Palazzolo Acreide

Palazzolo Acreide is a historic hill town in the Iblei Mountains of south-eastern Sicily, in the Syracuse area, set at about 670 metres above sea level on the right side of the Anapo River. Its setting gives it a mountain-town character, with the nearby Anapo valley forming part of the landscape that has framed its history since antiquity.

The town’s identity begins with the Greek colony of Akrai, founded by settlers from Syracuse in 664 BC on land already inhabited by the Siculi. Over time it passed through Roman, Byzantine, Arab and Norman phases; in the Norman period the settlement developed around a castle, while later names such as Palatiolum and Palazzolo led to the modern form. In 1862, “Acreide” was added to recall the ancient Greek foundation.

Today Palazzolo Acreide is defined by the meeting of two historical layers: traces of a medieval settlement and an 18th-century Baroque town rebuilt after the destructive earthquake of 1693. This continuity from Magna Graecia to post-earthquake Sicilian Baroque is what makes it distinctive, giving a small Hyblaean town an unusually deep and readable historical identity.