Sicilian Culture: News: Messina In Old Times & Today

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Messina In Old Times & Today
By nasrino@tin.it
I have a personal interest, since my grandparents, just prior to the 1908 earthquake, came from Sant'Agata de Militello & Ficarra, now suburbs of Messina. Richard Anntonico
MESSINA
Messina's story is the story of a people who were stronger than any disaster that might befall, and who knew how to rise up again to a renewed life. Indeed, Messina might take for it's emblem the Phoenix and it's motto "- rising always greater from the ashes". Messina was once a Sicil territory, colonized by the Calcidians in about 730 BC. and having the name Zancle, which in Greek means Sickle+ ?, perhaps an allusion to the shape of the peninsula that closes the natural harbour.
The town later on became for some time a possession of Anaxilas, tyrant of Reggio Calabria. In memory of his homeland, the tyrant used the name Messana, hence the present-day name.
The city then successively opposed Syracuse. Athens, and Carthage.
She was destroyed by Imiico in 396 BC, but reconstructed and populated under Dionysius the Etder .
Then she was taken by the Carthaginians, but was saved by Timoleon.
Then she fell to the mercenaries of Agathocles, the Mamertines, who appealed to Rome, thus sparking off the First Punic War in 264 BC.
Under Rome, Messina became a federated city, and after many stormy periods, kept her place of importance in Sicilian life, being confirmed in this under Byzamwe rule.
Following the ill-omened period under the Arabs, Messina resumed her ascendancy under the Norman-Hohenstaufen rule.
She victoriously repulsed the Angevin assault and siege during the Vespers War, in which two townswomen, Dina and Clarenza, gave a shining example of heroism in 1282.
During the centuries of Spanish rule, Messina, in frequent touch with the life of the Italian peninsula and the rest of the Mediterranean, consolidated her position as first commercial city in the island.
However, her stubborn attachment to the principle of liberty cost her dear. She rebelled against the Viceroy in 1674, and having faith in the intervention of Louis XIV of France, found herself abandoned at the last moment by the Sun King, and at the mercy of Spanish vengeance, which decimated the population.
Then, in 1743, she was struck by the pestilence, and in 1783, earthquake took its toll. She made glorious contribution during the Risorgimento period, but in 1854- was again struck by an epidemic.
Forty years later, the city later again lay shattered after an earthquake. Messina rose again and again after every such disaster. Her greatest trial came on the morning of 28 December 1908 when in 30 seconds, both she and Reggio fell under an earthquake shock.
Messina lost more than 60,000 citizens, and a good 90% of her buildings lay in ruin. Only ten days later, the intrepid Messinians set to work repairing the repairable, and the reconstruction of a city was prodigious, making of it a wholly new metropolis.
Just as the last scars of earthquake damage were healed, there came the damage wrought during the Second World War, as destructive as any earthquake.
But Messina as seen today, with her more than 350,000 inhabitants, her trade and commerce, her enterprise in every field, demonstrates once more that victorious response by mankind to the adversities of destiny.
Messina is a joyous city, friendly and quick-witted. She welcomes visitors through her port, where ships of all tonnages come to anchor. The entry into her port gateway is saluted and blessed by the statue of the Madonna, the Madonna of Messina.

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