Officially the autonomy of the comune of Furci Siculo began with the three arcticles of law #1216 of July 20, 1919 which divided the

Comune of Santa Teresa di Riva into two comunes, that of Furci Siculo and that of Santa Teresa di Riva, posted in the official gazzette of July 27, 1919 #177, signed by King Victor Emanuel III, President of the Council Francesco Saverio Nitti, and Keeper of the Seal off the Ministry of Justice Ludvico Mortara. In 1928, with R.D. #2669 od November 8 th, there was a reunion of the newly born comune with Locadi which then left the become part of the comune of Pagliara, while Furci remained joined with parts of Grotte and Artale.

If Furci Siculo, as an autonomical administration, has a recent history, as an inhabited locality, it has a history which has adequet support of archeological research which could go back for certain to the pre-Christian era, which leads one to believe the information handed down by ancient finds of a time which brought to light the numerous hints of an ancient city, coming out on these shores.

The site, at the least, is part of that “ubertoso” territory which sat on the Ionic shore which teemed with fish from Capo S. Alessio to Capo Ali’(Capo Argenno and Capo Grosso to the ancients) protected on the west by the Peloritani Mountains which back on the rolling hills. These slopes at one time, more than now, were full of vines which produced mamertine vintage wine, prized and known from antiquity; bright with the silvery sparkle of the branches of thriving olive trees, the source of limpid and delicate olive oil “mannanicioto”; dazzling with bright leaves of citrus trees, smells of orange blossoms whose golden fruit whet the nostaglia of the exiled Arabian poets of Sicily; expansive green fields of luxuriant pasture of “acetosella” and medical plants.

It was not without reason that Achille Etienne Gigault de la Salle, who saw this land during the first ten years of the 1800’s, foresaw that these fertile places “those prairies in which, according to tradition were recognized as the pastures which Homer said could have been used by the ten herds of the sun, in the custody of the nymphs Lampezia and Faetusa, children of Nerea and the god of day.” The truth is that he afterwards almost wanted to take away the charming enchantment of these picturesque places, inclining less poetically to identify the divine prairie with the fields of Milazzo, but to have even approached our places at the mythical pastures of the sun and marked at least the form of their veracity.

“Feracita” well know and appreciated by the ancient Greeks who were barely based in neighboring Naxos, swarmed into the surrounding territories, founding and developing in these nearby places the mountainous Nisa, actually Fiumedinisi, which with its fertile land but most of all with its rich mines, constituted a powerful attraction for the images of wealth which was left to be seen.

And these riches must benefit even Phoinix, a city closer to the coast in respect to Nisi, situated at Apiano in its “Bellum Civile”; indicated by Interneratium Antonini with the name “Tamaricium sive Palme” almost midway between Messina and Taormina, located at the mouth of the Nisi and by Konrad Miller on the bank of the Pagliara.

The meager news regarding this site by the acient writers was named with apparent indifference Tamaricium, Phoinix and Palma and the lack of monumental proof and archeological remains of a certain relevance have given origin to a conjecture that for more than a century various authors expressed the merits (doubts?) of its habitation.

Thus, there are those who see directly a Phoenician connection in the name “Tamaricium” and thus proving an existence maybe older than that of Naxos, Nisi, Zancle and which could explain the lack of evident old traces from the habit of the fenice not to base themselves, differently from the Greeks who established built up areas, but to build temporary ladders and stores, necessary for their lucrative commercial exchanges across the seashore.

And the indigent inhabitants of the sheltered places on the nearby hills, tranquilized by the peacefulness of the established connections with the strangers who came from the sea, took it upon themselves afterwards during the course of the next centuries to build store and factories until at the end, as soon as Phoinix-Palma fell, based on testimony by Appiano, that place gave refuge to the army of Sesto Pompeo and a civil war with Ottaviano in 36 A.D.

War which on the sea opposite Taormina registered a decisive victory which changed the course of events in favor of the first Roman emperor.

Numerous scholars, by proof and conjecture more or less convincing, have located Tamaricium-Phoinix-Palma now at S. Alessio, now along the bank of the Agro’, now at the mouth of the Nisi. Now almost at the mouth of the river Pagliara.

