The history of Ragusa

Ragusa, an indigenous centre, hellenised around the sixth century BC by the people of Camarina, then a Byzantine perched centre, as attested by numerous sources, was conquered by the Arabs and, later, by the Normans.
Until the mid-fifteenth century, it was the centre of the “County of Modica”, a territory of vast dimensions and great value that the Norman rulers assigned to their relatives, whereas the Aragonese attributed first to the Chiaramonte and then (in 1300) to the Cabrera.
In the aftermath of the devastating earthquake on 11 January 1693, the Ragusans were faced with a dilemma: should they rebuild the old city or should they build a new one?
The emphyteusis, started by the Cabrera family, led to the formation of a new bourgeois class: “the Freemasonry”, who tried to free themselves from the nobility linked to the clergy. The contrast of pre-eminence between the two mother churches, Saint George and Saint John, one linked to the nobility and the other to the bourgeoisie, was resolved by the earthquake that gave way to the autonomy of the new class that identified with the Saint John Church. The bourgeoisie immediately rebuilt their church, initially in a wooden hut, on the Piano del Patro, today’s Ragusa Superiore. As early as the summer of 1693, the Attorney General of the Count of Modica authorised the construction of a new Ragusa, according to an orthogonal, typically “baroque” road layout.
The other classes, nobility and clergy, rebuilt the new settlement on the same site, Ragusa Ibla, according to the urban layout of the city destroyed by the earthquake, that is (with a medieval-style system) transferring the old St. George Church where the St. Nicholas Church stood, which was used for Greek Orthodox services.
As a result of the donation of a site containing damaged buildings destroyed in the earthquake, a large square could be created adjacent to St George’s Cathedral.
Since 2002, Ragusa’s historic centre and its eighteen monuments have been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Specifically, they are:
St. John’s Cathedral (1); St. George Cathedral (2); Church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli (3); Church of St. Joseph (4); Church of SS. Anime del Purgatorio (Souls of Purgatory) (5); Church of St. Philip Neri (6); Idria Church (7); Church and Convent of S. Francesco all’Immacolata (8); Church and Convent of St. Maria del Gesù (9); Palazzo Zacco (10); Palazzo Sortino-Trono (11); Palazzo della Cancelleria (12); Palazzo Cosentini (13); Palazzo Battaglia (14); Palazzo Florida (Bertini)(15); Palazzo La Rocca (16); Bishop’s Palace (17); Church of St. Maria delle Scale (18).