Frazzanò

Frazzanò (Zip Code 98070) is 233 km. distant from Agrigento, 187 km. from Caltanissetta, 129 km. from Catania, 146 km. from Enna, 122 km. from Messina, which province it belongs to, 159 km. from Palermo, 233 km. from Ragusa, 187 km. from Siracusa, 258 km. from Trapani.

The municipality has 1.080 inhabitants and an area of 689 hectares for a population density of 157 inhabitants per square kilometre. It rises on a hilly area and is 560 metres above sea-level.

The Town Hall is placed in via Umberto I n. 24, tel. ++39 0941-959037 fax. +39 0941-959301.

The cantre is prevalently agricultural and the most cultivated products are citrus fruit,olives, hazel-nuts, grapes which can be tasted in the yearly fair that takes place in August. The marble quarries are also numerous and they are all over territory.

The name Frazzanò derives from the dialectal form fratstsa or fradzdza that means "acorn" and refers to the acorns of the beech-trees that are very numerous in the territory. Town centre was founded in 835 by refugees coming from the town of Castro, escaped from Arabic invasion.

In the course of the centuries it has been conquered by Arabs and later it was set free by Normans. In 1200 king Frederick II of Aragon made built a castle called "Belmonte" that became his permanent residence. The feud has belonged to Filangeri family, with title of Barons, from 1453 up to the end of the XVIII century when it became an indipendent commune.

The most interesting monuments are the Cathedral Church dedicated to Maria SS. dell'Annunziata that keeps a beautiful eighteenth-century front made from local marble; the Chiesa of S. Lorenzo (Church of St. Lawrence) built in 1600 in baroque style and keeps, inside an urn, the relics of the Saint and the Basilian Abbey of S. Filippo of Fragalà founded in the XI century by king Roger I and in it were kept valuable parchments and ancient Latin and Greek texts.

The legend tells that queen Adelasia del Vasto, Roger II's mother, after having been repudiated by her husband, run away from Jerusalem to Sicily. During the travel the boat on which she was boarded was caught in a violent storm but she survived to it. The queen to thank Our Lady for the narrow escape, promised to make built a church in honour of Maria once docked in Sicily.