page_title: Comiso
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Comiso / History
caption_attribution_description: Comiso, Sizilien, Chiesa Madre - Santa Maria delle Stelle
context_page_description: Comiso, is a comune of the Province of Ragusa, Sicily, southern Italy. As of 2017, its population was 29,857.
context_section_description: In the past Comiso has been incorrectly identified with the ancient Greek colony of Casmene.
  Under the Byzantines a new borough began to grow on Comiso's present site around the monasteries of St. Nicolò and Saint Blaise, expanding further under the later Norman and Aragonese domination of Sicily. It was later a fief of the Chiaromonte, Cabrera and Naselli families: the latter, counts of the city from 1571, boosted the economy of the city and built new district outside the ancient walls.
  Comiso was devastated by the 1693 earthquake and rebuilt on the same spot as the old ruins in the Sicilian Baroque style.
  The United States Air Force deployed Ground Launched Cruise Missiles (GLCM) to Comiso Air Base in June 1983. Women from Italy, Europe, and other parts of the world created a peace camp in Comiso in 1983 to protest the building of the base. They were inspired by women activists at the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp in England.
  The missiles were eventually dismantled after the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) was signed by the former Soviet Union and the United States on 8 December 1987.  The last 16 GLCMs left Comiso Air Base in 1991 and the American-occupied part of the base was returned to Italian control.
caption: Santa Maria delle Stelle church,
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