Sperlinga
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Sperlinga is a comune in the province of Enna, in the central part of the island of Sicily, in southern Italy. It is one of I Borghi più belli d'Italia ("The most beautiful villages of Italy").[1]Template:R/superscript
Geography
Sperlinga is at about 750 m above sea level, on a hill on the southern slopes of the Nebrodi mountains.[2]Template:R/superscript It has a number of troglodyte dwellings.[2]Template:R/superscript The village is dominated by a large mediaeval castle, dating from late Norman times.
At the end of 2014 the population was 819 people, in 344 families.[3]Template:R/superscript
History
The village is first mentioned (as "Sperlingua") in a privilege of the Norman Count Roger from 1082.[4]Template:R/superscript The first information on the castle is from 1113, and the earliest direct reference to it from 1239.[5]Template:R/superscript
Sperlinga reputedly did not participate in the Sicilian Vespers, the bloody uprising against the Angevin French rulers of Sicily in 1282, and may have offered them protection. An inscription over a door of the castle formerly read Script error: No such module "Lang".,[5]Template:R/superscript or roughly "what pleased the Sicilians, only Sperlinga denied".
From about 1360 Sperlinga was held by the Ventimiglia family.[4]Template:R/superscript In 1597 it was sold for 30,834 ounces of gold to Giovanni Natoli,[4]Template:R/superscript who was granted a licentia populandi or "licence to populate" by the king of Sicily, Philip II of Spain,[5]Template:R/superscript and was made Prince of Sperlinga in 1627.[4]Template:R/superscript His son Francesco sold Sperlinga in 1656 to Giovanni Stefano Oneto, but retained the princely title. Oneto was made Duke of Sperlinga in 1666 by Charles II of Spain.[4]Template:R/superscript
During the Allied invasion of Sicily, in the Second World War, Allied forces under General Allen, including American infantry and tank units and Moroccan Goumiers, moved past Sperlinga to envelop Nicosia, a few kilometres to the south. They met strong resistance. After a show of force by American tanks, the Axis forces withdrew from Sperlinga and Nicosia during the night of 27 July 1943. Units of the American 16th Infantry Regiment entered Sperlinga the next morning.[6]
Economy
The principal economic activities of Sperlinga are agriculture and animal husbandry.[2]Template:R/superscript
References
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- ↑ Sicilia (in Italian). I borghi più belli d'Italia. Accessed August 2023.
- ↑ a b c Sperlinga (in Italian). Enciclopedie on line. Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Accessed October 2015.
- ↑ Bilancio demografico anno 2014 e popolazione residente al 31 dicembre: Comune: Sperlinga (in Italian). Rome: ISTAT. Accessed October 2015.
- ↑ a b c d e Vito Maria Amico, Gioacchino Di Marzo (translator) (1858). Dizionario topografico della Sicilia (in Italian). Palermo: Pietro Morvillo.
- ↑ a b c Nicola Leone (2010). Siculo-Norman art Islamic culture in medieval Sicily. Vienna: Museum With No Frontiers (Museum Ohne Grenzen). Template:ISBN. (unpaginated).
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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