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 Santa
Croce Camerina is among the Sicilian richest towns in art and history,
it being the original site of very ancient installations: Kamarina,
Kaukana, Casale di Santa Croce, and others.
The
earliest pre-historic traces date back to the Bronze Age, referring
to the so-called "Facies Castellucciana".
Kamarina
was founded in 598 b.C. as the outpost of expansionist politics
of Syracuse, in the area bounded by the Hipparis and Oanis rivers(to-day's
Ippari and Rifriscolaro). Soon enjoying a period of economical and
political prosperity, Kamarina joined other towns of that area,
rising up against Syracuse, who necessitated fifty years (in 553
b.C.) to re-establish its rule.
During
the following three centuries, there alternated periods of splendour
and power to periods of decadence and poverty, until Romans, in
258 b.C., led by the Consul Attilio Calatino, after a long siege,
sacked and razed it to the ground.
 The
few survivors took refuge by Punta Secca (a littoral area between
Punta Braccetto and Casuzze), where established several villages
distributed between shore and interior lands, and known under the
name of Kaukanæ.
The
area of S. Croce is rich of Christianity's tokens, like the sepulchral
rooms and the paved graves in the Contrada Pirrera (Pirrera country-road)
or the necropolises and the sanctuary located by the Contrada Mirio.
The sanctuary keeps several frescoes, notably that of Sant'Elena
( Emperor Constantine's mother) with the Holy Cross. This figure
gave the name to the Contrada and to the entire inhabited area:
"Santa Croce" (Italian) right means Holy Cross.
A
period of decline followed, during which the territory was abandoned
as far as the Arabian occupation. No remarkable signs here remained
of their installation.
Documents
of that period refer to the place-name Rosacambra used instead of
Kaukana. In the 12th century Rosacambra, the Casale (hamlet, feud)
of S. Croce and other nearby lands were assigned to the old monastery
of Benedettini of Scicli and, afterwards, rented as grass-lands
to aristocrats from Scicli and Ragusa. In 1450 they were rented,
first temporary, soon perpetually to Don Pietro Celestri, a nobleman
from Modica, on whose initiative groups of peasants re-populated
the area and established the first nucleuses of Santa Croce.
Upon
Don Pietro Celestri's death, in 1494, the feud decreased and was
again abandoned because of continued assaults of pirates from the
close undefended coast.
The
Celestri family, Signors and Marquises of S. Croce, from the 16th
century had again an important role, contributing to the economical
growth and development of the town, in spite of the pirates, whose
assaults were finally stopped through the erection of two towers
in the strategic area of Capo Scaramia, on the initiative of Pietro
V Celestri.
In
1812, the feudal system being abolished, S. Croce Camerina was decreed
free Municipality and given its own "Decurionato".
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