is the third largest city on the island of
Sicily ,
Italy and the capital of the
Province Of Messina . It is located near the North-East corner of Sicily, at the
Strait Of Messina .
Founded by
Greek colonists in the
8th Century BC , Messina was originally called (scythe) because of the shape of its natural harbour. (The stairs leading to the harbour are to this day called 'Scaletta Zanclea'.) In the early
5th Century ,
Anaxilas Of Rhegium renamed it '''Messene''' in honor of the Greek city
Messene . See also
List Of Traditional Greek Place Names .
coin, depicting the Pharos of Messina and
Scylla .]]
The city was sacked in
396 BC by the
Carthaginians , then reconquered by
Dionysius I Of Syracuse . At the end of the
First Punic War it was a free city allied with Rome. In Roman times Messina, then known as , had an important
Pharos (lighthouse). Messana was the base of
Sextus Pompeius , during his war against
Octavian .
After the fall of the
Roman Empire , the city was successively conquered by the
Goths , 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).
Messina was most likely the harbor at which the
Black Death entered
Europe in the
Middle Ages .
The city was almost entirely destroyed by an
Earthquake and associated
Tsunami on the morning of
December 28 ,
1908 , killing over 75,000 people and destroying most of the ancient architecture.
In June
1955 , Messina was the location of the conference of western
Europe an foreign ministers which led to the creation of the
European Economic Community .
The
12th Century Cathedral of Messina contains the remains of
Conrad , king of Germany and Sicily in the
13th Century . After the quake of 1908, the cathedral was rebuilt in 1919/1920; after a fire in 1943 it had to be rebuilt again.
In 1957 a 220kV-
Overhead Powerline was built across the Strait of Messina. At the time of its construction, its two
Pylons were the highest in the world. This powerline has since been replaced by an underwater cable, but the pylons still remain, protected as historical monuments. (See
Pylons Of Messina .)
Many writers set their works in Messina, among them:
