Rural colonization

We spent a beautiful morning helping Carmelo to sow ancient Sicilian grains in the backyard of a robba in Milena.

What is a robba?

It's an agglomeration of rural houses forming tiny hamlets, sometimes very far apart, but with structures in common such as arched entranceways, gypsum ovens to cook bread.

It is said that the term “robba” comes from “my stuff”, that is everything evoking a countryman’s feeling of ownership: house, tools, animals.

The robbe are called after the name of the family who built them initially. They’re made of gypsum stones, abundantly outcropping in the area, and covered with hand-brushed plaster.

The distinctive feature of the town of Milena is to be lacking a historical centre; to be the sum of robbe scattered like satellites in the fields, fossils of a peasant colonisation that is more and more rediscovered to give value to a unique historical heritage.