The history of Sicily has been influenced by numerous ethnic groups. It has seen Sicily controlled by external powers – Phoenician and Carthaginian, Greek, Roman, Vandal and Ostrogoth, Byzantine Greek, Aghlabid, Fatimid, Kalbid, Norman, Aragonese and Spanish – but also experiencing important periods of independence, as under the indigenous Sicanians, Elymians and Sicels, and later as the Emirate of Sicily, County of Sicily, and Kingdom of Sicily. The Kingdom was founded in 1130 by Roger II, belonging to the Siculo-Norman family of Hauteville. During this period, Sicily was prosperous and politically powerful, becoming one of the wealthiest states in all of Europe. As a result of the dynastic succession, then, the Kingdom passed into the hands of the Hohenstaufen. At the end of the 13th century, with the War of the Sicilian Vespers between the crowns of Anjou and Aragon, the island passed to the latter. In the following centuries the Kingdom entered into the personal union with the Spaniard and Bourbon crowns, while preserving effective independence until 1816. Sicily was merged with the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. Although today an Autonomous Region, with special statute, of the Republic of Italy, it has its own distinct culture.

Sicily is both the largest region of the modern state of Italy and the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Its central location and natural resources ensured that it has been considered a crucial strategic location due in large part to its importance for Mediterranean trade routes. Cicero and al-Idrisi described respectively Syracuse and Palermo as the greatest and most beautiful cities of the Hellenic World and of the Middle Ages.