Welcome to the Santa Margherita di Belice Home Page

   Santa Margherita di Belice is a town in the Province of Agrigento where
   my mother's parents were from.  In my family's trip of 1998, we did not
   attempt to see the town, since we thought that the town was destroyed
   in the earthquake of 1968.  In fact, I learned after we returned that a
   new town was just built next to the destroyed old town.  As a result,
   when we planned the trip of 1999, we were sure to include a visit in our plans.

   On February 24, 1999, my brother, sister, nephew and I left  Castellamare
   del Golfo and drove past Vita, Salemi, Partanna and Montevago to Santa
   Margherita di Belice.  It had been destroyed in the earthquake of 1968,
   however what they did was to build most of the new town next to the
   old one and never demolished the old part.  We stopped in the town
   square and saw one wall of the old Church where my grandfather
   played the organ in the late 1800's.  It appeared to be a beautiful church
   with great interior decorations.   Here is a photo taken of the only remaining
   wall.
 
 

   Immediately adjacent was the remains of the front wall of the old Palazzo
   which was the model used in the book: "Il Gattopardo" (The Leopard) by
   Lampedeusa.  They kept the old facade and built the new Municipio behind it.
 

   The buildings across the square were the partially rebuilt but mostly untouched
   old quarter of town.  Chris and I walked through it after lunch.  It was eerie
   indeed,  walking between houses which were destroyed and abandoned 31 years ago.
 
 

   When we stopped for lunch in a bar, I spoke to the owner and told him
   of the reason for our visit to the town and he was very interested. 
   His name was Giuliano (like in New York - he said). We bought out his
   entire stock of pizza and sandwiches and pastries and thoroughly sated
   ourselves.  Before we left the Bar, we met a Gasparo Monteleone
   (same name as Uncle Caspar). I told the young man that we were
   probably cousins!   In the bar there was a picture on the wall of
    the palace and church as it looked before the earthquake. 
   I took a photo of it and it is shown below.
 
 

   As Chris and I were going through the ruins, two old men from the
   town came up to Fran and Nick in the Van.  Apparently, Signor
   Giuliano in the bar was getting the word out that these Americans
   were here with the names Montelone and Di Giovanni.  Since neither
   Fran nor Nick understood what they were saying it must have
   seemed like an eternity before Chris and I showed up.  One of the
   men was Giuseppe Monteleone (same name as Uncle Joe) and
   the other was Lorenzo Di Giovanna (same name (albeit masculinized) 
   as mom's mother).  Lorenzo made it quite clear that the name we
   were referring to was Di Giovanna not Di Giovanni. He said there
   were no Di Giovanni's from that town.  Lorenzo also said that a
   man in town had written a book about Santa Margherita and he
   wanted to take us to him.  So off we went to the home of Francesco
   Scuderi, who proceeds to show us a thick loose leaf binder chock
   full of information and pictures about the town from the bronze
   age to the present.  After going through much of the book page
    by page and listening to Signor Scuderi speaking rapid-fire Italian
   with no breaths in-between, we managed to tell him that we had
   to return and bade our farewell.