![](http://www.alamy.com/thumbs/6/8BD70E53-8F23-4BE5-A3B6-9FA1557059C5/C64X0Y.jpg)
Traditional old front house in Sicily (Italian medieval and baroque architecture), (Modica, Syracuse, Palermo) Italy, Europe
Modica is a city and comune in the Province of Ragusa, Sicily, southern Italy. The city is situated in the Hyblaean Mountains and, along with Val di Noto, is part of UNESCO Heritage Sites in Italy. According to Thucydides, the city was founded in 1360 BC or 1031 BC and was inhabited by the Sicels in the 7th century BC. It was probably a dependency of Syracuse. Modica was occupied by the Romans after the battle of the Egadi islands against the Carthaginians in the Punic Wars 241 BC, together with Syracuse and all of Sicily. Modica became one of the thirty-five decuman ("spontaneously submitted") cities of the island and was oppressed by the praetor Verres. It became an independent municipium, and apparently a place of some consequence. The city is also mentioned among the inland towns of the island both by Pliny and Ptolemy; and though its name is not found in the Itineraries, it is again mentioned by the Geographer of Ravenna. Silius Italicus also includes it in his list of Sicilian cities, and immediately associates it with Netum (now Noto Antico), with which it was clearly in the same neighborhood. The Castle of the Counts of Modica. The southeast of Sicily and Modica (according to the German historian L. Hertling) was rapidly Christianized, as the diocese of Syracuse boasts an apostolic foundation by St. Paul in 61 AD.[4] In 535, the Byzantine general Belisarius expelled the Ostrogoths and established for Justinian I the government of the East-Roman Empire (also improperly known as the Byzantine Empire) and the already Greek-speaking population fixed their culture until the Latinization of the Normans in the 11th century. In 845, Modica was captured by the Arabs who referred to the city as Mudiqah. In 1091 the conquest of Modica and the entire Val di Noto ended the long lasting war of the Normans, led by Roger of Hauteville, against the Arabs.
Size: 5616px × 3744px
Location: Modica, Sicily, Italy, European Union, EU
Photo credit: © Thibaut PETIT-BARA / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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