An ancient land

In 1963 the paleontologist Giovanni Mannino found three rock shelters with incisions dating back to the Paleolithic, which have now disappeared due to the urban expansion of Villabate; the representations, which included bovidae and equidae, were stylistically close to those of the village of Addaura.

Around the beginning of the eighteenth century, the abbot Antonio Agnello moved from Palermo to the territory of today’s town of Villabate together with his employees, so it is believed that the town was founded after this transfer. In reality, the toponym “Abbate” was much older, dating back to the second half of the fifteenth century, when the abbot of the abbey of S. Spirito di Palermo, Giovanni de Osca, commisioned the construction of a tower, which was subsequently incorporated into the Migliaccio-Termine palace, together with some houses and a warehouse. Over time, the original nucleus expanded and it became the “Abbate’s Village”, falling under the municipality administration of Monreale. Afterwards, the inhabited area passed to the municipality of Palermo, from which it became autonomous in 1858, thus becoming a separate municipality.

It forms a single conurbation with the town of Palermo, extending east of the capital, on the eastern side of the plain ‘Conca d’Oro’, in an area from where all communication routes between Palermo and the hinterland of the city (Misilmeri, Ficarazzi, Bagheria, Belmonte Mezzagno) are connected.