County of Modica

Its capital was Modica, on the southern tip of the island, although the cities of Ragusa and Scicli housed some government offices for a period.

A new count was created, i.e. Bernat IV de Cabrera, a Spanish condottiero who conquered Sicily for the new king Martin I.

The county of Modica was now bigger and stronger: it included the towns of Scicli, Spaccaforno (today's Ispica), Ragusa, Chiaramonte Gulfi, Comiso, Giarratana, Monterosso Almo and Biscari and the castles of Dirillo and Cammarana.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, the spread of emphyteusis and the privatization of the land by Governor Bernaldo Del Nero made the city of Modica the foremost in the south-east of Sicily.

The lower part of Modica grew with churches, high-class palaces and monasteries, until the 1693 earthquake that killed over 60,000 people in Sicily from Catania to Syracuse and destroyed numerous buildings.

On 5 March 1607, Vittoria Colonna Enriquez-Cabrera, Countess of Modica, daughter of the Viceroy Marcantonio Colonna Duke of Tagliacozzo and wife of Count Ludovico III Enriquez-Cabrera, founded the new city of Vittoria, now the second most populous city in the province of Ragusa.