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Porto Empedocle
Porto Empedocle () is a town and ''comune'' in Italy on the coast of the Strait of Sicily, administratively part of the province of Agrigento. It was named after Empedocles, a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of the city of Akragas (present-day Agrigento), in his day a Greek colony in Sicily. The primary industries of Porto Empedocle are agriculture, fishing, ironworking, pharmaceuticals and rock salt refining. Physical geography Climate Porto Empedocle is the second ''comune'' with the lowest amount of degree days in Italy. It is in the climatic zone A of the . History Born as a port zone in the old Girgenti, today called Agrigento, under the name of Marina di Girgenti (seashore of Girgenti), since in the 15th century it was the main cereal trading centre of the region. From 1549 to 1554, by order of the viceroy Vega, Torre del caricatore of Girgenti, already known during the ancient times (as it probably already existed before the Angevin period), was rest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sicily
Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4.7 million inhabitants, including 1.2 million in and around the capital city of Palermo, it is both the largest and most populous island in the Mediterranean Sea. Sicily is named after the Sicels, who inhabited the eastern part of the island during the Iron Age. Sicily has a rich and unique culture in #Art and architecture, arts, Music of Sicily, music, #Literature, literature, Sicilian cuisine, cuisine, and Sicilian Baroque, architecture. Its most prominent landmark is Mount Etna, the tallest active volcano in Europe, and one of the most active in the world, currently high. The island has a typical Mediterranean climate. It is separated from Calabria by the Strait of Messina. It is one of the five Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Degree Days
A degree day is a measure of heating or cooling. Total degree days from an appropriate starting date are used to plan the planting of crops and management of pest (animal), pests and pest control timing. Weekly or monthly degree-day figures may also be used within an energy monitoring and targeting scheme to monitor the heating and cooling costs of climate controlled buildings, while annual figures can be used for estimating future costs. A degree day is computed as the integral of a function of time that generally varies with temperature. The function is truncated to upper and lower limits that vary by organism, or to limits that are appropriate for climate control. The function can be estimated or measured by one of the following methods, in each case by reference to a chosen base temperature: * Frequent measurements and continuously integrating the temperature deficit or excess; * Treating each day's temperature profile as a sine wave with amplitude equal to the day's temperatu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cities And Towns In Sicily
A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agreed definition of the lower boundary for their size. In a narrower sense, a city can be defined as a permanent and densely populated place with administratively defined boundaries whose members work primarily on non-agricultural tasks. Cities generally have extensive systems for housing, transportation, sanitation, utilities, land use, production of goods, and communication. Their density facilitates interaction between people, government organizations, and businesses, sometimes benefiting different parties in the process, such as improving the efficiency of goods and service distribution. Historically, city dwellers have been a small proportion of humanity overall, but following two centuries of unprecedented and rapid urbanization, more ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Realmonte
Realmonte ( Sicilian: ''Muntiriali'') is a municipality in the Province of Agrigento, Sicily, Italy. It is located south of Palermo and about west of Agrigento. Realmonte is adjacent to the municipalities of Agrigento, Porto Empedocle, and Siculiana. The population was 4,540 as of 2018. Realmonte is a coastal town notable for the Scala dei Turchi and the ruins of an ancient Roman villa. History The large and elaborate Roman villa of Realmonte (also called Durrueli) is located on the coast. In Roman times this would have represented the seat of a large estate or ''latifundia''. Excavations have recently revealed more of the extent and history of the site. It is not known when the municipality was founded, but its origins probably go back to the second half of the 17th century. Roman Villa The Roman villa was first discovered in 1907 consisting of two rooms with elaborate ''opus sectile'' in expensive coloured marbles and three rooms with mosaic floors dating from the 1st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scala Dei Turchi
The Scala dei Turchi (Italian: "Stair of the Turks" or “Turkish Steps”) is a rocky cliff on the coast of Realmonte, near Porto Empedocle, southern Sicily, Italy. It has become a tourist attraction, partly due to its mention in Andrea Camilleri's series of detective stories about Commissario Montalbano. The ''Scala'' is formed by marl, a sedimentary rock with a characteristic white color, formed from the tests of planktonic foraminifera. They belong to the Trubi Formation, a marine sedimentary unit of Lower Pliocene (Zanclean) age, which were deposited after the Zanclean flood, in which the Mediterranean refilled after having previously nearly completely desiccated during the Messinian salinity crisis. The cliffs lie between two sandy beaches and are a limestone rock formation in the shape of a staircase, hence the name. The latter part of the name derives from the frequent piracy raids by the Saracens during the Middle Ages, and Barbary pirates, called Turks, because the Ot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marl
Marl is an earthy material rich in carbonate minerals, Clay minerals, clays, and silt. When Lithification, hardened into rock, this becomes marlstone. It is formed in marine or freshwater environments, often through the activities of algae. Marl makes up the lower part of the White cliffs of Dover, cliffs of Dover, and the Channel Tunnel follows these marl layers between France and the United Kingdom. Marl is also a common sediment in post-glacial lakes, such as the marl ponds of the northeastern United States. Marl has been used as a soil conditioner and neutralizing agent for acid soil and in the manufacture of cement. Description Marl or marlstone is a carbonate mineral, carbonate-rich mud or mudstone which contains variable amounts of Clay minerals, clays and silt. The term was originally loosely applied to a variety of materials, most of which occur as loose, earthy deposits consisting chiefly of an intimate mixture of clay and calcium carbonate, formed under freshwa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Church (building)
