History of the Madonie: from prehistoric caves to today

The history of the Madonie begins in caves, with Neolithic and Copper Age settlements, and runs through the Greek and Roman towns of the coast and interior, Arab strongholds and Norman castles. From the 13th to the 17th century the area was divided into feudal counties, the most powerful being that of the Ventimiglia of Geraci and Castelbuono. The 20th century brought the Targa Florio, emigration and, in 1989, the Madonie Park.

At a glance

• Prehistory: Grotta del Vecchiuzzo (Petralia Sottana), the caves of Isnello, the Castelbuono valley.
• Greeks and Romans: Kephaloidion (Cefalù), Petra (Petralia), the Hellenistic settlement of Monte Riparato (Caltavuturo).
• Arabs: Cefalù conquered in 858; the Arabic names of Caltavuturo, Petralia (Batraliah) and Isnello (Menzil al Himar).
• Normans: conquest between 1062 and 1072, Cefalù Cathedral from 1131.
• Ventimiglia: counts of Geraci from 1258, in Castelbuono from 1454, marquises from 1436.
• Today: Madonie Park since 1989, UNESCO Global Geopark since 2015.

A timeline of the Madonie

This table lists the key dates. Sources are given in each section below.

Year	What happens
4th-3rd millennium BC	the Grotta del Vecchiuzzo near Petralia Sottana is inhabited
late 5th century BC	Kephaloidion, today’s Cefalù, is a native town open to trade
254 BC	Cefalù and Petra (Petralia) pass to Rome in the First Punic War
858	the Arabs conquer Cefalù
881-882	battle of Caltavuturo between Byzantines and Aghlabids
938	Halil subdues the strongholds of Caltavuturo, Collesano and Sclafani
1062	the Normans conquer Petralia
1072	Geraci becomes the capital of a Norman county
1131	Roger II founds Cefalù Cathedral
1234	Frederick II gives Polizzi the title Generosa
1258	the county of Geraci passes to the Ventimiglia
1317	Francesco I Ventimiglia founds the castle of Castelbuono
1451	Cefalù is bought back by its bishop
1454	the Ventimiglia move their residence to Castelbuono
1693	an earthquake makes Collesano castle unusable
1788	the people of Isnello buy back the lands of the county
1906	first Targa Florio
1989	the Madonie Park is created
2015	the Park becomes a UNESCO Global Geopark

Prehistory: the caves of the Madonie

The first human traces in the Madonie are in caves, in the limestone that forms these mountains.

The best studied is the Grotta del Vecchiuzzo, near Petralia Sottana. Collisani and Carapezza first explored it in 1936 and excavated it from 1937: it was used as a dwelling and perhaps as a sanctuary, with the remains of at least fifteen people (Lauria and Messina, 2013). Today the Petralia finds are in the Museo Civico Antonio Collisani.

The Ente Parco also reports Copper Age finds in the caves around Isnello and settlements from the Neolithic onwards in the valley where Castelbuono stands.

Greeks and Romans

On the coast, Kephaloidion, today’s Cefalù, was according to the Ente Parco a native town of the late 5th century BC that prospered through contact with the peoples who passed through Sicily. In 254 BC the Romans took it by a trick and made it a civitas decumana, a city bound to pay a tenth of its produce: it became Cephaloedium.

Inland was Petra, the origin of Petralia. In the same year, 254 BC, during the First Punic War, its people opened the gates to the Roman consuls and switched from Carthage to Rome. Petra also became a civitas decumana and a major grain producer (Ente Parco).

The name Geraci comes from the Greek ierax, vulture, and the Ente Parco dates a Greek settlement on the crag to around 550 BC. Above Caltavuturo, on Monte Riparato, excavations since 1975 have found a Hellenistic settlement with 3rd-century BC baths and the necropolises of Santa Venere and Pizzo Sant’Angelo; the finds are in the Museo Civico of Caltavuturo.

In Gangi, the Palazzo Sgadari museum shows finds from Monte Alburchia, where some scholars place Engyon, the city founded by Cretans mentioned in ancient sources: a question still open.

Byzantines and Arabs

After Rome, Sicily passed to the Vandals, the Goths and the Eastern Empire. The Ente Parco attributes to the Byzantine period the castle ruins of Isnello and the origins of Polizzi, then called Baseapolis, city of the king.

The Arabs conquered Cefalù in 858 and called it Gafludi. Petralia became Batraliah, Isnello Menzil al Himar, fortified village (Ente Parco). The name Caltavuturo comes from Qal’at Abi Thawr, the castle of Abi Tur: according to the chronicles, in 881-882 a Byzantine army defeated an Aghlabid one led by Abu Thawr here. Another explanation of the name is “rock of the vulture”.

Collesano began as an Arab town on Monte d’Oro, the mountain west of the village, where traces of the old settlement remain (Ente Parco). In 938, according to the Cambridge Chronicle, the commander Halil subdued the strongholds of Caltavuturo, Collesano and Sclafani.

The Normans (1060-1194)

Count Roger’s Normans arrived in the 1060s. Petralia fell in 1062 and Roger fortified its castle, towers and bastions. In 1063 he took Cefalù. In 1072 Geraci became the capital of a county (Ente Parco).

The Madonie became a land of lordships. Countess Adelasia, Roger’s granddaughter, helped Polizzi grow, a town where Greeks, Arabs, Latins and Jews lived side by side, and built the castle of Collesano. King Roger II founded today’s Collesano between 1130 and 1140 and in 1131 began Cefalù Cathedral, along with the diocese.

From the Normans come the cathedral, now a UNESCO site, and the castles rebuilt on the crags. You will find them in our guides to the Madonie churches and castles.

