From this cluster rises the Mother Church of Santa Maria di Loreto, custodian of a precious 17th-century wooden Crucifix. The village was founded between 1581 and 1600 by Baron Gaspare Lucchesi, who obtained the licentia populandi to populate the fief; one of his descendants, Giuseppe, was made marquis in 1623, while the parish became an archpriesthood in 1689, marking the definitive religious organization of the new settlement. Around the ruins of the Norman Castle of Sabuci—medieval sentinel overlooking the Salso Valley—wind narrow alleys where local artists have painted more than twenty murals dedicated to farm work and emigration, transforming the town into an open-air museum.
A short distance from the Obelisk Square—erected in 1990 for the fourth centenary of the town’s foundation—stand the remains of 18th-century mills that used the waters of the Salso to grind durum wheat, a memory of a peasant economy still celebrated in festivals of bread, oil, and almonds. The festive calendar expresses the collective identity: the spectacular Holy Week, with Good Friday processions, and Delia Medievale, a summer re-enactment that enlivens the castle with knights, drums, and tastings of traditional dishes such as sweet cuccìa and fava bean macco.
In the surrounding countryside, almond groves, olive groves, and vineyards create a bright landscape that invites the tasting of fruity oils, Nero d’Avola wines, and fragrant rimacino bread; at the foot of the hill, country paths lead to white stone huts, the ruins of a Bourbon aqueduct, and the riverbanks, refuge of little egrets and lesser kestrels.