The patroness of Ispica is Our Lady of Mount Carmel, celebrated on 16 July. The complex of the church and former convent of the Carmine dates from 1534; its architectural structure was defined throughout the 17th century, with eighteen cells for the friars and other service rooms, but was reduced to rubble by the 1693 earthquake and rebuilt together with the church in the 18th century.
According to tradition, the hermit Saint Hilarion of Gaza stayed in the region, in a cave of the Cava d'Ispica, between the 3rd and 4th centuries, frequenting the little church of Santa Maria della Cava: the antiquity of this building is underlined by an inscription painted on a shield on the portico, «Antiquam terra fieret ego sum...» («Before the earth existed, I was...»). The city bore the name Hyspicaefundus in medieval times, later changed to Spaccaforno until 1935. The 1693 earthquake razed the entire town to the ground, which had previously extended for the most part within the Cava d'Ispica: the Fortilitium, the medieval castle of the Statella family, also disappeared, along with numerous churches never rebuilt, and the earthquake brought famine and diseases such as plague upon the survivors. Thanks to help from people from neighbouring towns, the few survivors found the strength to rebuild the city: thus was born the new Spaccaforno, which saw the rise of Baroque beauties such as the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, the church of San Bartolomeo and that of the Santissima Annunziata, and later, with the arrival of the Liberty style, buildings such as Palazzo Bruno and Palazzo Bruno di Belmonte, the work of the architect Ernesto Basile.
