The district of Bivona (Italian: Circondario di Bivona) was one of the three districts into which the Italian province of Girgenti in Sicily was divided. Existing from 1860 to 1927, it comprised thirteen municipalities, grouped into five mandamenti, and traced the territory of the eponymous and previous Bourbon district established in 1812 in the Kingdom of Sicily, when feudalism was abolished in Sicily as a result of the new Constitution. It experienced a phase of decline in the 1860s, the years of the post-unification period, followed by a partial regrowth in the following decade; it was abolished in 1927, when the provincial capital was renamed Agrigento.
The capital of the district was the municipality of Bivona, already at the head of the district under the Sicilian Constitution of 1812, which valued its ancient origins, its favorable geographical position within the district, the titles it received (Bivona was the first ducal city of Sicily) and its scholastic tradition due to the presence of an ancient Jesuit college.
Territory
Municipalities and mandamenti
The district of Bivona comprised the territory of thirteen municipalities, divided into five mandamenti:
Mandamento of Bivona: Bivona (the capital), Alessandria di Sicilia (since 1862 Alessandria della Rocca), Cianciana, Santo Stefano di Bivona
Mandamento of Burgio: Burgio, Lucca, Villafranca
Mandamento of Cammarata: Cammarata, San Giovanni di Cammarata
Mandamento of Casteltermini: Castel Termine, San Biagio
Mandamento of Ribera: Calamonaci, Ribera
Area and boundaries
The entire district of Bivona covered an area of about 864 km², equal to the sum of the thirteen municipal territories. The district was bordered to the north by the districts of Corleone and Termini Imerese (in the province of Palermo), to the east by the district of Caltanissetta (in the province of the same name), to the south by the district of Girgenti, and to the west by the district of Sciacca (together with the Bivona district in the province of Girgenti). The Bivona district was bounded by the Mediterranean Sea (Sicilian Channel) to the south, the Platani River to the east, the Verdura River to the west and the Sicani mountain range to the north.
Population
In the 19th century, the population of the Bivona district was around 50,000; according to the 1921 census (six years before the suppression), it had 81,462 inhabitants.
History
Garibaldi in Sicily
In the first half of 1860, the district of Bivona was the scene of many public order disturbances (the most serious riots occurred in Santo Stefano di Bivona) and was involved in a heated and long-lasting debate caused by some municipalities that wanted to change the administrative structure of territorial districts and wanted to suppress the Bivona district.
The law and order crisis arose right around the time Giuseppe Garibaldi landed in Sicily to liberate the island from Bourbon rule. For about a month, from May 15 to June 10, the district of Bivona remained in the hands of the numerous armed bands, created due to the "state of almost complete dissolution of all social order" in the Bivona district, which carried out robberies and vendettas, not without bloodshed.
The following is a testimony by Onofrio Guggino, Commander of the Militia of the Bivona district, submitted to the Councilor of Public Safety on March 1, 1861:On June 7, 1860, to restore balance to public order, Baron Giuseppe Guggino (president of the Provisional Committee of Bivona and coordinator of the other municipalities in the district) sent a letter to Garibaldi in which he urged the settlement in Bivona of the district's new governor, Francesco Falsone di Palma di Montechiaro, who partially resolved some problems affecting the district. On August 26, 1860, the decree for the administrative reorganization of Sicily was passed, to make the island's legislation similar to that of the Kingdom of Savoy: with the exclusion of the provinces, the old territorial districts changed their names, while keeping their geographical boundaries unchanged. Bourbon districts (the further subdivisions of the districts) became mandamenti.