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Castle Chiaramontano - Palma di Montechiaro

The manor of Lichtenberg, together with the Castle built by Chiaramonte, belonged to the family De Caro, whose coat of arms taken from the name of Palma, in the fifteenth century later passed by marriage to Tomasi in the mid of the next century. The town was founded in 1637 by Carlo Tomasi and De Caro, and until 1812 it remained in Tomasi di Lampedusa. In 1863 the name was added to Montechiaro Palma, near the castle Chiaramonte. The foundation of the city is part of that vast plan of reorganization and urban development and social context, better known as Licentia polpulandi, promoted by the Spanish Viceroy in support of the expansion and increased dell'inurbanizzazione campaigns and exploitation of large estates; work that is part of what was the long feudal Sicily, after the sad period of land abandonment because of the frequent incursions of Barbary and the consequent state of insecurity. History of Palma de Lichtenberg stands inside the other foundations of the feudal 600per the mystical story of the founders.
 
Palma was founded in 1637 by the family of my dear native Licata and precisely from the twins and Giulio Carlo Tomasi and Caro who took the title of dukes in the same year. Were present at the foundation of many noble and architect Antonio De Marco, chronicler of the memory of the time was Giovan Battista Hodierna priest, scientist, astronomer and mathematician. The family originated from Mario Tomasi, Captain Knight came to Sicily after the viceroy Marcantonio Colonna, who had managed to marry a noble heiress in 1583la Dear Francesca, Baroness de Lichtenberg and lady of the island of Lampedusa. His two nephews twin founders of Palma influenced and they became the protagonists of the most glorious phase of the family saga. Charles, renouncing their rights took monastic vows in the order of the fathers Theatines and tied her life to good works and to the rigorous practice of penance and spiritual body. Julius, after he succeeded his brother in the securities and the administration of goods and having also married Rosalie Traina, Baroness of Falconeri, had served as commissioner of the Inquisition in Licata, a city which, thanks to the legacies of sadly hexose Monsignor Traina, bishop of the diocese and uncle of the bride, he collected almost all the census. Established after the final residence in the land of Palma was dedicated to the administration of goods with the holiness of work earning the nickname "Duke saint."
 
The structural and ideological roots of the ancient city with cyclical repetition of geometric shapes and symbolic, as well as the shape of the Roman fort is found in the ancient Mesopotamian mazes or even in Indian mandala or breakdowns in the city of the dead in Egyptian times, but it is right in the first Renaissance and the Baroque, which then reproduces the rules for the shape of the city where religious mysticism and mathematical studies find their common denominator in the form of the cross. All new cities follow the rigid schedule of the order chessboard references Cartesian mathematics, but loading of highly symbolic that the geometric pattern of the thistle and the revival of Roman decumanus, find the shape of the cross, symbolically oriented from sunrise to sunset. Metaphor for the path of salvation, and the ephemeral earthly existence. Giulio Tomasi, Duke St., takes the title of the second Duke of Palma, after the surrender of his brother Charles.
 
He conceived the founding of the country in the entire structure as a new Jerusalem, where you can revive yourself and do the residents enjoy the new center highlights the life of Christ and served the humanist and the first dean of the city Giovan Battista Hodierna to delineate an ideal track and penitential time. The Duke did make a hill of the Church of Our Lady of Light, now a ruin. The course was divided into 18 stations, each one was a painting on each mystery. It was the Hodierna to describe the location where the application of Julius obtained a plenary indulgence to all of those who could get the pilgrims to the Holy Land, so difficult to visit. Palma is therefore presented as the Holy Land and the way to Calvary was a figurative paraphrase most important spiritual journey. What workers have assembled for the construction of the city is not known. The only known name is that of the architect Antonio Ragusa Di Marco, mentioned in the act of foundation of the Benedictine monastery (1637).
 
To this end, east and west, built the Church of the Nativity, the Church of the Holy House of Loreto and the Church of Our Lady of Light. The latter on Mount Calvary, of which today we can admire the imposing ruins. At Calvary ended the Via Crucis which, starting from the square in front of the Monastery wound for a long journey marked by 18 stations, decorated with scenes from the Stations of the Cross is Christ painted on slabs of plaster. The Calvary was such an integral part of a journey symbolic fruit of religion by Giovan Battista Hodierna, Ragusa, the first dean of the new foundation. The Duke Julius obtained by the Apostolic See the application of the same plenary indulgence which he earned in the Holy Land for those who had the ascetic path offered by the city of Palma. To assist pilgrims unsure Friday of Lent reached the figure of 5000, the Duke founded the Congregation of Clerks Minimum of Sacramento. The whole family was involved in the aura of mysticism, from which emerged the figures of Joseph's sons, Cardinal sanctified by a few years, and the Blessed Sister Maria Crocefissa. In Piazza Santa Rosalia facing the two most important buildings: the Cathedral Church and the Palazzo Ducale. The current piazza Matteotti until 1922 was the vast garden of the monastery.

Meteo Agrigento

5 - Itineraries Parks literary

The province of Agrigento land of great writers and poets

4 - Itineraries Castels Chiaramontani

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