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The cave of Calafarina.
Time ago
“Chiamau li cchiù famusi ‘ncantaturi, |
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3. King Varvalonga had sent to Sicily a certain Cala Farina, his prime minister, as viceroy. Instead of governing, these were enriched at the expense of the people and accumulated their treasures in the cave. When the king sent for him, Cala Farina forced her daughter to protect the treasure and to kill herself in case she did not return. Cala Farina was in fact killed and when his daughter saw the color of the sails of the ships, a sign that the father was no longer alive, he killed himself and the treasure remained forever "enchanted". The spell will be dissolved only if someone is able to pronounce the exact words that Cala Farina's daughter said before taking his own life. (legends taken from the book of Corrado Cernigliaro “Portopalo di Capo Passero”, ed. SETIM, Modica 1996). |
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A treasure in the cave of Calafarina? Of course we talk about it in at least three popular legends: 1. Ben Avert, the Arab emir of Noto, had fallen in combat against the Normans. It was 1086. When the city fell, the widow and the son of the emir with a caravan of 30 people and a hundred mules laden with treasures set off towards Marzamemi to embark for Egypt. Before sailing the princess decided not to take the treasure into the sea, for fear of the pirates and had it hidden in the bowels of the earth, inside the cave of Calafarina. The slaves who buried him were killed and their souls remained in perpetual guard of the cave. In the nights of February their spirits invoke the name of the one who will remove the spell and free them. |
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2. At the time of the Arabs it is said that there was a castle in Moorish style right on the cave. Maniace, a Byzantine general, conquered it and left his young daughter Zoraide to live there, surrounded by immense treasures, including the relics of Saint Lucia. Maniace in the meantime had married Zoe, the widow of Emperor Michael, but he had hatched an affair with the new emperor Constantine to have him killed. Before dying Maniace wanted to see Zoraide again at Calafarina: he taught her how to put all her treasures under her spell. . Sidnar, son of the Arab general once owner of Calafarina, fell madly in love with Zoraide and moved with his men to the cave. In the battle both Sidnar and Zoraide perished and none succeeded in seizing the treasures, protected by the spell: before dying Zoraide had thrown into the sea an enchanted ring that was swallowed by a fish that never dies because it feeds on rare marine fruits. Who had found these fruits and managed to catch the fish would have become the master of the treasure of Calafarina. |
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Well, the treasure of Calafarina really exists. Not that of Ben Avert or Zoraide or Varvalonga. No. And it's not under any kind of spell. The spell instead seems to have grasped all the administrators of the town of Pachino, the insiders of the Superintendency of Cultural Heritage of Syracuse, the same inhabitants of Pachino. Yes, because the importance of Calafarina, of the nearby Corruggi cave and of the neighboring Cugni valley, was sanctioned, not with the colorful tones of the legend but with the scientific rigor of the research, by eminent scholars and researchers like Paolo Orsi and Luigi Bernabò Brea . |
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In fact, Corruggi, Calafarina and Cugni could in fact, with a limited expense, constitute a single archaeological park suitably organized with routes, information panels and meeting points. It would be an important step to fill that awful gap, that unbridgeable gap in the memory of a city that we have already denounced about the traditions of the harvest or the tonnara of Marzamemi. Actually, in these last months some signs of "awakening" from the spell have been felt. Two basically: • The drafting of two projects within the so-called P.I.T. (Integrated Territorial Projects), one concerning the restoration and refunctionalization of the so-called industrial archeology area near Marzamemi (former Rudinì warehouses), the other concerning the reorganization of the coastal strip from Marzamemi to the Calafarina area. The latter project should also include the establishment of the archaeological park. • The birth of the Association of Historical and Cultural Studies, by a group of young and enthusiastic enthusiasts, with the consequent publication of a specialized magazine with the significant title of "Calafarina".
What's the spell melting?
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Source arch. Rosario Ardilio
The fishermen's houses, on your left, turn around the square and give the landscape a uniform appearance. They date back to 1627 when the tonnara was built. In 1752, on the occasion of the construction of the Palazzo del Principe in Villadorata, the sailors' houses were renovated. Currently, most of them are used for tourist accommodation. The houses have been built with blocks of stone, have a square shape and sloping roof. The most characteristic is the "house of the oven", so called because it is provided inside a huge oven, in masonry. The oven provided bread to all the inhabitants of the tonnara. Currently the house has the house number 7.
The ancient church, built as the palace of the Prince, in 1752, is all in sandstone, is raised, has three stone steps, which lead to the entrance door. Inside the church is a single nave, had a central altar, unfortunately, collapsed; on the sides there are two smaller altars, equal, supported by columns, and above, two niches. The church cover has completely collapsed. Only part of the bell tower and an arch next to it remain.
