Bivona

Bivona (IPA: Italian pronunciation: [/biˈvo.na/]; Vivona in Sicilian) is an Italian comune with 3,027 inhabitants in the Free Municipal Consortium of Agrigento in Sicily. Nestled amidst the Sicani Mountains, where it once served, alongside neighboring Palazzo Adriano, as the official seat of the regional park, Bivona is renowned for cultivating the Bivona Peach, which earned the PGI designation in 2014, and for crafting a distinctive artisanal chair. Likely originating as a settlement during the Islamic period, Bivona is first documented in the Norman era. It hosted a Jewish community, traces of which remain in the sparse remnants of a synagogue and in local folklore. Between the 15th and 16th centuries, it was a prominent feudal center in the Vallo di Mazara. In 1554, Charles V elevated it to a duchy, the first in the Kingdom of Sicily, while also granting it the title of city. The town was home to numerous religious orders and institutions, including the Jesuit college endorsed by Ignatius of Loyola, as evidenced by the many sacred buildings concentrated in its medieval historic center. Bivona is also noted for one of the earliest documented cults of Saint Rosalia.