, in Messina. Founded by
Greek colonists of
Magna Graecia in the 8th century BC, Messina was originally called
Zancle (), from the Greek meaning "
scythe" because of the shape of its natural harbour (though a legend attributes the name to King
Zanclus). A
comune of its Metropolitan City, located at the southern entrance of the
Strait of Messina, is to this day called 'Scaletta Zanclea'.
Solinus wrote that the city of
Metauros was established by people from Zancle. In the early 5th century BC
Anaxilas of Rhegium renamed it
Messene () in honour of the Greek city
Messene (See also
List of traditional Greek place names). Later,
Micythus was the ruler of
Rhegium and Zancle, and he also founded the city of
Pyxus. The city was
sacked in 397 BC by the
Carthaginians and then reconquered by
Dionysius I of Syracuse. In 288 BC the
Mamertines seized the city by treachery, killing all the men and taking the women as their wives. The city became a base from which they ravaged the countryside, leading to a conflict with the expanding regional empire of
Syracuse.
Hiero II, tyrant of Syracuse, defeated the Mamertines near
Mylae on the
Longanus River and besieged Messina.
Carthage assisted the Mamertines because of a
long-standing conflict with Syracuse over dominance in Sicily. When Hiero attacked a second time in 264 BC, the Mamertines petitioned the
Roman Republic for an alliance, hoping for more reliable protection. Although initially reluctant to assist lest it encourage other mercenary groups to mutiny, Rome was unwilling to see Carthaginian power spread further over Sicily and encroach on Italy. Rome, therefore, entered into an alliance with the Mamertines. In 264 BC, Roman troops were deployed to Sicily, the first time a Roman army acted outside the
Italian Peninsula. At the end of the
First Punic War it was a free city allied with Rome. In Roman times Messina, then known as
Messana, had an important
pharos (lighthouse). Messana was the base of
Sextus Pompeius, during his war against
Octavian. After the fall of the
Western Roman Empire the city was successively ruled by
Goths from 476, then by the
Byzantine Empire in 535, by the
Arabs in 842, and in 1061 by the
Norman brothers
Robert Guiscard and
Roger Guiscard (later count Roger I of Sicily). In 1189 the English king
Richard I ("The Lionheart") stopped at Messina en route to the
Holy Land for the
Third Crusade and briefly occupied the city after a dispute over the dowry of his sister, who had been married to
William the Good, King of Sicily. One of the major cities on Sicily, Messina was heavily involved in the rivalry between the Anjou dynasty in Naples and the Aragonese
House of Barcelona. Initially a stronghold of Anjou support on Sicily, in 1282 the city joined the revolt of the
Sicilian Vespers, resulting in the city being
subjected to a major siege by
Charles I of Anjou. Messina remained a major naval base for the remainder of the ensuing twenty-year
War of the Sicilian Vespers, and was
besieged a second time in 1301. In 1345
Orlando d'Aragona, the illegitimate son of
Frederick II of Sicily was the
strategos of Messina. 's entry into Messina during the
Expedition of the Thousand in 1860, an event of the
unification of Italy In 1347 Messina was one of the first points of entry for the
black death into Western Europe.
Genoese galleys travelling from the infected city of
Kaffa carried plague into the Messina ports. Kaffa had been infected via Asian trade routes and the
siege of Kaffa from infected
Mongol armies led by
Janibeg; it was a departure point for many Italian merchants who fled the city to Sicily. Contemporary accounts from Messina tell of the arrival of "Death Ships" from the East, which floated to shore with all the passengers on board already dead or dying of plague. Plague-infected rats probably also came aboard these ships. The black death ravaged Messina and rapidly spread northward into mainland Italy from Sicily in the following few months. aftermath. Ruins of the Duomo. In 1548
St. Ignatius founded there the first
Jesuit college in the world, which later gave birth to the
Studium Generale (the current
University of Messina). The Christian ships that won the
Battle of Lepanto (1571) left from Messina: the
Spanish author
Miguel de Cervantes, who took part in the battle, recovered for some time in the
Grand Hospital. The city reached the peak of its splendour in the early 17th century, under Spanish domination: at the time it was one of the ten greatest cities in Europe. In 1674 the city
rebelled against the foreign garrison. It managed to remain independent for some time, thanks to the help of the French king
Louis XIV, but in 1678, with the
Peace of Nijmegen, it was reconquered by the Spaniards and sacked: the university, the senate and all the privileges of autonomy it had enjoyed since the Roman times were abolished. A
massive fortress was built by the occupants and Messina decayed steadily. In 1743, 48,000 died of a second wave of
plague in the city. On 5 February 1783 an
earthquake devastated much of the city, and it took decades to rebuild and rekindle the cultural life of Messina. In 1847 it was one of the first cities in Italy where
Risorgimento riots broke out. In 1848 it rebelled openly against the reigning
Bourbons, but was heavily suppressed again. Only in 1860, after the
Battle of Milazzo, the
Garibaldine troops occupied the city. One of the main figures of the
unification of Italy,
Giuseppe Mazzini, was elected
deputy at Messina in the general elections of 1866. Another earthquake of less intensity damaged the city on 16 November 1894. The city was almost entirely destroyed by
an earthquake and associated
tsunami on the morning of 28 December 1908, killing about 100,000 people and destroying most of the ancient architecture. The city was largely rebuilt in the following year. However, thousands of residents displaced by the earthquake lived in shanty towns outside the city until the late 1930s, when further reconstruction finally commenced. It incurred further damage from the massive Allied air bombardments of 1943; before and during the
Allied invasion of Sicily. Messina, owing to its strategic importance as a transit point for Axis troops and supplies sent to Sicily from mainland Italy, was a prime target for the British and American air forces, which dropped some 6,500 tons of bombs in the span of a few months. These raids destroyed one-third of the city, and caused 854 deaths among the population. The city was awarded a
Gold Medal of Military Valor and one for Civil Valor by the Italian government in memory of the event and the subsequent effort of reconstruction. In June 1955 Messina was the location of the
Messina Conference of
Western European
foreign ministers which led to the creation of the
European Economic Community. The conference was held mainly in Messina's
City Hall building (
it), and partly in nearby
Taormina. The city is home to a small
Greek-speaking minority, which arrived from the
Peloponnese between 1533 and 1534 when fleeing the expansion of the
Ottoman Empire. They were officially recognised in 2012. ==Geography==