The Town of Marzamemi is really a Jewel, an hidden gem, in the south part of Sicily. It’s a marine village of the municipality of Pachino from which it is about 2 km, it is also located 20 km from Noto, capital of the Baroque. It is located in the province of Syracuse.

Etimology

The origin of the name Marzamemi is controversial: according to some it derives from the Arabic words marsa (‘port’) and memi (‘small’), while according to the glottologist netino Corrado Avolio, in his sage of toponymy Sicilian, the toponym derives from the Arabic marsà al-ḥamāma, that is ‘bay of the tortors’, “for the abundant pace of these birds, in spring”. Simone Sultano, parish priest of Pachino between 1885 and 1944, notes instead that some people mistakenly derived it from marza and memi, ‘louse’, because mothers used to say this word by searching for parasites in their children’s hair. Finally, in the book Pachum Pachynos Pachino, stories and legends from Pachino to Capopassero, Antonino Terranova also mentions another thesis, according to which “Memi” refers to Euphemio, the former commander of the Byzantine fleet, who rebelled against Emperor Michael II the Amoriano, passed by the part of the Arabs and with them began the conquest of the island. Marzamemi would therefore mean ‘port of Eufemio’.

History

Foundation

The village was born around the landing, then became a fishing port, and has developed thanks to this last activity, still practiced today, also endowing itself with a Tonnara, one of the most important in Sicily. The tonnara of Marzamemi dates back to the time of the Spanish domination in Sicily in 1600 under the reign of Philip IV. In 14/02/1655 Simone Calascibetta of Piazza Armerina was sold to the baron.

Renaissance

In 1752 the construction of the palace, of the church of the tonnara, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary of Monte Carmelo, and of the sailors’ houses by the Calascibetta barons were completed. Also the birth of the nearby Pachino (1760), wanted by the Starrabba, had given a new impetus to Marzamemi, with the construction of the warehouses that are located along the main street and which were used to store wine barrels, to be sent by sea in Liguria and in France, both the over three hundred thousand tons of salt produced by the two salt pans of Morghella and Marzamemi. Towards the end of the 19th century Antonio Starrabba, Marquis Di Rudinì, who was twice president of the council of ministers, had a large millstone built, while the Villadorata built a steam mill, which was then converted into a distillery

19th Century

In 1843 Salvatore Calascibetta died without heirs and the tonnara was inherited by his nephew Giovanna Antonia Calascibetta. The debts accumulated since 1795 involved various legal disputes. This occasion therefore allowed Corrado Nicolaci principe di Villadorata – already a tuna gabelloto – to gradually detect the majority of the 24 carats of the plant, which yielded 14,000 onze. With the passage of the tonnara from Calascibetta to Nicolaci, which took place only in the second half of the nineteenth century, the “contemporary history” of Marzamemi began. At that moment, the seaside village was not yet well connected to the nearby inhabited centers. So it was that the Bourbon Department had the rolling-out Marzamemi-Pachino (1847-1853) built, with the hope of advancing maritime trade. The new axis, in fact, improved the connection with the port area thus favoring the revival of the economy, which had consequences with the construction of Porto Fossa (1855).

Last Century

In 1912 a tuna processing plant was built in the town of Marzamemi, followed by tuna in oil. The fishing of the tonnara was abundant until after the war. In Marzamemi two mornings were carried out every day: one in the morning and one in the early afternoon. The camperia was the conservatory establishment leaning against the loggia and the palazzo del Principe, the ruins of which, delimited by the Via Jonica, from via Marzamemi and via Letizia, are recognizable by the tall four-star smokestack (now at risk of collapse). Originally the chimneys were two, but the most majestic collapsed on June 12, 1943, a few days before the allied landing, when the tonnara was machine-gunned, dead and wounded, by the British aviation. The plant in the last period worked on behalf of the fish preservation industry of Angelo Parodi of Genoa. Workers were Genoese specialists (as for the other tuna in the area) as Genoese was the director, for which in the establishment itself was built a first floor apartment. The boxes of different sizes, produced in Marzamemi, were marketed under the trademark “AP Angelo Parodi Genova – Tuna with pure olive oil – Processing on the fishing spot.” The plant, which closed in 1926 due to lack of raw material , resources in 1937 by the noble Miss Preziosa of the Barons Bruno of Belmonte di Ispica For a long time all the catch of the tonnara was exclusive to the Capuchin Siracusans.After the death of Ottavio Nicolaci, none of the Villadorata stayed in the palace and the tonnara closed definitively in 1969 (a quoted text from Salvo Sorbello) About a kilometer from the coast are the submerged finds of a Byzantine church of the era and environment, discovered by a local fisherman, Alfonso Barone, in 1959, while fishing octopus and object of research by the German archaeologist Gerhard Kapitän and Pier Nicola Gargallo.

Economics and Activities

Beaches and little places

From the port of the town of Marzamemi, in the past, ships were also transporting large quantities of locally produced wine to the various ports of the peninsula. The wine was also transported by freight trains to various foreign locations, as Marzamemi was provided with a railway station. Until December 31, 1985, it was also reachable through the railroad passenger trains that from Syracuse and Noto, along the territory of the nature reserve oriented Oasi Faunistica di Vendicari, reaches Pachino.

Another source of development is the fishing and processing of fish products: famous is, for example, the bluefin tuna roe, processed using traditional drying systems derived from the Arab-Phoenician culture. The town of Marzamemi has a beautiful beach, in the area of ​​Spinazza: in recent years, it has focused on tourism, offering the possibility of numerous docks equipped for pleasure craft. In summer, the population increases considerably, thanks also to the residential settlements built near the ancient village.

Holydays in Marzamemi

On the first Monday of August after the August holiday, the town of Marzamemi celebrate St. Francis of Paola, with a procession of boats, cocktails and a regatta.

In 1993 the historic village was used as a location by the director Gabriele Salvatores for the film Sud, starring the actors Silvio Orlando, Claudio Bisio and Francesca Neri. There are several films containing scenes shot in Marzamemi, including Kaos, Malavoglia, the man of the stars, Mario and the magician, Oltremare – It’s not America, Heart unleashed, Between two worlds, “The hunting season”, beyond the television series Il commissario Montalbano, Immaturi – La serie e Blindati, and television programs such as Linea Verde, Geo & Geo, Sereno Variabile, Pianeta Mare and Linea Blu.

Since 2000 Marzamemi hosts the Frontier Film Festival.