The licence to found the town was granted in 1513 to a royal chancellor who never set foot in Sicily; it was used a hundred and thirty-four years later by Pietro Altariva, a nobleman living in Spain who stood to gain privileges from settling it, provided he gathered at least eighty families. So in 1647 a village was born that for half a century was called Altariva.
Then came the sulphur mines, the Trabbia and the Tallarita: children worked in them too, and at the entrance to the town stands the memorial that remembers them. In 1961 the Waldensian pastor Tullio Vinay opened the Servizio Cristiano here and had the Monte degli Ulivi built, a modernist complex that still holds a school, a clinic and a farm. There are 11,814 residents.
Villaggio Monte degli Ulivi
Arancina · Pasta alla Norma
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Next up: Our Lady of the Chain, patroness of a town of sulphur-mine workers, Sunday 12 September
Nearest airport: Catania Fontanarossa, 89 km away
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📅 Every year, on the second Sunday of September
Riesi celebrates Our Lady of the Chain on the second Sunday of September, with folk rites and processions; the town preserves the Trabia Tallarita mining complex, once home to one of Sicily's most important sulphur mines.
Saffron rice, ragù with peas and caciocavallo cheese inside a golden crust. Round and feminine in Palermo, pointed and called arancino in Catania: the quarrel is serious.
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