Centuripe
Tourism

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northeast) and the Dittaino (to the southwest (view of Mount Etna).

History

There was a Sikel town here which was given the name Kentoripa by the Greeks and which provides evidence of the extent to which the cultural influence of the Sicilian Greek towns had penetrated into the interior as early as the sixth/fifth centuries B.C. From early in the third century B.C. the town developed its own individual ceramic production with vivid powerful colors which were achieved by the combination of encaustic and tempera. Because of its strategic position Centúripe was frequently fought over until in 263 B.C. it became Roman and was classified, according to Cicero, as one of the few free and tax-exempt towns (Civitates liberae atque immunes) in Sicily. The Emperor Frederick II destroyed Centúripe in 1233 because of an uprising. In 1548 it was refounded.