The town was designed by a woman painter: Rosa Ciotti, herself a painter's daughter, proposed a plan of perpendicular streets which the inhabitants accepted, and made the main square octagonal, copying Palermo's Quattro Canti. The two main streets still cut the town into four quarters.
The licence to found it dates from 10 April 1762, granted to duke Placido Notarbartolo; then, in the nineteenth century, came the sulphur and potash mines, and in the twentieth, emigration, which took the people of Villarosa as far as Belgium, to Morlanwelz, twinned since 2002. Near the station, they say, lies the geographical centre of Sicily. There are 5,130 residents.
Chiesa di Sant'Anna · Convento dei Cappuccini
Pasta alla Norma · Cassatella di Agira
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Next up: Saint James, patron of a town that keeps the ancient sacred image of Saint Anne, Tuesday 10 August
Nearest airport: Catania Fontanarossa, 80 km away
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📅 Every year, on 10 August
Villarosa celebrates Saint James on 10 August, in the church dedicated to him, which today holds the sacred image from the ruined chapel of Saint Anne, in the Sant'Anna district, where a country feast with almost pagan overtones was once held.
A golden half-moon of shortcrust dusted with icing sugar, hiding cocoa, chopped almonds and chickpea flour: the sweet of Agira, in the Erei mountains, a recognised traditional product with its own municipal denomination.
Read more →Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Villarosa, but an easy day trip away.