The feudal counties and the Ventimiglia

The Swabians brought a mark of favour: in 1234 Frederick II gave Polizzi the title Generosa. Polizzi almost always remained a royal town, belonging to the king rather than a feudal lord, and defended its independence (Ente Parco).

The rest of the land was divided into counties. The most important was Geraci, which in 1258 passed to Enrico Ventimiglia, of a Genoese family, through his marriage to Elisabetta Creon (Orazio Cancila; the Ente Parco gives 1252). The Ventimiglia ruled from Geraci, founded Castelbuono in 1317, became marquises in 1436, the first title of that rank in the Kingdom of Sicily, and in 1454 moved their court and the relics of Sant’Anna to Castelbuono.

The other lordships:

• Collesano: after the Sicilian Vespers it passed to the Siracusa family, to the Ventimiglia for a few decades, then to the Centelles, Cardona and Moncada, who held it until the 18th century.
• Sclafani: in the first half of the 14th century it belonged to Matteo Sclafani, one of the richest lords in Sicily, who built the walls and rebuilt the castle.
• Isnello: it passed to the Abbate, Filangeri, Ventimiglia and Santacolomba; in 1453 Arnaldo Santacolomba obtained from Alfonso the Magnanimous the power to make laws.
• Cefalù: after the death of Frederick II it passed from one feudal lord to another until 1451, when it was bought back by its bishop.

The history of the Ventimiglia family, castle by castle, is in our article on the Ventimiglia castles.

The early modern age: churches, convents and new villages (1500-1800)

Between the 16th and 18th centuries the Madonie filled with churches, convents and works of art: the age of the Gagini marbles, the paintings of lo Zoppo di Gangi and the crucifixes of Frate Umile da Petralia.

Polizzi Generosa had its richest period in the Renaissance, as the junction of two royal drovers’ roads, the “Messina Montagne” and the “Montagna-Marine”. The plague at the end of the 16th century halved its population (Ente Parco). Collesano grew under the Cardona and Moncada and developed the ceramics it is still known for today.

New villages were founded too. Castellana Sicula formed in the 17th century with farmers from nearby villages on the fertile plain; the Duke of Ferrandina obtained from Philip V of Spain the right to found new settlements (Ente Parco). Scillato grew around the mills on its springs: thirteen, built between 1156 and 1800, and it only became an independent municipality in 1961.

The earthquake of 1693 made the castle of Collesano unusable. In 1742 trade consulates of France, Denmark, Sweden and Norway opened in Cefalù, and the town became a stop on the Grand Tour. In 1788 the people of Isnello bought back the lands of the county and freed themselves from the barons.

The 19th and 20th centuries

In the 19th century the state confiscated church property: in Caltavuturo, for example, the friars left the convent of San Francesco in 1886 (Ente Parco). Today that convent houses the Museo Civico.

In 1906 Vincenzo Florio brought the Targa Florio to the roads of the Madonie, a speed race until 1977. The story of the race is in our Targa Florio guide.

The 20th century was also the century of emigration. We have not found reliable village-by-village data on historical emigration, so we give no figures. We do have recent data: according to an analysis by Il Sole 24 Ore based on Istat data, between 2002 and 2021 only three of the 21 municipalities in the Madonie area grew (Cefalù, Campofelice di Roccella and Lascari) and the overall decline was more than 23.5 per cent, over 11,000 inhabitants. The same article notes that those who leave mostly go north, looking for work after graduating.

The Madonie Park and the Geopark

The Madonie Park was provided for by regional law 98 of 1981 and established on 9 November 1989. It covers 39,679 hectares between the Imera and Pollina rivers, in fifteen municipalities: Caltavuturo, Castelbuono, Castellana Sicula, Cefalù, Collesano, Geraci Siculo, Gratteri, Isnello, Petralia Soprana, Petralia Sottana, Polizzi Generosa, Pollina, San Mauro Castelverde, Scillato and Sclafani Bagni.

Since 2001 it has been part of the European Geoparks Network and since 17 November 2015 it has been a UNESCO Global Geopark (Ente Parco delle Madonie, 2025 report). The park’s nature is covered in the Nature section.

Names and legends of the villages

Many Madonie names have a story, and a few legends:

• Caltavuturo: the castle of Abi Tur or the rock of the vulture, depending on the historian.
• Geraci: from the Greek ierax, vulture, for its impregnable crag.
• Castellana Sicula: according to the Ente Parco, the Duke of Ferrandina, lord of the area, is said to have named the village after his wife, a noblewoman of the Spanish Castellana family. A likely explanation, not a proven one.
• Cefalù: tradition has it that Roger II built the cathedral to fulfil a vow, after escaping a storm by landing on the beach.
• Pollina: local tradition says the Chiesa Madre stands on an ancient temple of Apollo and that its statue of the Madonna and Child was carved from a pagan statue of Diana or Ceres (Consorzio Cefalù Madonie Himera).

Where to see Madonie history

• Museums: the Museo Civico of Castelbuono, the Museo Civico of Caltavuturo, the Museo Collisani in Petralia Sottana, the Civico Museo Archeologico of Polizzi Generosa and Palazzo Sgadari in Gangi. They are all in our guide to the Madonie museums.
• Places: the Terravecchia crag in Caltavuturo, the Rocca di Cefalù with the Temple of Diana and the castle (trail page for the Rocca di Cefalù), the ruins of Geraci Siculo.
• Historical festivals: the Giostra dei Ventimiglia in Geraci Siculo, on the first weekend of August.

The villages one by one are in the Villages section; the other history and culture guides are in the History and culture section.