The fact that two “toponimi” Palmalio and Palme, very near in spelling to the old Palma, have been maintained for centuries in this area and indicates its historical continuity from antiquity in the site occupied by the city named by writers of the past. Palmolio (gone today even in toponomatic terms) until the last century indicated a land on the river Pagliara, administratively independent of Savoca (which had an old jurisdiction even on neighboring Locadi and Pagliara). The 1700 Abbot Vito Amico in his lexicon named this locality at the mouth “Savoca” and identified it with Palma. This last, in fact, in a related voice is defined “hamlet of Savoca not far from the seashore in the bed of the river toward the east” and joins quickly with that “named Palmolio”which “from Cluverio then and from other estimates with reasonable conjectures by the Tamarizio of Palme indicated the itinerary of Antonino and was situated between Messina and Taormina. The church was not a parochial church because it belonged to a priest from Savoca.

This last indication from Abbot Amico, thrown in almost in case, reveals instead a very useful back-up to the theory which inclines to idenitify Palma (or Phoinix or Tamaricium) with Furci.

The growing towns gravitating toward the mouth of the Pagliara river are today Rocchenere, a division of the comune of Pagliara, the extreme perifery south of Roccalumera, named “Zia Paola” by the voyagers of the 1800’s, also Ficarra, Marina di Palme and Torre di Palma. Name which probably refer to a same locality on the shore opposite the Pagliara enclosed now since 1864 in the comune of Roccalumera and which constitutes the Marina of Pagliara, where two churches arose, S. Anna and SS. Cruciffiso, which are still standing today. The hamlet of Palme, mentioned previously, had a church named S. Maria delle Grazie, which by an account of a pastoral visit which took place in 1745 resulting in a endowment of a single altar made of “cartagloria”, as such there was no modesty.

Positioned as it was in the center of the neighborhood of Grazie, it saw celebrated in the space of 20 years, from 1787 to 1817, some 20 marriages, an evident sign that since the end of the 1700's the small hamlet of Palme began to grow. Certainly this was the church to which the learned Abbot Amico referred from the moment it was built “in the bed of the river” while there were none closer than S. Anna, or that of SS. Cruciffiso. There was another old Furcese church called Madonna della Lettera, which for the most part was a patron’s chapel connected to the Palazzo Bianco, austere residence of the noble Castelli which later passed to Prince of Mola, today belonging to the Perrone family.

Situated as it was “in the bed of the river” the church of the Madonna delle Grazie often suffered the damaging effects of the fury of the water of the river. It remained unharmed by the disastorous flood of 1763 “when a part of the Pagliara river fell to a flood so severe that overran the dam of the fields on the right bank, flooding the plain, ruining the plants, knocking down houses”. The vetusto temple was not spared nor were the nearby houses. Even more ruinous was the flood of 1830 which “swept through the district of the Grazie actually on the shore in the bed of the river Pagliara”. How easily we can see by these passages written by Saitta and Reccuglia in 1890 on the occasion of the last flood when the river changed its bed, flowing further south after burying Palme forever, of which there remained maybe a few houses on the new left bank destined to be part of the district already existing of “Zia Paola” in the territory of Roccalumera..

The physical disappearance of Palme justifies the prevalence of the toponimy then of “Furci” (preferred to the official name of Fulci, shown on the maps of the time and written in the Borbon decrees) given to the neighborhood compressed between Savoca and the Pagliara. By time and with frequent use by nearby common people and handed down, it is in the notarized acts and it is in reports of the pastoral visits carried out by count of the clergy of Savoca. The oldest document which we have---like a notice in which the name Furci recurs was in 1623 and was conserved by the Historical Archives of Palermo, Tribunal fo Royal Property, tracked down and courteously recommended by Angelo Cascio. In this among the goods declared was that of Giovannella di Freni widow of Andrea, possessor of property in the territory of Pag;iara, picture “a piece of property in the territory in the area of Firci, neighboring with Minico Garufe and Gioanne Caminiti.with whom they formed a pocket of rebellion to become part of the Marina. The document confirms a hint of mulberry and to the rebellion, the differences in these lands from long ago about the breeding of silkworms and thus be revealed as belonging to the territory of Pagliara, a wide stretch of land confined by the shore on the right of the river of the same name, a strip of which from the middle of the last century belonged to them, as appears clear from a topographical map given back on the occasion of the assignment of the territory to the newborn comune of S. Teresa di Riva and reported by Aldo Casamento by record #119 of his book “The Sicily of the 1800’s”.

