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Modica
Italy
- Latin:
- Motyca, or Mutyca
Modica, town, southeastern Sicily, Italy, at the confluence of two mountain torrents on the south margin of the Monti (mountains) Iblei, just south of Ragusa city. On the site of a Bronze Age (and perhaps Stone Age) fortress (c. 4000 bc), it emerged as Motyca, a town of the Siculi, an ancient Sicilian tribe (c. 400 bc). It was the capital of a fief from the 12th to the 17th century, and its counts rivaled the viceroys of Sicily in power and wealth. It was almost entirely destroyed by the earthquake of 1692 and devastated by flood in 1902. Its ...(100 of 176 words)