Place:Gibellina, Trapani, Sicilia, Italy

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source: Family History Library Catalog

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Gibellina (Sicilian: Jibbiddina, Arabic: "little mount" - جبل صغير) is a small city and comune in the Province of Trapani, the mountains of central Sicily, Italy. It was destroyed by the 1968 Belice earthquake.

The new city, Gibellina Nuova, was rebuilt some from the old one and it was designed by some of the most prominent artists and architects in Italy, called by Ludovico Corrao to donate works of art to the city in order to help building it as an eccentric museum en plein air. One of them, the Italian sculptor Pietro Consagra created a sculpture called Porta del Belice or "Door to Belice" at the entrance. Consagra expressed a wish to be buried at Gibellina on his deathbed in July 2005.

The old town, the Ruderi di Gibellina (as the ruins of the city are referred to), remained just as it was after the earthquake, like a ghost town until 1985. In that year the Italian artist Alberto Burri began a project to cover the ruins in concrete, while preserving the streetscape. Known as Cretto di Burri, work on the project ceased in 1989, but it was completed in 2015.

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