In an epoch indifferent to the memory of great men, we aim, with these pages, to remember the illustrious figures of our fellow-citizens and, especially, to honor and to recall the best children of the Town from the oblivion of the past. Especially from 1700 to 1800, our Bronte was fecund of illustrious personalities, a crowd of "select intelligences" formed in the great forge of Sicilian learning which, in those centuries, the Capizzi College had become and that gave:  Illustriuos prelates: monsignor Giuseppe Saitta, cardinal Antonino Saverio De Luca,
notoriously pious men and benefactors: venerable Ignazio Capizzi, Brother Tommaso Schiros, P. Tommaso Pittalà, Father Antonino Uccellatore (Father Purgatory), Giovanni Piccino, Pietro Graziano Calanna, priest, donna Maria Scafiti, Giuseppe Prestianni, priest Giuseppe Salanitri, priest Antonino Marcantonio, ... philosopher and freelance journalists: Nicola Spedalieri (the best known), Vincenzo Saverio Raimondi, Gesualdo De Luca, Benedetto Radice, Vincenzo Schilirò, Antonio Radice Latin poets: Vincenzo Scafiti, Biagio Caruso, Francesco Gatto, Vincenzo Schilirò jurists and economists: Filadelfio Artale, Antonino Cairone, Placido De Luca, Enrico, Eduardo e Giuseppe Cimbali famous medical doctors: Arcangelo Spedalieri, Giuseppe Grassi, Gino Schilirò war heroes: Corporal Placido Gulino, and those decorated, with Silver Medal to the V. M., Attilio Talamo, Nunzio Russo, Nunzio Aidala.
«No doubt, with those here mentioned, it is not exhausted the catalogue of the remarkable individuals, that our town has produced. But here we could only mention those which, being expressed in their works, could, more or less, become public figures.
The others, great on their own, or great for the limited parochial environment, except a vague memory between our fellow citizens, did not leave to us any titles showing their greatness.» (Giuseppe Cimbali, "Nicola Spedalieri publicist of the XVIII° century", 1888).
Bronte's families, genealogies, and surnames evolution
by Nunzio Longhitano
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