In the article, the author addresses a subject poorly covered in scholarship, namely, the empiricism of memory sites in Sicilian cities. According to surveys of respondents, in the demographic vision of the population, these places are divided into loci of cultural memory (mainly architectural monuments or urban spaces), and into concentrations of historical memory (buildings of the fascist era; historical markets and ruins left as a result of the bombing of 1943). The author analyzes the criteria according to which objects in the vision of the population turn into a locus of that or other memory. This approach allows us to examine in detail the mechanism of formation and change of historical and cultural memory, and the associated connotations.
Sicily; cities; historical monuments; cultural monuments; cultural memory; historical memory; places of memory; vision of the population; experience of the past.