There is archaeological evidence of
Mesolithic habitation.
Pliny mentions the
Roman city of Noa, and its inhabitants the Noeni.
Lombards settled there in 1061–72. During the time of the Norman
Kingdom of Sicily, in 1171
Hugh of Châteaneuf founded the Abbey of Santa Maria Nucaria. In the 1200s a castle was built by
Roger of Lauria. The lands passed to the Palizzis and then in 1364 to
Vinciguerra d’Aragona. In 1641 the fief was granted to the wife of
Marcantonio Colonna. The village peaked in the 1600s with the development of a dense network of alleys and lanes, and the considerable array of decorative elements on the houses, carved in local
sandstone,
cipollino, and
marble. ==Geography==