Marsala

Marsala
Country	Italy
region	Sicily
Free community consortium	Trapani (TP)
Local name	Marsala / Maissala
Coordinates	37 ° 48 ' N , 12 ° 26' E Coordinates: 37 ° 48 '0 " N , 12 ° 26' 0" E
height	12 m slm
surface	241 km²
Residents	82,456 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density	342 inhabitants / km²
Post Code	91025
prefix	0923
ISTAT number	081011
Popular name	Marsalesi
Patron saint	Madonna della Cava and San Giovanni Battista
Website	Marsala

The port city of Marsala ( listen ^?^/^I ) (Arabic مرسى علي, DMG Marsā ʿAliyy 'The Port of Alis') is located on the west coast of Sicily and belongs to the Free Municipal Consortium Trapani in Italy . The city has 82,456 inhabitants (as of December 31, 2019). The wine of the same name Marsala was named after her.

Location and dates

The city is located on the westernmost tip of Sicily at Cape Boeo , only 140 km from Tunisia .

Marsala covers an area of 241 km². The neighboring municipalities are Mazara del Vallo , Petrosino , Salemi and Trapani .

Economy and Transport

Marsala wines

Marsala is the center of viticulture in western Sicily, which is why the municipality has numerous wineries and a viticulture school. Marsala wine comes from here . In addition, fishing, the fish processing industry as well as oil mills and salt production are of economic importance. Also the tourism has become a source of livelihood importance.

Marsala is connected to the A29dir motorway which runs from Alcamo to Trapani .

history

Lilybaion was already at the beginning of the second Carthaginian war in the spring of 407 BC. BC with the Hellenistic powers in Sicily landing site for their project under Hannibal Mago .

Marsala was founded in 397 BC. Founded under the name Lilybaion by the Carthaginians as a new fortress after the destruction of their base in Motya . It was considered impregnable and was besieged several times without success, for example by Pyrrhos I (279 BC) and by the Romans (250–241 BC). In the First Punic War it was the last base of the Carthaginians in Sicily. Lilybaion was born in 241 BC. At the end of the war it was handed over to the Roman Republic like all of Sicily in accordance with the peace treaty and has since been called Lilybaeum .

The fortress lost its importance after the end of the Western Roman Empire and fell into the hands of the Arabs in 827, who rebuilt it a little southeast under a new name. It was the first city in Italy to come under Islamic rule and is still a center of Islam in Italy today .

The city was also promoted under the rule of the Normans . In the middle of the 16th century, after unsuccessful battles against barbarian corsairs from Algeria, the port was filled in and the city lost its primacy to Trapani.

In 1773 the Englishman John Woodhouse set up a wine production facility in Marsala. By 1814 there were already four major British wineries and the city was flourishing again. Marsala also gained importance during the reunification of Italy, the Risorgimento , when the “ procession of a thousand ” landed here on May 11, 1860 under the leadership of Giuseppe Garibaldi and the triumphal procession against the Bourbons began.

Buildings

In the city

The center of the city is the Piazza della Repubblica. The Palazzo VII Aprile, also called Palazzo della Loggia, with a round arched loggia, and the Cathedral of Marsala are located here.
The cathedral of San Tommaso di Canterbury was built in Norman times and largely redesigned in the 18th century. Inside the cathedral there are numerous Renaissance sculptures by the Gagini family .
Immediately on the north-western city wall is the Villa Cavallotti city park, which was laid out at the beginning of the 20th century, with many stone statues and numerous rare plants.
The Museo degli Arazzi exhibits eight large tapestries from the 16th century that used to adorn the cathedral.
In the archaeological museum Baglio Anselmi there are finds from Marsala and the surrounding area and the remains of a 35 m long Punic warship from the 3rd century BC. Chr.
At Capo Boeo there is a Greco-Roman park with the remains of a Roman settlement, a thermal building and mosaics. Of particular note is a mosaic of Medusa .
The Norman castle is now home to the Marsala prison.

Piazza della Repubblica
Marsala Cathedral
City gate in Marsala
Salt pans near Marsala

In the neighborhood

On the lagoon island of San Pantaleo 8 km north of Marsala are the sites of the ancient Phoenician city of Mozia .
Large salt pans lie along the approximately 30 km long so-called salt road between Marsala and Trapani . In the salt museum Mulina Salina Infersa, the centuries-old method of salt extraction is documented.

sons and daughters of the town

Pietro Aquila (* around 1630; † 1692), painter, draftsman and graphic artist
Albert Anselmi (1883–1929), Italian-American hit man
Rossella Giglio (* 1955), Classical Archaeologist
Alborosie (* 1977), reggae musician

Web links

Commons : Marsala - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Statistiche demografiche ISTAT. Monthly population statistics of the Istituto Nazionale di Statistica , as of December 31 of 2019.
↑ Diodorus: Greek World History . Ed .: Peter Wirth. tape XIII , p. 54 1-5 .
↑ Caterina F. Carocci: Giuseppe Damiani Almeyda's Architecture: Constructing the Modern Restoring the Ancient. The Cathedral of Marsala (PDF). In: Karl-Eugen Kurrer , Werner Lorenz , Volker Wetzk (eds.): Proceedings of the Third International Congress on Construction History . Neunplus, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-936033-31-1 , pp. 305-312

[1] Statistiche demografiche ISTAT. Monthly population statistics of the Istituto Nazionale di Statistica , as of December 31 of 2019.

[2] Diodorus: Greek World History . Ed .: Peter Wirth. tape XIII , p. 54 1-5 .

[3] Caterina F. Carocci: Giuseppe Damiani Almeyda's Architecture: Constructing the Modern Restoring the Ancient. The Cathedral of Marsala (PDF). In: Karl-Eugen Kurrer , Werner Lorenz , Volker Wetzk (eds.): Proceedings of the Third International Congress on Construction History . Neunplus, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-936033-31-1 , pp. 305-312