Sicilian is a Romance language. Its dialects comprise the Italiano Meridionale-estremo language group, which are spoken on the island of Sicily and its satellite islands; in southern and central Calabria ; in the southern parts of Apulia, the Salento Sicilian is a town in the
Province of PalermoThe Province of Palermo is a province in the autonomous region of Sicily, an island off the coast of Italy. Its capital is the city of Palermo...
in
SicilySicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an autonomous region of Italy. Several much smaller islands surrounding it are considered to be part of Sicily....
,
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
. It is located 82 km
from
AgrigentoAgrigento , is a city on the southern coast of Sicily, Italy, and capital of the province of Agrigento. It is renowned as the site of the ancient Greek city of Akragas , one of the leading cities of Magna Graecia during the golden age of...
and currently has approximately 5,215 inhabitants. The small town rises on a inner hill zone and is 663 metres above sea-level. The economy is based on agriculture and products are sold in abundance in the main town including
cerealCereals, grains or cereal grains, {as a collective} are grasses cultivated for the edible components of their fruit seeds - the endocarp, germ and bran...
s,
oliveThe Olive is a species of a small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean Basin, from Lebanon, Syria and the maritime parts of Turkey and northern Iran at the south end of the Caspian Sea...
s,
vegetableA vegetable is an edible plant or part of a plant. However, the word is not scientific, and its meaning is largely based on culinary and cultural tradition. Therefore the application of the word is somewhat arbitrary and subjective. For example, some people consider mushrooms to be vegetables,...
s, almonds, hazel nuts and wine-grapes. Sheep breeding is also active in Bisacquino.
History
The name Bisacquino derives from an Arabic farm house "Busackuin" meaning "rich in waters". In the 12th century it was owned by local lords until 1778 when it became a property of the archbishop from Monreale. The Sanctuary of the Madonna of the Balzo near Mount Tricone was erected in 1678. The main church is the Cathedral Church of Bisacquino which is dedicated to
John the BaptistJohn the Baptist was a mission preacher and a major religious figure who led a movement of Baptism at the Jordan River in expectation of a divine apocalypse that would restore occupied Israel...
. It was built in 1713.
Notable people
- The Italian-American film director
A film director, or filmmaker is a person who directs the making or production of a film. Some also consider a film producer to be a filmmaker....
Frank CapraFrank Russell Capra was an American film director and a creative force behind a number of films of the 1930s and 1940s, including It Happened One Night , Mr. Deeds Goes to Town , You Can't Take It With You , Mr...
was born in Bisacquino.
- Sicilian American mobster Vito Cascio Ferro
Vito Cascio Ferro , known as Don Vito, was a prominent Sicilian mafioso who also operated for a time in the United States, where he was a "pioneer" of sorts in the American Mafia...
.