Girgenti

Girgenti crowns a hill above Sicily's southern coast, overlooking the remains of ancient Akragas. The Greek city once possessed great temples along the ridge below, and later became Roman Agrigentum. Medieval settlement gathered on the higher hill, where a cathedral and fortress stood above the older city. Its name changed through the island's successive rulers, from Agrigentum to Arabic Jirjent and then Girgenti.

In 1290 Marchisia Prefoglio founded the Cistercian monastery of Santo Spirito, whose church and cloister became part of the town's religious landscape and remain among its surviving medieval buildings. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Girgenti acquired many more churches and convents. Above the ancient temples, the hill town developed its own monuments of faith and civic life.