In the historic center of Marzamemi, and an integral part of the tonnara, is the town square, called Piazza Regina Margherita. On the square, there are also the two prospects of the churches, the old and the new, both dedicated to San Francesco di Paola, protector of the village, and the facade of the Palace of Prince of Villadorata.
The new church, on the left, was built for the munificence of the Supreme Pontiff Pius XI. The prospect is simple, linear. In the center, above the portal, stands a rosette of romantic style. The facade is divided into three vertical sections, delimited by two side pillars. The entrance door is made of grooved wood and is preceded by three marble steps. The prospect ends with a gable roof. The roof of the whole church is sloping. On the left, for those who look, in front, you can see the bell tower, placed at the same height as the roof of the church. The church is built of white stone.
Cradle of ancient cultures, territory guarding an immense and precious natural heritage. Extreme border of Italy, the main gateway between two continents: Europe and Africa. It is Pachino, a land sung by Virgil in the Aeneid and by Dante in the Divine Comedy, but which still has so much to tell, which never ceases to amaze those who are furious for the first time. A young city (1760 is the foundation date) whose history is linked to a double plot with the neighboring island of Malta, from which some of the first family units come, and with the Starrabba family: Vincenzo and Gaetano, founders, and the Marquis Antonio, former president of the Council of Ministers of the Kingdom of Italy and father of Alessandrina, known for having kidnapped Gabriele D'Annunzio's heart. Pachino was also the birthplace of Vitaliano Brancati, an important writer of the 20th century in Italy. Pearl in the middle of the Mediterranean, mother of breathtaking sunsets, good wine, tomato and fish, Pachino is "cradled", on the side of the coast and for 8 kilometers, from the golden beaches of Marzamemi, Cavettone, Vulpiglia, Morghella, on the Ionian coast and Carratois, Punta delle Formiche, Costa dell'Ambra, Tanneries, Scarpitta, Chiappa and Granelli, on the Mediterranean coast and from the hinterland to the natural oasis of Vendicari and the Pantani of south-eastern Sicily: large pools of water that alternate with intense vegetation and karst caves. The crystalline waters of the extreme limb of Sicily are sought after tourist destinations both for the underwater archaeological heritage, which boasts numerous sunken sites of high interest, and for surf enthusiasts, thanks to the currents caused by the "embrace" between the Ionian and Channel of Sicily.
Municipality of Pachino
- Population: 184 to (30-9-2015)
- Town Hall: Via XXV Luglio 96018 Pachino (SR) http://www.comune.pachino.sr.it/
- Altitude: 65 ml.m. (Town center)
- Extension: 50.98km²
- Current mayor: Roberto Bruno
- Municipal phone number: 0931 803111
- Municipal Library: 0931 596097
HISTORY OF AN ENCHANTED VILLAGE.
Marzamemi is a fishing village distant from Pachino about 3 km of which it is a fraction for half and the other of Noto in the province of Syracuse. The origin of the name is uncertain, some scholars claim that it derives from the Arabic word "Marsà al hamen" which means Baia delle Tortore, as the area is an obligatory place to pass small birds during migration.
Some derive it from Marza-Porto, Memi-Piccolo: Piccolo Porto. The village is washed by the Ionian sea and the level is lower than the sea. On the Ionian Sea, you meet the two islets of Marzamemi: the small, on which stands an elegant cottage, owned by the family of Prof. R. Brancati and the large, which forms a curve of entry into the recent port formed by the same islet and by a concrete wall arm, which extends into the sea.
The inhabitants of the village were all devoted to fishing, Marzamemi was already well known, since the mid-1600s for the tonnara, which after that of Favignana (Trapani) was the most important in Sicily. The inhabitants who lived permanently in the village of Marzamemi were all dedicated to fishing and boat building and were all from the cities of Syracuse or from nearby Avola, which reflect the city's costume, kind, cheerful and warmly religious.
Marzamemi is as old as the tonnara, it was a Regia tonnara erected under Spanish rule that in 1642 was sold to the Baroni Calascibetta of Piazza Armerina. In 1752 were built the palace of the Prince, the church dedicated to the Madonna del Carmelo and the fishermen's houses. At the end of the 18th century, the tonnara was sold to the Nicolaci di Noto family, formerly the gabellotes of the Baroni Calascibetta.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century the tonnara of Marzamemi was considered the best among those returning from the kingdom (they say back the tuna traps that intercept the herds of tunas that "return" to the south after having crossed the seas to the north, as the Tyrrhenian Sea ). At the end of the century there was a curious struggle for the primacy in the catch with Baron Pietro di Belmonte, owner of the nearby tonnara of Capo Passero. Since then it was a continuous decline in activities; over time many of the premises were used for the salting of blue fish of small craft enterprises, until the complete abandonment of the factories, which at the beginning of the new millennium appeared in very degraded conditions. In the last fifteen years they have been reconverted into tourist accommodation. With the birth of Pachino, in 1760, by Gaetano Starrabba, prince of Giardinelli, the tonnara ceased to be the only economic resource of the area and Marzamemi became the port from which the products of the earth started, first the cotton and then the must, species, before the construction of the Pachino-Marzamemi-Noto-Avola-Syracuse railway.
