Piazza Armerina is one of the most important towns in Sicily. After having been completely destroyed by the Normans, leaded by William I, it was rapidly re-built, and it reached its maximum splendour in the Baroque age. It has an extraordinary cultural and architectonic heritage and it's full of churches. Among the most interesting buildings there is S. Andrea Church dating from 1096, built in Romanic style, the Cathedral Church built on a Torriani's project, in 16th century, the Aragonese Castle, dating from 12th century. The history of the town of Piazza (the name Armerina was added in 1862) begins during the Norman age, but its lands had been inhabited since prehistory, as the archaeological remains in Monte Navone and, above all, in Montagna di Marzo show. During the Roman age it had a flourishing period of time, as it is witnessed by the remains of the wonderful Roman Villa del Casale dating from the beginning of 4th century A.D. It has the largest mosaic floors all over the world.
20.000 hectares of green and luxuriant woods cause the climate of the town become milder during the hot summer days and make of Piazza Armerina an ideal place to spend one's holidays. And the ideal place for tourists who want to spend a pleasant holiday enjoying relax and culture. In fact, it is a nice mixture of nature and man work. It is also an interesting art town and its numerous monuments, which represent a tremendous cultural heritage, are worth re-discovering.
Piazza Armerina belongs to the so called "comuni lombardi" of Sicily, whose dialect, also called "gallo-italico", is quite different from the native idioms and, on the contrary, very similar to those spoken in Northern Italy regions such as Piemonte and in particular in the Monferrato area.