History of San Cataldo

San Cataldo, which was born in an area of ancient settlement, as evidenced by the archaeological remains found in the area, it is not an ancient city, and indeed it was born in  the modern age, namely the early seventeenth century.  San Cataldo was a "New Town",  which was born for the particular international environment linked to the need to increase production of wheat at a time, like that of the seventeenth century, marked by devastating famines.

As happened in other places in Sicily, born at the same time of San Cataldo , it was placed in an area almost depopulated, mainly characterized by the presence of solitaries  "casalia" (hamlets) scattered in the countryside; in fact, "we know that in the Norman times this territory was part of the uninhabited feud of  ‘Caliruni’  and it belonged to the County of Caltanissetta, including also the territories, which are also well uninhabited, existing  adjacent municipalities of ‘Serradifalco’ and  ‘Mussumeli’" (See N. Cataldo, “Un paese di Nuova fondazione, San Cataldo dalle origini a oggi”, Centro studi di Cammarata” [“A Town of New Foundations, San Cataldo from its origins to today,” Centre for the Study of Cammarata], 2002:  15).

San Cataldo was born around an old hamlet, carrying a name with a Greek root, "Casale Chaliruni" (or "Caliruni"),  the etymology of which refers to the concept of "beauty"  ("Kalòs" - "Chali") and of "run", “flow” [ Greek “reo "]  (" runi ");  the thing that “beautiful ‘ran’ or ‘flowed’” was simply  the “Salito” river (or “Salso”), which just  “ran” close to the ancient medieval hamlet. As  we said earlier, in the seventeenth century the question of food in all the territories ruled by Spain became very serious, so many members of the Sicilian feudal nobility made numerous requests to the Spanish government to get the "Ius  populandi et aedificandi",  or the right to build new towns dedicated to agriculture (About the "licentia populandi" , See V. Balistreri, “Le Licentiae Populandi in Sicilia nel secolo XVII” ["The ‘Licentiae populandi’ in Sicily in the seventeenth century”], Mazzone, 1979). That way San Cataldo was born.

The question of the ancient "Ius  populandi et aedificandi" has been reconstructed very well by Giuseppe Testa, who writes: […] To obtain the right to populate, it was customary to address the King or the Viceroy for the privilege (which later was called the Permit ), “jus populandi” [the right to populate] , to populate owned lands which were abandoned and uncultivated [...]”.Got the "privilege", normally the noble chose the name of the new town: : “[...] The name commonly was chosen by the feudatory himself and indicated in the Permit to populate (...) Many Barons chose the names of Saints (Santa Ca terina, Santa Ninfa, San Cataldo); others adopted the surnames of the respective Family: (Lercara, by Francesco Lercaro, Lucca by Francesco Lucchese, Ventimiglia by Beatrice Ventimiglia, Altariva by Pietro Altariva) [...]” ( Vedi Giuseppe Testa, “Serradifalco”, 1990, pp. 58-60). In this case the name of the patron saint of the "New Town" ("quam volumus appellare ‘Santo Cataldo’” [which we wanted to call ‘San Cataldo’]) was chosen by the noble Nicolò Galletti. He exercised almost absolute powers in the new village, "the Baron  in fact  (...) could  judge any crime and punish the counterfeiters,   usurers corrupt judges,  false witnesses and  killers "(p. 28). What led him to choose the name of this holy "is linked to the strong devotion to the Bishop Cataldo of Taranto  by Nicolò  Galletti, its founder" (See A.I. Lima, "The sacred dimension of the landscape", Flaccovio, 1984:  49).

The will of Nicholas Galletti to give his "New Town" the name of San Cataldo was also reinforced by the fact that in his land there was in an old hamlet  called "Cathal",  which  Duke Roger, in a document dating back to 1095, donated to the Bishop of Girgenti (Agrigento). The document was published and very well illustrated already in the eighteenth century by Vincenzo Gaglio Agrigentino: "[...] In proprietate autem Domini Gerlandi Episcopi et aliorum post eum successorum est casale 'Cathal' cum centum villanis concedo [...]; or "I grant the property to  Bishop Gerlando and his successors  the hamlet said ‘Cathal’, with a hundred peasants" (See Vincenzo Girgentino Gaglio, "A short dissertation on the investiture of a village granted to S. Gerlando and the Bishops of Girgenti”, in “Opuscoli di autori siciliani”, Palermo, 1767, Vol. 9:  62). We note that "Cathal" is the Irish name of San Cataldo. Montalambert explains, "[...] In the after part of this narrative we shall meet many of the most illustrious, especially in Germany.

Let us confine ourselves here to pointing out, among the thirteen Irish saints honoured with public veneration in Italy, him who is still invoked at the extremity of the peninsula as the patron of Tarento under the name of 'San Cataldo'. His name in Ireland was 'Cathal', and before he left his country to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and to become a bishop at Tarento, he had presided over the great monastic school of Lismore, in the south of Ireland [...]” (See Count de Montalembert, “Saint Columba”, Edinburgh and London, 1868: 157).

In fact, as has been shown by studies, "Cataldo" is not an Irish but a Lombard name; however, for the presence of a hamlet called "Cathal", or "Cataldo", some scholars   rightly  think that "Cathal"  was to the origins  of  “San Cataldo”.  

The town was ruled by the Galletti family for many years, then passed under the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the French in the Napoleonic times. The nineteenth century was particularly strong for the city from the political point of view; in general we can say that the union with the Kingdom of Naples did not meet the requirements of political autonomy of Sicily, where there were bitter political struggles conducted by the famous sect of the ‘Carbonari’. After the unification of Italy, San Cataldo was built to the rank of "city". At one time it was an important mining center, and today the city's economy is based mainly on agriculture and  the production of agricultural equipment and crafts in a growth industry. A considerable impetus has been in recent years the field of trade and tourism with the development of the territory, which offers  scenic and safe historical attraction  for tourism.