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. The Late Baroque architecture of Val di Noto is the result of reconstruction following the earthquake.