Sortino

Sortino is a hill town in the Province of Syracuse, set on the eastern side of the Iblei Mountains near the Anapo River. Its surroundings are marked by valleys, wooded slopes, gorges and canyon landscapes, giving the town a close relationship with the rugged inland scenery of south-eastern Sicily.

Historically, Sortino belonged to a feudal world: it was an ancient fief of the Moncada and Eredia families and later became a barony of the Gaetani, originally from Tuscany. Its present identity, however, was largely defined after the devastating earthquake of 1693, when the old town was destroyed and rebuilt a short distance away.

That rebuilding placed Sortino within the Baroque culture of the Val di Noto, giving it the character of a compact Sicilian Baroque town with a strong local and religious memory. Alongside this architectural identity, its rural and popular traditions remain central to how the town is understood today, making Sortino distinctive as a mountain-edge community shaped by feudal roots, post-earthquake renewal and the cultural landscape of the Iblei.