Provincial capital
Topography
Messina, third biggest city in Sicily (after Palermo and Catania), seat of an archbishop and a university, is the place where rail and car travelers first set foot on Sicilian soil, greeted by the great statue of the Virgin Mary by the harbor with the
inscription on its plinth: "Vos et ipsam civitatem benedicimus" (We bless you and your city), a quotation from a letter which according to the legend Mary gave to the Christians of the city.
Messina's natural harbor, its position on the Strait of Messina, which here is just 3km/2mi wide, and its proximity to the mainland, are factors which have determined its history from the earliest times. Today Messina, situated between the sea and the Monti Peloritani, is a modern city and a center for trade and communications, triumphantly overcoming such vicissitudes as the earthquake of 1908 and the Allies' bombing in 1943.
Strait of Messina
This narrow waterway, Lo Stretto di Messina, is geologically the result of a fault which occurred about 600,000 years ago and turned Sicily into an island. Because of the funnel-like shape of the strait, which is at its narrowest at Messina, the tidal currents are stronger here than elsewhere in the Mediterranean; they reverse every six hours and reach a speed of up to 10kmph/6mph. This has two consequences: the seawater, always in motion and therefore rich in oxygen, attracts plankton in vast amounts and this in turn attracts fish in vast numbers - a rich harvest for fishermen; secondly and conversely, these frequently changing currents have in the past created enormous navigational problems.
Myth
This is reflected in the ancient myth of the sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis, which is well known from Homer's Odyssey: Scylla seized the men from their ships and Charybdis sucked down every sailor who came too near to her. The myth lives on in the place-name Scilla on the Calabrian shore and the whirlpool called Cariddi facing the northeast corner of Sicily.
Earthquake zone
The geological fault which caused the Strait of Messina has also resulted in this being an extremely active earthquake zone. Goethe saw the city in 1787 two years after an earthquake had destroyed it and caused 12,000 deaths. Another earthquake occurred in 1894 and a devastating earth and sea quake on December 28th 1908. Yet with its indomitable will to live Messina has survived all these catastrophes, just as it has overcome the equally numerous catastrophes of history which have befallen it.
History
Even before the period of Greek dominance Messina was settled by the Sikels, its position being exceptionally favorable both for strategic reasons as well as for trade. It entered historical records around 730 B.C. when a town was founded there by Greeks who, starting from Chalcis on Euboea, had founded the town of Kyme (Lat. Cuma) to the west of Naples, the first Greek settlement on Italian soil. They then proceeded from Kyme to Sicily. The new settlement, which is thought to have been on the southern side of the present harbor, was named Zanthe (sickle), because of its shape. At the beginning of the fifth century B.C., after the collapse of the rebellion of the Ionian cities against Persia (494 B.C.), refugees also came from Miletus and Samos; they were thus Ionian Greeks as well. Finally the town, as a result of Sparta's aggressive policies towards its neighbors, took in large numbers of Messenians, who had fled their Peleponnese homeland. Anaxilaos, himself a Messenian, who had set himself up as the tyrant of Rhegion in Calabria, conquered Zancle soon after 490 B.C. and gave it the name Messana/Messene, from which the present-day name derives.
The rest of the history of the town during ancient times can be summarized with a few dates: in 461 the rule of the tyrants of Rhegion was toppled, in 426 Messina joined the Athenians after the latter had conquered its sister town of Mylai, but then soon went back over to Syracuse. In 396 it was destroyed by the Carthaginians, only to be rebuilt by Syracuse the following year.
Around 350 it was ruled by the tyrant Hippon; in 337 he was removed by Timoleon of Syracuse; in 289 it fell, after the death of the tyrant Agathocles of Syracuse, to his bodyguards, the Mamertinians (sons of Mars), who killed the whole of the male population and from there went on to tyrannize the whole of Sicily.
In 264 the Mamertinians, by enlisting the help of the Romans, triggered off the first Punic War. In 263 Messina became civitas foederata of the Romans and in the following period experienced a heyday as a Roman trading center.
Messina was also a thriving city in the three centuries of Byzantine rule (535-843). Then the Arabs (843-1061) held power, followed by the Normans (1061-1194). The Normans promoted the Greek Orthodox Basilian monastery of San Salvatore dei Greci as a place to transmit Eastern Christian Byzantine culture to the west. Towards the end of the Hohenstaufen period of rule (1194-1266), Messina founded in 1255, together with Milazzo and Taormina, a free state (comune libero), which ended, however, in 1266 with the rule of Charles of Anjou. The Spanish from the House of Aragon, who came to power after the Sicilian Vespers of 1282, preferred to reside in Messina - it was not until the 16th century that Palermo became the seat of residence of the kings and subsequently of the viceroys. In 1535 Emperor Charles V was received with great ceremony; in 1571 his son Don Juan of Austria sailed from Messina with the fleet of the Western League to join the triumphant progress of the sea-battle of Lepanto, which was being waged against the Turks.
Messina's heyday came to an end with the unsuccessful uprising against the Spanish rulers (1674-78). In the period that followed there was a series of catastrophes: in 1743 the plague (40,000 victims), in 1785 an earthquake (12,000 deaths), in 1823 a flood disaster, in 1847/1848 a revolt against the rule of the Neapolitan Bourbons and a bombardment by the troops of Ferdinand II ("Re Bomba"), in 1854 cholera (15,000 deaths), in 1894 an earthquake, in 1908 (December 28th) an earth and sea quake (60,000 deaths, nine 10ths of the buildings destroyed), in 1943 allied air attacks.
Cityscape
Two factors are crucial in determining the present-day appearance of the city: after the destruction of 1693 a large-scale and ambitious plan was used as the basis of reconstruction, and after the destruction of 1908 the city was rebuilt, this plan again being followed with the greatest consistency, lending a happy hand to the business of conserving and restoring some of the city's most essential buildings. Nevertheless the gravitational center of Messina has shifted south from the cathedral square to the Piazza Cairoli, which is where the Viale San Martino starts and which is the focal point for the city's traffic. From an architectural as well as a historical point of view the cathedral square is incomparably more important, and it is here that a visit to Messina must most logically begin.
Cultural events
Messina Carnival; Good Friday procession; procession with the giants Mata and Grifone on 14th August; artistic gatherings in December/January.
Print this page
Add to Favorites