If unknown, even if it could be easily guessed, the immediate destiny of these finds, the study of which had contributed to to clarifying the origin of the fircese site. Even the study of ruins and “muri” which popular memory remembers as discoveries during the work of covering the actual center of Piazza Sacro Cuore had been able to intercede or revisiting the assumptions or outline anew.

Through greed, negligence, lack of curiosity but overall ignorance, there was indifferent destruction in the past of the more significant tracks of the history of Furci. Thus the Furci site, boasting of the oldest origins, today can offer a basic history of safe information but rich in conjecture and references. Only the next period of the Arabian conquest of Furci, joining their destiny with that of the motherplace Savoca, can benefit from its history more far-reaching and documented to reconstruct the same. Drawing from that and operating a patient seam of scraps in that regard, the furcese center can plot its recent history, experienced in the shadow of Savoca first, and then S. Teresa.

In fact, after which, in the Norman era, the people from the hills were supreme with their villages and nearby towns, strong in their enviable , stratigical positions, with the influence of their strong families, of the providential prominence of being under the rule of Archmandrite of Messina; the destinies of the shore towns newly born or in time existing between the Agro’ and the Pagliara, either on the coast or on the hills were conditioned to the “select of Savoca, often heedless of the real necessity of the moans of the subjects and short sighted who were inclined to maintain their priveliges and defend their interests..

Thus the few inhabitants of Furci were forced during the last century by the uncertain dire times of the barbarian invasions and the need of adequate defense prepared by Savoca and avoided making stable homes, preferring to live in temporary camps and not in permanent cottages suject to examination After a night full of hardship and danger at sea fishing, coming home tired from the sea, the closest Savoca neighborhood was that of S. Rocco, traditionally known as the neighborhood of fishermen and sailors.

Little by little,, though, as the memory of the Saracen landings faded and the fear of the raids more remote, thanks to the Spanish a more wise preventive measure of defense of the coast and thanks to the tranquility deriving from the general political situation, a more favorable peace in the Mediterranean because of the defeat inflicted on the Turks at Lepanto in 1571, the area by the shore subject to Savoca (Furci, Bucalo, Porto Salvo-Barracca) which together represent indistinctly the Marina of Savoca, began to become populated and to prosper with the revenue from fishing, agriculture, commerce and the breeding of silkworms.

Savoca, meanwhile, was severely repressed after the tentative failed anti-Spanish conspiracy of 1647 and as a result, hoped to profit in vain from a capitulation , negotiating with the French in Messina to come to their aid. They rebelled again in 1674 against Spain and finally surrendered in 1678. Every day it saw itself more suppressed by their own pride which undermined its age old power. Also it was the politico-social innovations brought about by the law in 1812 which abolished the feudal regime. It was also the changing general conditions bringing about a continuous betterment whereby they lost control of their influence on the hamlets, not only those on the coast..

Its prestige corroded, reacting against the imposed worsening taxes which in 1820 pushed the inhabitants of the Marina to rebel, Savoca saw itself invaded by a handful of revolters who attacked, plundering the seats of the officials, burning registers, papers, documents and writings.

The episode produced an effect of a more equal redistribution of fiscal taxes and stopped in the meanwhile the measure of relentless decadence of the Savocan hegemony, giving an awareness to the coastal towns of the prosperity of which they were capable, of self-administration, and of turning the role of the hot heads to the proper destinies.

Thus, with the example of Casalvecchio and Pagliara, which by this time were free of the Savocan yoke, the nucleus of the shore towns (and with them even Locadi and Antillo) profitted from the disgrace in which Savoca had fallen after the failure of the anti-Borbon insurrection of 1847 and 1848, adopting on the insistence of the Borbons to lift from the overburdened citizens every jurisdiction which they held over the subjected villages.

In the meantime, the construcion of the carriageway was completed in 1828, which crossed the populated towns of Furci, Bucalo, and Porto Salvo-Barracca, leaving outside its track Savoca, thus bringing benefits which such an important public work could bring only to the villages which formed on the shore.