A church, church building, church house, or chapel is a building used for Christian worship church service, services and Christian religion, Christian activities. The earliest identified Christian church is a house church founded between 233 AD and 256 AD. ''Church'' is also used to describe a Church (congregation), body or an assembly of Christian believers, while "the Church" may be used to refer to the worldwide Christian religious community as a whole. In traditional Christian architecture, the plan view of a church often forms a Christian cross with the centre aisle and seating representing the vertical beam and the Church architecture#Characteristics of the early Christian church building, bema and altar forming the horizontal. Towers or domes may inspire contemplation of the heavens. Modern churches have a variety of architectural styles and layouts. Some buildings designed for other purposes have been converted to churches, while many original church buildings have bee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salvo Montalbano
Inspector Salvo Montalbano is a fictional police chief and detective created by Italian writer Andrea Camilleri in a series of novels and short stories. The books were written in a mixture of Italian, strict Sicilian, and Sicilian Italian. Overview The detective's character encapsulates astute detective work and a fractious manner. Inspector Montalbano is an engaging hero – honest, decent and loyal. He has his own way of doing things, and his superiors regard him as something of a loose cannon. One of the strengths of the novels is Montalbano's ability to navigate through a murky world of shady connections and favours owed and owing, without compromising himself beyond what he can live with. There is a great deal of humour in his character, such as his unconditional love for silence while enjoying a good meal, but the primary subtext is hard criticism of the social and political situation of both the Sicilian and Italian contexts. Camilleri has said that social commentary " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Detective
A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads them to arrest criminals and enable them to be convicted in court. A detective may work for the police or Private investigator, privately. Overview Informally, and primarily in fiction, a detective is a licensed or unlicensed person who solves crimes, including historical crimes, by examining and evaluating clues and personal records in order to uncover the identity and/or whereabouts of criminals. In some Police, police departments, a detective position is obtained by passing a written test after a person completes the requirements for being a police officer. In many other police systems, detectives are college graduates who join directly from civilian life without first serving as uniformed officers. Some argue that detectives do a compl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrea Camilleri
Andrea Calogero Camilleri (; 6 September 1925 – 17 July 2019) was an Italian writer best known for his Salvo Montalbano crime novels. Biography Originally from Porto Empedocle, Girgenti, Sicily, Camilleri began university studies in the Faculty of Literature at the University of Palermo, but did not complete his degree; during that time he published poems and short stories. From 1948 to 1950, he studied stage and film direction at the Silvio D'Amico Academy of Dramatic Arts ( Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica) and began to take on work as a director and screenwriter, directing especially plays by Pirandello and Beckett. His parents knew and reportedly were "distant friends" of Pirandello, as he relates in his essay on Pirandello, ''Biography of the Changed Son.'' His most famous works, the Montalbano series, exhibit many Pirandellian elements: for example, the wild olive tree that helps Montalbano think is on stage in his late work ''The Giants of the Mountain.'' W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kingdom Of The Two Sicilies
The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies () was a kingdom in Southern Italy from 1816 to 1861 under the control of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon, Bourbons. The kingdom was the largest sovereign state by population and land area in Italy before the Italian unification, comprising Sicily and most of the area of today's ''Mezzogiorno'' (southern Italy) and covering all of the Italian peninsula south of the Papal States. The kingdom was formed when the Kingdom of Sicily merged with the Kingdom of Naples, which was officially also known as the Kingdom of Sicily. Since both kingdoms were named Sicily, they were collectively known as the "Two Sicilies" (''Utraque Sicilia'', literally "both Sicilies"), and the unified kingdom adopted this name. The king of the Two Sicilies was Expedition of the Thousand, overthrown by Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1860, after which the people voted in a plebiscite to join the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles III Of Spain
Charles III (; 20 January 1716 – 14 December 1788) was King of Spain in the years 1759 to 1788. He was also Duke of Parma and Piacenza, as Charles I (1731–1735); King of Naples, as Charles VII; and King of Sicily, as Charles III (or V) (1735–1759). He was the fourth son of Philip V of Spain and the eldest son of Philip's second wife, Elisabeth Farnese. He was a proponent of enlightened absolutism and regalism. In 1731, the 15-year-old Charles became Duke of Parma and Piacenza following the death of his childless grand-uncle Antonio Farnese, Duke of Parma, Antonio Farnese. In 1734, at the age of 18, he led Spanish troops in a bold and almost entirely bloodless march down Italy to seize the Kingdom of Naples and Kingdom of Sicily and enforce the Spanish claim to their thrones. In 1738, he married the Princess Maria Amalia of Saxony, daughter of Augustus III of Poland, who was an educated, cultured woman. The couple had 13 children, eight of whom reached adulthood. They resided ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
