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Castellammare - Scopello |
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Castellammare del Golfo - Scopello
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Castellammare
del Golfo rises at the feet of Monte Inici, in the middle
of the wide gulf, which extends from Capo Rama to San Vito's
cape and gets its name from the beautiful sea town. The name
derives from "Castrum ad mare", an ancient construction
built on a preexisting tower, which became wider during the
XVI century, in order to defende the town from the frequent
incursions of the pirates. It was the commercial harbour of
Segesta - the "emporium segestanorum" of the Romans
- and experienced its first substantial widening under the Arab
domination. During the muslim period, in fact, it was renamed
with the name "AL Madarig" (that means "the scales"),
and the town was fortified and protected, until it became one
of the defensive system basis of western Sicily. With the norman
conquest and, afterwards, with the Swabians, the Anjous and
the Aragoneses, Castellammare regains the ancient function of
strategic-commercial point for the corn export all over the
reign. And this role becomes stronger between the XV and the
XVI century, with the installation of the tunny-fishing structure
and the loader. |
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The year 1560 is a turning point for the city's
history: Pietro de Luna, at that time owner of Castellammare and
of its lands, founded, leaned against the castle, the first feudale
village (the original nucleus of the present town). Afterwards
the center is protected by solid walls and encircled by a moat.
Later on, between the XVIII and the XIX century, the great demographic
expansion leads the city to a big widening until Mount Inici.
Castellammare is known for its inestimable environmental and landscape
patrimony. It's a territory composed by a beautiful coast, behind
which Mounts Inici and Spàragio rise, in a spectacular
natural scenery, in part covered by forests. In front of the beautiful
and wide sandy beach that extends to the east side of the town,
the western coast appears strongly jagged.
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that fall vertically, rocks, wonderful creeks, little coves
which are accessible only from the sea, are the frame of a sea
that is limpid and teeming with fish. Wonderful corners of landscape
covered by the rest of the original Mediterranean bush do alternate
continually: the cape, the rocks and the large cave of "Cala
Bianca", "Cala Rossa", the Bay of Guidaloca and
finally, near the borders of the Reserve "Lo Zingaro",
Scopello with its evocative rocks, one of the most beautiful
places of the Mediterranean. In the heart of the ancient Castellammare,
in the public square, the Mother Church rises; its present structure
goes back to 1726. It has been realized in three naves by the
architect Giuseppe Mariani and was dedicated to "S. Maria
del Soccorso". It keeps some interesting works: the XVIII
century frescoes of Giuseppe Tresca, at the vault and the walls
of the chorus, representing episodes of the Old Testament; one
XVII century holy-water font in red marble with baptisimal font;
one beautiful painting of Orazio Ferraro, the Crucifix between
Ss. Peter and Andrea (1695); and the majolica statue of the
Madonna del Soccorso (1559), perhaps of Giovanni Maurici and
Giovanni D' Antoni, which has been attributed by someone to
Luca della Robbia's school. |
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In a small square of Via Ponte Castello, we find
the XVI century little church of the Madonna del Rosario, called
"di l'agnuni" (that means, of the corner), with the decorated
portal, in the tympanum, by an elegant bas-relief representing a
Madonna with the Child between Saints and Crucifix. Tradition tells
that the church, surely built up before 1432, was erected in 1093
by the norman conquerors. The Castle rises on the small cape next
to the harbour. Until the XIV century it was linked to the rest
of the town through a drawbridge. It has been rehashed in various
periods by the Normans and the Swabians, it was rebuilt in the XIV
century by the Aragone-ses, who separated it from the mainland through
the cut of the isthmus. It still keeps one of the original towers,
called "of the Artillery", built in 1586, and two double
windows on the east side. Of remarkable historical interest are
two buildings of "Cala Marina": the Costamante Baglio,
which has been for centuries the heart of the tunning-structure's
activities, and the little church of "the Annunciata",
called "Maria SS." In a document of 1590. Of a same level
of importance are, in the center of the city, the XVI century church
of "S. Maria degli Agonizzanti", with the annexed convent
of the Crucifer Fathers (1659), which is today a cultural center,
the XV century church of the Madonna delle Grazie (1605), in the
square next to the town gardens, which keeps in its inside an interesting
slate-painting (XVIII sec.) representing a Madonna with the Child,
with an elegant marble ancona-frame, and, in Via Francisco Crispi,
the church of S. Giuseppe, built up in 1885. In Corso Garibaldi,
we find the beautiful church of S. Antonio da Padova, already existing
in 1644, which keeps a valuable organ of the beginnings of the XX
century, and the little church of the Purgatory built up before
the XV century, in the inside of which there are some interesting
XVI and XVII century paintings.
