San Leone, Agrigento

San Leone (Santulì, Sandulì or Salleò in Agrigento dialect) is a seaside town and port South of Agrigento. It rises on the Akragas point, near the mouth of the Akragas river.

History

Known for being the seaside resort of the City of Temples, it takes its name from Pope Leo II (682 - 683). Originally the area was occupied by the emporium (port) of the Greek city which was continuously frequented until the Arab period. The emporium had already been occupied by Mycenaean navigators around the middle of the second millennium BC from which they supplied themselves with sulfur and rock salt. The fortified village discovered by Mosso at the beginning of the twentieth century dates back to this period. In the seventh century BC the Greeks of Gela established a commercial port, documented by the nearby necropolis of Montelusa (a hill west of the current settlement).

In the Middle Ages monks settled in San Leone, but as it was unsuitable for landing Medieval ships, it was abandoned in favor of Porto Empedocle. Not much remains of the Greek period, also because the district has been heavily urbanized in the past century. In the sixteenth century, Italian historian Tommaso Fazello noticed in the area of the mouth of the saxa quadrata the remains of the docks of the classic port that stretched along the banks of the river.