.  It came at the same time as Ragusa, Modica and Scicli all became UNESCO towns and paved the way for development of the infrastructure of the province, hotels, roads and services.  Now, in 2010 we are waiting only for the new airport at Comiso to open which will open up the province and allow everyone to visit Ragusashire and sample her delights.