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Piana degli Albanesi (Arbëresh: Hora e Arbëreshëvet) is a ''comune'' with 6.468 inhabitants in the Province of Palermo, Sicily. The town was known as Piana dei Greci until 1941. The town is the most important and populous Albanian (''Arbëreshë'') settlement in Sicily and it is the episcopal see of the Italo-Albanian Byzantine Church that, after five centuries from its foundation, wholly preserves its ethnic-linguistic identity. Situated on a mountainous plateau and encircled by high mountains, the city, which is mirrored on a large lake, is from the provincial capital. The community has maintained many ethnic elements of Albanian culture like language, religious ritual, traditional costumes, music and folklore. The inhabitants are the descendants of Albanian families, including nobles and relatives of Skanderbeg, that settled in Southern Italy during the Ottoman Turkish conquest of the Balkans. The municipal government uses bilingual documents and road signs in Albanian and Italian under existing Italian legislation on protecting ethnic and linguistic minorities. ==History== Piana degli Albanesi was founded in the late fifteenth century by a large group of Albanian refugees coming from the Balkans during the conquest of the latter by the Ottoman Empire. The exodus began after the defeat of the Byzantine Empire and the death of Skanderbeg, who successfully fought for the freedom of their people for more than two decades. The village foundation was officially sanctioned on 30 August 1488, based on an official request sent in 1486-1487 to Cardinal Juan de Borja, archbishop of the Archdiocese of Monreale, demanding the right to remain in the lands of Mercu and Aydingli, located in the mountains in the province of Palermo. In 1482–85, after several attacks from the Ottoman Empire, the Christian Albanians were forced to the Adriatic coast where they hired ships from Republic of Venice, escaped by sailing and managed to reach the island of Sicily. They apparently were housed in temporary camps somewhere near Palermo until about 1486 or 1487, when they were granted land known initially as the "Plain of the Archbishop", inland areas of Sicily in the mountains above the city of Palermo. Signed the "capitulation" in Albanian and Italian, which were also recognized with followed by the Brief of Pope Sixtus IV, the official concession of land was granted to the settlers in 1488, followed by the construction of what became the largest Albanian center of the island and primarily, religious buildings. King John II of Spain and Sicily allowed the original refugees to occupy the present place and to preserve their Orthodox Christian rite.〔 These Albanian refugees were at the time referred to by the surrounding population as ''Greeks'' on account of their Orthodox faith and the settlement became known as Piana dei Greci or ''Plain of the Greeks''.〔Lanaia, Alfio (2008). "(Lo schipetaro, il truffatore e il balbuziente: alcuni prestiti albanesi nel siciliano? ) (shqiptar, the crook and the stutterer: some Albanian loans in Sicilian? )". ''Quaderni di semantica''. 2. (1): 141. Come sappiamo, gli abitanti dei paesi vicini chiamavano i coloni arbéreshè con l'etnonimo di "greci" o "grecioti" e "Casale dei Greci" era il nome del nucleo urbano da essi abitato, prima che si affermasse l’attuale toponiimo di Biancavilla. Allo stesso modo anche il paese attuale di Piana degli Albanesi, nel Palermitano, era chiamato fino al 1941 Piana dei Greci, (a motive del rito religioso) (we know, the inhabitants of the neighboring areas called the Arbereshe settlers with the ethnonym of "Greek" or "Greeks" and "House of the Greeks" was the name of the urban centre inhabited by them, before they claimed the current toponym Biancavilla. Likewise the present village of Piana degli Albanesi, in Palermo, was called up to 1941 Piana dei Greci, During the 19th century, the Arbëreshë of Piana degli Albanesi played a significant role for the Italian national unity, and participated in the stronger phases of the movement of Fasci Siciliani.〔''The Albanians: An Ethnic History from Prehistoric Times to the Present'', Edwin E. Jacques, 1994.〕 The inhabitants of Piana degli Albanesi were known to have a reputation for rebelliousness, but were not organized politically until the arrival of the Fascio in April 1893.〔 In 1947, the regional Mafia hired the bandit Salvatore Giuliano to shoot down the annual May Day demonstration of the Pianesi, which took place in a remote mountain pass. The bandit and his gang indeed attacked them there, killing fourteen people in what came to be known as the Portella della Ginestra massacre. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Piana degli Albanesi」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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