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Updated: June 1, 2025
This extract from Cesare Balbo's Pensieri sulla Storia d' Italia, Le Monnier, 1858, p. 57, may help to explain the situation: "E se lasciando gli uomini e i nomi grandi de' governanti, noi venissimo a quella storia, troppo sovente negletta, dei piccoli, dei più, dei governati che sono in somma scopo d' ogni sorta di governo; se, coll' aiuto delle tante memorie rimaste di quell' secolo, noi ci addestrassimo a conoscere la condizione comune e privata degli Italiani di quell' et
Then came the Angry Heavens, the Benignant Moon, Mars and Mercury ready to avenge the outrages done to God; Jove grasping a thunderbolt and about to hurl it against the comune, Venus anxious to overthrow the city, and Saturn whetting his golden scythe.
Finally, M. Troplong goes so far as to maintain that the Roman maxim, Nihil comune habet proprietas cum possessione which contains so striking an allusion to the possession of the ager publicus, and which, sooner or later, will be again accepted without qualification expresses in French law only a judicial axiom, a simple rule forbidding the union of an action possessoire with an action petitoire, an opinion as retrogressive as it is unphilosophical.
The normal population of the town is about 4000, but in the summer and autumn this is largely increased, inasmuch as the great heat of Trapani and the low country drives as many as can afford it to live on the summit where it is seldom too hot. The rest of the comune lies dotted about on the plain at the foot of the mountain and consists of a dozen small villages, all visible from the summit.
A similar mode of symbolising the Commune is chosen in the bas-reliefs of Archbishop Tarlati's tomb at Arezzo, where the discord of the city is represented by an old man of gigantic stature, throned and maltreated by the burghers, who are tearing out his hair by handfuls. Over this figure is written "Il Comune Pelato." These were adopted as the ensign of Siena, in the Middle Ages.
There in 1483, when their work was finished, they raised two columns which still stand before the Palazzo del Comune. They stand upon circular bases in three tiers, sculptured in relief by Pietro Lombardi with the signs of the Zodiac and other symbols and ornaments. The capitals of both the columns are beautiful.
The councils which he superseded at this date were the Consiglio del Popolo and the Consiglio del Comune, about which see Nardi, lib i. cap. 4. For the operation of the Parlamento and Balia, see Varchi, vol. ii. p. 372; Segni, p. 199; Nardi, lib. vi. cap. 4. Segni says: 'The Parlamento is a meeting of the Florentine people on the Piazza of the Signory.
Her sacred picture is normally in her sanctuary down at Custonaci, about 15 kilometres distant, but when any general calamity afflicts the district, it is brought up to the Matrice or Mother Church of the comune on Mount Eryx.
Seeing that she would have had to go little more than 120 miles in order to reach what is now Cape Bon, and then only to cross the gulf of Tunis to arrive at the Phoenician colony of Carthage, one may suppose it probable that these flittings began when Astarte was in power. In our own time the Madonna di Custonaci reigns upon the Mountain, and is Protectress of the whole comune.
This being so, one would expect to find its home on the top of the very Mountain itself, in the chief place of the comune, and not down at an insignificant little village like Custonaci.
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