Campobello di Licata Things to Do Tips by tpal

A Celebration of Labor

Both my grandfathers worked with their hands and their backs. My father's father mainly worked the land while my mother's father worked construction. You may have noticed that I have not described them as a "farmer" and a "contractor". They were most accurately laborers but still they worked proudly.

There is a square in Campobello di Licata called Piazza Tien An Men e Togliatti. It presents several sculptures which celebrate unskilled labor. One is a casting of two great bronze hands and the other bronze is a series of " tools from the job". I didn't understand what I was looking at while I was there and it has only been since researching these Virtual Tourist pages that I have begun to appreciate how appropriate these memorials are for my ancestors home.

A side note to this is seems to be the linguistic oddity associated with the name of the square. Piazza Tien An Men seems so phonetically identical to it's more famous namesake in China, Tiananmen Square, that it seems difficult to believe that it is only happenstance.

Address: Piazza Tien An Men e Togliatti

San Giovanni Battista - The Mother Church

My visit to Campobello di Licata was in 1994 and while that doesn't seem that long ago in terms of the internet it was ages ago. Research about this little Sicilian town was pretty tough back then and ultimately I decided that I would just have to "wing it". I was looking for the church that would have the birth records for my grandparents. Pulling into town you eventually end up in a very large square, the Piazza XX Settembre. At one end of the square was a very handsome baroque church adorned with the strangest decorations. This was the Mother Church, San Giovanni Battista. If you enlarge the photo you will see the unbelievable electric lights which had been attached in preparation for the annual festival of the town's patron saint, St. John the Baptist. The good news was I had found the right church.

Address: Piazza XX Settembre