I have been amazed at the number of churches and palaces, especially in Palermo, given the poverty of the countryside.
web.stanford.edu/group/mountpolizzo/handbookPDF/MPHandbook5.pdf
5.8 Modern Sicily
"The viceregal system survived till 1713, and Sicily slid from being one of the wealthiest parts of Europe to being one of its poorest. Being a colonized province is rarely a good thing, but in Sicily things were made worse by the fact that Spain itself, after a huge economic boom fueled by American silver in the 16th century, collapsed in the 17th. The Spanish kings tried to milk Sicily for everything they could get. To cap it all, the decision to expel the Jews from all provinces of Spain did as much economic damage as the Norman expulsion of the Arabs.
The Spanish kings wanted tax revenue from Sicily and for the island to stay quiet, so
they would not have to spend their own cash on policing it. In return, they were prepared to make all kinds of concessions to the Sicilian aristocracy. The Sicilian elite gave up all claims to political power and their long warrior tradition in return for virtually a free hand in governing their estates. During the 16th and 17th centuries a handful of families became virtual kings in their own right, administering vast feudal domains in the countryside. With Spanish support they sucked wealth to the top of society. Their major concerns were competing with one another, through titles and precedence at the Viceroy's court, and through adorning the towns they controlled with ever more lavish churches and monuments. The most visible buildings in
most Sicilian towns (including Salemi) belong to the 17th and earlier 18th century, the so- called "Sicilian baroque." A huge eruption of Mt Etna and accompanying earthquakes on January 9th, 1693, destroyed 23 towns in eastern Sicily. Some of these towns, like Noto, were quickly and completely rebuilt. If you like baroque churches, you'll love Noto, where you can see the Sicilian baroque in its most developed form. There are also many fine 17th- and 18th-century palazzi in Palermo. Some of the finest are in the suburb of Bagheria, but it's best to stay away from here, and stick to downtown.
Early-modern Sicilian history is a dismal story of rural poverty and governmental graft and incompetence. Sicily remained one of the most fertile parts of Europe, but nearly all its wealth now came from the export of wheat. The Viceroys were expected to deliver a fixed sum of cash to Madrid every year, and most of them were prepared to sell off control of the wheat trade to Sicilians in return for that amount (plus a little extra for themselves). The Sicilans who controlled the trade would then sell off exemptions from taxation to other nobles, making huge profits; and would impose enormous export taxes on everyone else. The result was constant complaints that large areas of good land were not being farmed, because the taxes on wheat were so high that the peasants would lose money if they brought it to market. The country
spiraled into economic disaster and regular famines in the 18th century. The only parts of the island that the Viceroys took much notice of were Palermo and Messina, the two main cities. The urban guilds of workers often rose up in revolt in Palermo, and several times briefly ran the city as a kind of commune, though each time their leaders were co-opted and corrupted. As the wheat export trade declined, access to administrative posts and the bribes that went with them became the main source of aristocratic income, and so the location of the Viceroy's court was the most important economic fact in Sicily. The city governments of Palermo and Messina planned virtually open wars against each other over this question; the compromise solution was that the Viceroy would spend half each year in each city, requiring him to maintain two complete (but independent and antagonistic) bureaucracies and two Viceregal courts. Every year all the official records had to be shipped from Palermo to Messina and back again (until, inevitably, they were all lost in a storm). The regime's inefficiency, corruption, and incompetence are mind-boggling: 18th-century Sicily had one of the worst governments in the history of the world.
Sicily was a bargaining chip for Spanish, Austrian, French, and Neapolitan kings
throughout the 18th century, but by the 19th century this kind of medieval politics was clashing with nationalist sentiment. Feudalism was only legally abolished in Sicily in 1812, by Napoleon's regime. The first of many revolts against Bourbon rule broke out in 1820; and in 1848, when revolutions rocked virtually every country in Europe, the entire island rose. King Ferdinand II bombarded them into submission."
