Ucria is a ''

comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...

'' (municipality) in the

Metropolitan City of Messina The Metropolitan City of Messina ( it, Città metropolitana di Messina) is a metropolitan city in Sicily, Italy. Its capital is the city of Messina. It replaced the Province of Messina and comprises the city of Messina and other 107 municipalitie ...

in the

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

region

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

, located about east of

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

and about west of

Messina Messina (, also , ) is a harbour city and the capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of more than 219,000 inhabitants in ...

. It is part of the Parco dei

Nebrodi The Nebrodi ( scn, Munti Nèbbrudi; it, Monti Nebrodi, ; la, Nebrōdēs montēs) is a mountain range that runs along the north east of Sicily. Together with the Madonie and the Peloritani, they form the Sicilian Apennines. The mountains run ...

Physical geography

Ucria is a small mountain town, between above sea level, in the

Mountains. It is the meeting point of three major thoroughfares: the State Road #116 (Capo d'Orlando - Randazzo), the Provincial Road #136 (San Piero Patti - Ucria), and the Provincial Road #139. The last of these passes through Sinagra on the way to the sea at Brolo. The Via Padre Bernardino (Strada Statale #116) bisects the town and provides a view of the surrounding mountains and the valley.

History

Prehistoric tools, close to the Rocca di San Marco, and a storage room of Roman coins in the locality Arelluso, have been found in the area. The origin of the town dates back to the

Magna Graecia Magna Graecia (, ; , , grc, Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, ', it, Magna Grecia) was the name given by the Romans to the coastal areas of Southern Italy in the present-day Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania and Sicily; these re ...

era, while the name is derived from the Arabic ''kerya'', which means "village". The two Saracen towers, one in the outskirts that was to serve as a lookout and one in the north of the town, show that the village already existed during the Islamic domination in Sicily, and that it represented a strategic location on the way to the sea. Since the year 1000, Ucria was dominated by a castle that, after the Christian conquest of the island, passed from one power to another, including the

Normans The Normans (Norman language, Norman: ''Normaunds''; french: Normands; la, Nortmanni/Normanni) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norsemen, Norse Viking settlers and indigenous West Fran ...

Hohenstaufen The Hohenstaufen dynasty (, , ), also known as the Staufer, was a noble family of unclear origin that rose to rule the Duchy of Swabia from 1079, and to royal rule in the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages from 1138 until 1254. The dynasty ...

Angevin Angevin or House of Anjou may refer to: *County of Anjou or Duchy of Anjou, a historical county, and later Duchy, in France **Angevin (language), the traditional langue d'oïl spoken in Anjou **Counts and Dukes of Anjou * House of Ingelger, a Frank ...

and Aragonese. In the Norman period, Ucria was a fiefdom of Abbo Barresi. Many residents of Ucria immigrated to

Waltham, Massachusetts Waltham ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, and was an early center for the labor movement as well as a major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. The original home of the Boston Manufacturing Company, th ...

, USA in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Main sights

Religious architecture

* Mother Church "St. Peter the Apostle" * Church of the Virgin Mary * Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel * Church of the Madonna dell' Annunziata * Ruins of the Church of St. Maria Della Scala * Church of Our Lady of the Rosary * Church of St. Michael the Archangel

Museums

* Pedagogical Museum of Arts and Youth Creativity * Typological Museum of Traditional Arts of Sicily * Museo della Carta Pesta "Gianpistone" * Museum of the Nebrodis ethnohistorian "Antonino Gullotti" * Mosaic Nico Nicosia "Comparing the Two Worlds"

Living plant germplasm bank

The Germplasm Bank of Living Plants includes the adjacent Botanical Garden, dedicated to the botanist Bernardino da Ucria (1739 -1796). It houses a collection of plant species of therapeutic interest and a variety of seeds of traditional cultivars of endangered fruits. It also houses a biological laboratory working at the protection and multiplication of germplasm for the conservation of biodiversity.

Events

*Festival of S.S. Christ of Pity, patron saint of Ucria, taking place on 3 May, and September 14 *The Emigrant's Day, held on August 14. *Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, held on the last Saturday of September. *Feast of Our Lady S.S. del Rosario, held on the last Sunday of October. *Show and Festival of Mushroom, held on the last Sunday of October. *Show and Festival of Hazelnuts, held in the month of September.

People

* Bernardino Ucria (1739–1796) *

Antonino Pietro Gullotti Antonino Pietro Gullotti (14 January 1922 – 9 August 1989) was an Italian politician. Political career He was one of the founders of the Dorothean faction of Christian Democracy in 1958, he got closer and closer to Aldo Moro and Benigno Zacc ...

(1922–1989)

Twin towns

Gozzano, Italy Gozzano is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Novara in the Italian region of Piedmont, located about northeast of Turin and about northwest of Novara. Gozzano borders the following municipalities: Bolzano Novarese, Borgomanero ...

, since May 2014.

References

External links

Official website

Ucria Genealogy Page
{{authority control Cities and towns in Sicily