•. Can you recommend a guide or tour company that does a walk in Ragusa (the one in Sicily)? An in-depth discovery?
Most tour groups, including RS, that stay in Ragusa avoid the church politics that formed it, but that's the kind of stuff I want to discover in-person. You'll hear that the 1693 earthquake recovery took different paths in the upper and lower towns.
How so?
Here's a little Gemini-assisted taste of how Ragusa arrived at its current state:
Church Politics & The Birth of the Diocese
The ecclesiastical landscape of the Ragusa region was plagued by intense institutional battles that lasted for nearly three centuries:
The Sangiovannari vs. Sangiorgiari Feud
The post-earthquake rebuilding project triggered a bitter civil and liturgical war. The Sangiorgiari (devotees of St. George in lower Ibla) claimed historical primacy, as St. George had been the patron saint of the medieval County of Ragusa since Norman times. Meanwhile, the Sangiovannari (devotees of St. John in upper Superiore) declared independence.
For generations, the two factions functioned almost as separate cities with independent administrative authorities. The Church politics became so petty that liturgical calendar celebrations, processing routes, and boundary lines required heavy mediation by the viceroys and the Roman Curia to prevent physical street riots between the competing brotherhoods.
The Strategic Resolution of 1950
For centuries, Ragusa did not actually have its own independent diocese; the entire region was governed externally as part of the vast Archdiocese of Siracusa. To permanently diffuse the centuries-old civic tension and acknowledge Ragusa's rapid economic growth, Pope Pius XII executed a highly calculated political maneuver on May 6, 1950.
• He carved out territory from Syracuse to create a brand new, independent Diocese of Ragusa.
To avoid reigniting the ancient rivalry, Rome initially decreed that the Archbishop of Syracuse would hold the title of Bishop of Ragusa concurrently (aeque personaliter).
The final administrative victory went to the upper town: San Giovanni Battista was officially chosen as the administrative Cathedral, while San Giorgio was designated a Basilica.
The diocese became fully independent with its own exclusive bishop, Francesco Pennisi, on October 1, 1955.
[note that the word 'brotherhood' in this response is likely a translation of either cofradias (Spanish) or contrade (Italian), which I have posted about previously]