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The hinterland of Castellammare is rich of important
evidences of local history. Rests of ancient fortifications, towers
and old "bagli", interesting examples of rural architecture
of the past, a time center of all the agricultural activities. In
the area of "Ponte Bagni", on the tableland which dominates
the rocky gorges, inside which the sources of the river "Caldo"
gush out, a time ancient center of the Segestan Thermae, the rests
of the castle of "Calathamet" - the "castle of the
baths" - built up by the Arabs are founded on one original
elym fortification and reconstructed in swabian age. From "Ponte
Bagni" you can reach the rests of the castle of Inici, built
near an ancient sycan-elym settlement and center, in the Middle
Ages, of one immense community of peasants and shepherds.
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Even the Castle of Baida, which we find in a slope
on the south of Mount Sparagio and which was the seat of an arabic
country house, probably rose near an ancient elym settlement. It
is testified by the funeral equipment of some graves, which have
been found in a near locality. Even if partly destroyed during the
earthquake of 1968, the castle, even now inhabited, kepps the four
rectangular towers and a part of the original embattled wall. The
entrance door is decorated by an arch on which a latin registration
reminds the visit of Ferdinand III of Borbone during one of its
hunting parties.
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Scopello
is perhaps the more evocative and colorful place of the entire
gulf of Castellammare. It is a small village risen at the end
of the 18th century around the "baglio", on a previous
arab country house. In the low-lying wonderful cove limited
by the stacks and protected by old towers, there is the "tonnara"
(thunny-fishing structure), known sine a long time ago (it is
mentioned in documents of the year 1200); it has worked until
few years ago, together with the"baglio", the buildings
and the warehouses. You can reach it from Castellammare driving
through the state street 187 in the direction of Trapani, deviating
at Km 32.4, passing the bay of Guidaloca on which there is a
16th century cylindrical tower. The name of Scopello probably
derives from the Greek "scopelos" (rock), from the
Latin "scopellum" (rock) and from the arab "iscubul
iactus" (high rock). |
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| It has been inhabited
since the prehistoric period (finds discovered in the caves of the
inland document the human presence, starting from the palaeolithic
period), the zone has been known since ancient times because of the
abundance of tunnys, which were fished in its sea, so much that the
Greeks called it "Cetaria", that means "earth of the
tunnys". The Arabs founded there a country house, which was inhabited
by fishermen and shepherds and, in 1235, Frederic II the Swabian,
after having annexed it with all the feud to the city Mounte San Giuliano,
granted the property to a group of settlers of Piacenza, who soon
left because of the continuous piratic incursions. In those centuries,
in fact, the pirates who infested the low Mediterranean sea, used
the bay of Scopello as a base for their raids: mooring the ships behind
the stacks, they were practically invisible from the open sea. |
| The towers give to the landscape
a mystery halo and a fascinating atmosphere, which mixes together
nature and history. They go back to different ages and they were part
of a system of defense and communication distributed along all the
perimeter of the Sicily: communicating among themselves through the
fire, by night and with the smoke during the day, all the island could
be informed in very little time of every military new. |
| The oldest, probably built up by
the Arabs to protect the "tonnara", is the one that rises
on the stack that was once connected to the mainland, which could
be approached through a bridge or probably a scale that was carved
in the rock itself The Doria tower, from the name of the Spanish nobleman
who let it build on the terrace that faces the bay, goes back to the
XVII century. Another one, the Bennistra tower, is the one built in
the XV century on the top of a mount in the south of the "baglio"
and that dominates from its exceptional point of observation the entire
gulf of Castellammare. |
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