Art and History

Historical signs of the city of milazzo  

…... Wonderful nymph of the sea, milazzo lies in all the his incomparable beauty to the base of the lopped and thin peninsula whose promontory adorns itself with the wonderful eolie islands.Celebrated by the ancient ones as “the golden chersoneso” for his beauties, his gentle climate, the wealth of vegetation and the productivity of his lands. Myths and poets transmit it like the mythical land of the herds of the god sun, home of the terrible polifemo and landing place of roving ulisse. The man appeared in milazzo around 4500 b.c. he is an already highly developed man, who knows the art of sailing, because it arrives in milazzo by boats, and with these, it goes to the islands eolie, where he buys the ossidiana, bring it back to milazzo where he works this black stone  to make the necessary utensils.
In the following bronze age,  1850 b.c. the man began to leave traces of  his houses  (huts) in the zone of the castle, while he buried his dead in two necropolis. In both the necropolis, the bodies were placed in great pots called pythos, then buried underground.
Around 1350 b.c. the coastal zones were mass invaded  by people that attacked, almost certainly, the unarmed cavemen. These are the siculi, who, according to their rites, burned their dead, placed the ashes in pots and then buried them under ground. From an archaeological site located between the road xx september and the roma square, as many as 270 cinerary vase came to the light. The sicilians of milazzo show a great prosperity and wealth . Their commerce and their navigation reached greece, from  where they imported wonderful pots found again in the necropolis. Milazzo remained under siculi up to the end of vii century b.c.. And the beginning of vi century, when the greek populations advancing from messina invaded milazzo, destroying it and submitting his inhabitants, up to reduce it to a little fortalice, dependent on messina.
The state of dependence on messina lasted, perhaps, up to the fall of the roman empire. To this period belong the discovery of as many as three necropolis. From the  findings thera are not significant news about the life in milazzo; the only accepted fact  is that, in imperial age, the population, besides to live in the zone of the castle and the surrounding village,  extended to the below zone “vaccarella”, site of ancient port.
In the november of 1934 there has been discovered, in the ground floor of the convent of san francesco di paola, a mosaic floor attributed to the ii sec. B.c.
Recently, some researches carried out in the ward “vaccarella” have brought back to the light the remains of a factory for the salting of the fish, confirming that the city, during the imperial age,  had an economic life based on the seafaring activities.
Another recent discovery about this period is the small church of santa caterina of alexandria, still opened to the cult.
During the arab period, milazzo was the site of two bloody battles between byzantines and arabs, the first one won by the byzantines, the other one by the arabs,  who, is thought, has settled firmly to milazzo in 902, improving it and fortifying it. In fact they built the magnificent mast with his great tower and eight perimetric towers with military or defensive purpose.
Between 976 and 1030, after the arab period, succeeded  the norman - svevo - aragonese. All of them brought modifications to the arab castle strengthening it against the sieges. These grandiose fortifying works  had a test during the spanish siege of 1718 because no besieged was able to come through the first line of defence.
In the xix century, milazzo was the main site of the combats carried out between garibaldi’s troops  and the borboni. The result was  favourable to the garibaldians who took the sicily away from the borboni.
During the first world war, milazzo recognises first between the heroes, the commander luigi rizzo, two times golden medal. In the last war, milazzo, was tormented with air and naval bombardment resulting, between the sicilian cities, the one with the greatest percentages of destroyed buildings.