After the Second Punic War, Castra Nicia came under Roman rule, but as in the rest of Sicily, the influence of the invaders remained superficial.
In AD 829, the city was occupied by the Saracens. The similarity of the Carthaginian name to the Arabic word نساء nisā’ (meaning 'women') resulted in the Saracen name of قلعة النساء Qal‘at al-Nisā’ ('Fort of the Women'), which has since been Italianized to Caltanissetta. The settlement was captured by the Normans in 1086. A charter was granted to the town in accordance with count Roger Borsa's vast plan for the urbanisation of Sicily and the urban plan that is still in evidence today was laid out.
After the Normans the city was under the Hohenstaufen, the Anjou and the Catalan-Aragonese kings, who gave it the title of county. Here Frederick II of Sicily was proclaimed king. The city was the seat of another Parliament who aimed to set the disputes arisen during the reign of Frederick III (1355–1377).
In 1406 Caltanissetta became a fief of the noble Spanish family Moncada, which already owned the estate of Paternò, and subsequently decayed deeply. In 1539 the construction of the Cathedral was started and in 1566 a notable bridge was built over the Salso River. In this period the city began to expand outside the walls, and new quarters (Santa Flavia, San Rocco degli Zingari and San Francesco, which included the medieval village of Arab origin) were created. The quartiers were divided by the construction of two roads that crossed roughly perpendicular to a central square (now Piazza Garibaldi): the Corso Vittorio Emanuele current (west-east) and the current Corso Umberto I (north-south).
On July 8, 1718 the city was assaulted by Piemontese troops, which caused large losses in the population. In 1787 Johann Wolfgang Goethe visited it.
In 1812, after 406 years, the Moncada seignory ended, as the feudal constitution was abolished and Caltanissetta turned into the 22nd Comarca of Sicily. In 1819 it was declared capital of the province, but one year later it was sacked as a punishment for its loyalty to the House of Bourbon. In 1844 it was elevated to a bishopric seat.
After many Nisseni had taken part in his Mille's ("the Thousand's") deeds, Giuseppe Garibaldi entered the city, together with Cesare Abba and Alexandre Dumas, père. On October 22 of the same year a plebiscite declared Caltanissetta part of the new Kingdom of Italy.
After the unification of Italy was involved in a great economic boom largely due to intense mining of sulfur, but it was accompanied by various misfortunes: 47 people died due to an explosion of fire damp in the mine of Trabonella on the 27th of April 1867; 65 miners died on November 12, 1881 in Gessolungo because of another explosion; and another 51 died in 1911 in Deliella and Trabonella.
In 1875, however, the population rose against the prefect, who was fired. On April 8, 1878 the city was connected to a railway, ending the historical difficulties in reaching it. Three years later the king Umberto I visited Caltanissetta along with his wife Margherita of Savoy and his son Victor Emmanuel III.
During the Second World War, as part of the Allied landing in Sicily, he suffered several bombings (July 1943) during which 351 civilians were killed. On July 10, U.S. troops landed first in Licata by the 3^ infantry and after 8 days, on 18 July they entered and occupied the city. The U.S. 1^ infantry landed in Gela any hours after and they went toward Catania where meet the U.S 45 infantry that landed near Scoglitti.
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