Ucria is a small mountain town, between 710 and 790 metres (2,330 and 2,590 ft) above sea level, in the Nebrodi Mountains. It is the meeting point of three major thoroughfares: the State Road #116 (Capo d'Orlando - Randazzo), the Provincial Road #136 (San Piero Patti - Ucria), and the Provincial Road #139. The last of these passes through Sinagra on the way to the sea at Brolo. The Via Padre Bernardino (Strada Statale #116) bisects the town and provides a view of the surrounding mountains and the valley.
Prehistoric tools, close to the Rocca di San Marco, and a storage room of Roman coins in the locality Arelluso, have been found in the area.
The origin of the town dates back to the Magna Graecia era, while the name is derived from either the Greek onchria, meaning "rust of forage",[3] or the Arabic kerya, meaning "village".[citation needed] The town was annexed by Syracuse in 269 BC, until it was incorporated into the Roman Empire in 242 BC.[3]
The two Saracen towers, one in the outskirts that was to serve as a lookout and one in the north of the town, show that the village already existed during the Islamic domination in Sicily, and that it represented a strategic location on the way to the sea.[3] Since the year 1000, Ucria was dominated by a castle that, after the Christian conquest of the island, passed from one power to another, including the Normans, Hohenstaufen, Angevin and Aragonese. In the Norman period, Ucria was a fiefdom of Abbo Barresi.[3]
In 1625, the Mother Church was built in Ucria and dedicated to Saint Peter the Apostle. During Norman rule, the feudal system was incorporated into the town; however, it was officially abolished with the Sicilian constitution of 1812.
Some residents of Ucria immigrated to Waltham, Massachusetts, USA in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[4]
The Germplasm Bank of Living Plants includes the adjacent Botanical Garden, dedicated to the botanist Bernardino da Ucria (1739 -1796). It houses a collection of plant species of therapeutic interest and a variety of seeds of traditional cultivars of endangered fruits. It also houses a biological laboratory working at the protection and multiplication of germplasm for the conservation of biodiversity.
^Pedersen, Kristen A.; Murphy, Thomas J. (1988). Waltham Rediscovered: An Ethnic History of Waltham, Massachusetts. Portsmouth, NH: P. E. Randall. pp. 402–483.