THE NEW TUNA WORKING CENTER.
In 1912 a factory was built in Marzamemi for processing salted tuna and then tuna with oil. The fishing of the tonnara was abundant until 1951, in 1952 the Rasiom of Augusta came into operation and the significant decline in fishing began in all the seven tuna tanks: Santa Panagia - Terruzza - Fontane Bianche - Avola - Bafuto Vendicari - Marzamemi and Capo I will pass.
MOVIES IN MARZAMEMI.
Sud, by Gabriele Salvatore
Oltremare non è l’America, by Nello Correale
L’uomo delle Stelle, by Giuseppe Tornatore
Kaos, by brothers Taviani
Il commissario Montalbano, by Andrea Camilleri
Mario e il mago, by Klaus Maria Brandauer
Cuore Scatenato, by Gianluca Sodaro
L’Iguana, by Catherine McGilvray
I fantasmi di Portopalo, with Beppe Fiorello
"Immaturi"-La serie, with Luca Bizzarri and Paolo Kessisoglu
Aenne Burda, by Franziska Meletzky
UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGICAL ITINERARY: BETWEEN RELATIONS AND REPERTS
BETWEEN PORTO FOSSA MARZAMEMI AND DIVING POINT
Evocative and fascinating, a wonder hidden from sight: it is the itinerary of submerged archaeological heritage. The Sea of Sicily, especially the stretch of coast that goes from Gallina beach of Avola to Pozzallo, colonized by Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Spaniards has always been the scene of events, meetings, wars, shipwrecks and has helped to preserve, in more or less visible way, the traces of history. They are remains of naval loads: from imposing columns for the construction of amphoras buildings for wine and oil, from statues to adornments to furnishings. Hundreds of artifacts, most of which, given the size and state of conservation, were left on site in what looks like a sort of underwater museum. Today, thanks to the intensive survey work and Carthusian surveys by the Superintendency of the Cultural and Archaeological Heritage of the Sea, many of these archaeological finds have been identified, studied and cataloged. Many other artefacts, preserved by the wear of the sea and above all by the "relict" raids, are kept in a real underwater archaeological museum, which collects hundreds of finds found in the depths of the whole coast of the Gac of the two Seas: it is the Museum of the Sea of Calabernardo (Noto). Among all the archaeological and underwater itineraries identified and usable, the one proposed is Marzamemi 1, located about a mile from the coast near the seaside village from which it takes its name. To get to the dive site, we recommend leaving by boat from the large port of Marzamemi (Porto Fossa), accompanied by expert guides authorized to immerse themselves in places with archaeological restrictions. The dive is easy to perform, as the site is about 7 meters deep on a rocky plateau. The water is almost always clear lacking sandy suspension. The archaeological site covers an area of about 600 square meters: due to its size and low depth it is also suitable for snorkeling excursions. It is a load of semi-finished columns and squared blocks, presumably prepared for bases or capitals. Thanks to the presence of fragments of amphorae it was possible to date the wreck to the III century AD. The marble of the columns is of oriental origin, it is assumed the provenance from quarries of Turkey. The spectacularity of the site is given by the size of the columns: the largest is 6.40 meters long, with a diameter of about 185 centimeters. There is no way of knowing what these columns meant, presumably to build a majestic building, given their colossal dimensions. Nothing remains of the wreck and the wooden elements. The ship, submerged on the rocky bottom, has been exposed for centuries to the action of sea water and to that of a particular mollusk, Teredo Navalis, which loves to dig long tunnels in the wood. It can be assumed, given the load (about 165 tons), that the ship was a little less than 30 meters long with a minimum width of 9 meters. Among the columns and blocks of marble, well hidden among the plants of Posidonia Oceanica, there is no lack of underwater fauna: morays, octopus, bream, small crustaceans color and make the exploration of the site unique and truly evocative.
We thank the Sicilian Region, Superintendency of the Sea, for the kind concession of underwater photos of the archaeological site "Marzamemi 1" - photo S. Emma
Source GAC dei due mari
http://www.prolocomarzamemi.it/index.php/en/proloco-unpli/consulta/itemlist/user/495-superuser?start=30#sigProId2ace18ff6c
