The birth of the new fishing village of Gioiosa Marea
Between the 1600s and 1700s, earthquakes in Sicily led to the birth of several new towns.
One of these was Gioiosa Marea itself, a splendid seaside village on the Tyrrhenian Sea, facing the Aeolian Islands, founded at the end of the 1700s by the inhabitants of the ancient Gioiosa Guardia, which stood on Mount Meliuso and was almost completely destroyed following the earthquake of 1783.
Gioiosa Guardia was founded in the 11th century after the liberation of Sicily from the Arabs by the Normans under Count Roger d'Altavilla.
The importance of Gioiosa Guardia was magnified by its position, which in clear weather dominated an immense horizon, ranging from the Aeolian Islands to Etna.
Between 1693, the year of the great Val di Noto earthquake, and 1783, Gioiosa Guardia was struck by as many as 5 earthquakes, the last of which, at 7 p.m. on February 5, damaged all the buildings, making them unsafe. The following year, a locust invasion ruined the crops, thus beginning a period of famine.
The local community then decided to rebuild the town by the sea at the "Ciappe di Tono" locality, which at the time belonged to the Giardina family of Patti.
One of the founders of the new village was Don Diego Forzano, who in 1797 had the statue of San Nicolò di Bari, the town's patron saint, moved to the new Gioiosa. According to legend, he convinced the skeptics by dismantling their front door and transporting it to the place where the new house was to be built. Thus, while Gioiosa Guardia began to depopulate, quickly becoming one of the few ghost towns on the island, the first houses began to rise in Gioiosa Marea, using the materials, stones, and urban planning criteria of the old town.
Source: VivaSicilia of the Municipality of Gioiosa Marea
