Continuing our trip we keep on finding examples of how geology has influenced society and human beings.
In Licata, near Agrigento, we crossed a neighborhood with many of these fascinating villas built in Liberty style and wondered:
Why Liberty and not something else?
That’s how Italian architecture called the modern style that abroad fell under the name of Art Nouveau.
It originated from an artistic movement that had the goal of counteracting the ugliness of industrialization with the search of beauty in small handicrafts. It didn’t take long before it spread to all artistic fields.
The main source of inspiration was nature and perfection of its forms, like those you can see in floral and zoomorphic motives.
It’s interesting to discover how in Italy this architectural style began in Palermo, where the wealth of the island was concentrated, and thanks to a Sicilian architect, Ernesto Basile.
And what does geology have to do with all this?
Ernesto Basile got to Licata thanks to the town’s most prosperous age, straddling the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It became rich thanks to sulphur, which was mined out of the Sicilian outcrops of gessoso-solfifera formation, composed of 5 million years old rocks.
In the late 19th century the sulphur market was in crisis and sea trade moved from
Catania harbors to those of the Agrigento coast, like Licata.
Processing plants were constructed and gradually the harbor grew financially, also for other resources besides the geologic ones.
Licata’s most affluent families wanted their wish to come true: to have lavish and state-of-the-art villas. They took example from Basile’s works in other parts of Sicily and Italy.
Their intent was only to build private villas and summer residences and yet, little that they knew, they were going to create today’s “Park of Liberty Villas”, one of the most gorgeous areas of town.