Salvatore Lanza in his “Voyager’s Guide in Sicily” published in Palermo in 1859 was not wrong in regards to emphasizing his discription of the Messinese ionic itinerary “a little after Gallidoro and lower Savoca (which is the shore of Savoca n.d.a.) and “off the road are Savoca (upper) Limina and Forza, which can be seen higher up. The nucleus of the shore is thus consisting of and tending to its own autonomy , distinguishing itself from Savoca of the hills or upper with the name “lower”, destined to disappear quite quickly and it seems, known only to this Palermo author, ignorant that at the moment of publication of his book, in 1864 his lower Savoca is called S. Teresa.

The benefits of the carriageway built not long ago permitted the towns of the Marina to grow at a faster rate and brought an unexpected prosperity which allowed them to flourish through the existence of two convenient inns, by dealing in white grape vines, with the establishment of eight bake shops, also a factory making cream of tartar; also through a maritime commerce making small boats, by being in a place to direct mail, and for other good reasons., in spite of the damage done in 1830 by a flood which destroyed many houses in Furci in the area of the Madonna delle Grazie “a Matri a Razia”.

It is proper that Furci then began to distance itself from Bucalo, Porto Salvo and Barracca, since the pre-eminence which it had acquired in the commercial field, thanks to the large amount of traffic which came through and the initiative not only of its inhabitants but also the foreigners who established themselves there, attracted by the fertility of the area, by the intensity of the commercial change and the industriousness and the dynamism of the people made it so. Through it all, we should remember the Messinese Antonio Russo Gatto who in 1848 opened two large stores selling vegetables and cereal and a factory making lemon essence, the forerunner of numerous similar buildings whose activity for ten years represented the more important voices of the economy of Furci.

Even social life registered a certain reawakening as reflected in the widespread comfortable economy and as stirred up in the new progressive and hugely liberal ideas. In fact in 1852 under the initiation of the priest Don Antonio Castorina there in Furci a small free school was opened. In 1847, aware of its new role, the town of Furci sent a plea to King Ferdinand II to obtain autonomy from Savoca permitting the institution of a new comune to be called Furci.

The request did not have the hoped for result but the right occasion for an other tentative request presented quickly presented itself afterwards, at Palermo, rebelling against the Borbons, it remained with the old Sicilian Parliament.

The anxiety over liberty, in fact, animated even many “marinoti” (sailors). At the suggestion of Luciano Crisafuli and Colonel Interdonato, they borrowed for their work the motto of the revolution. With them was Giuseppe Caminiti who was named President of the War Committee and that with his reputation he obtained a decree from the Sicilian Parliament which gave autonomy to the Comune of Bucalo

The life of the new comune was of very brief duration because the return of the Borbons brought things back to their original state, not without damage and looting through our town, undergoing, in March 1849, plundering and other gratuitous acts of vandalism by the Borbon sailors who disembarked from a vessel anchored at the mouth of the river Savoca, from which they had previously bombarded the troops of Colonel Ascenzo who attempted to join with the troops of General Mieroslawski who retreated to Taormina. One of the rebels, Nino Gregorio named “Bruciato” who was unfortunate enough to fall into their hands at Catania, where he had found refuge, was sent home and beaten.

But the enemy population was not immune to reprisal since the people saw the burnt houses, robbed of “averi”, gardens devastated. They used their inborn tenacity, returned with more to make new prosperity and commerce.

The whole marina consisted of 1500 inhabitants who, for every bureaucratic requirement, had to venture to Savoca “by steep and terrible conditioned ways”. Giuseppe Caminiti, conscious of the difficulties of his fellow countrymen and confident of success, even if short-lived, from his experience of earlier years, aided by the patriotic priest Vincenzo Trimarchi, made every effort to reobtain autonomy which was granted by decree of July 14, 1853.

From the first of 1854 the towns which made up the then Marina of Savoca (Furci, Bucalo and Porto Salvo-Barracca) were finally a new independent comune called S. Teresa in honor of the second wife of King Ferdinand II, Maria Teresa of Ausberg Lorena.

The municipal residence was temporarily set at Furci ,despite the fact that Bucalo, geographicaly the center of the new comune, had an adequate seat, which was verified in 1867.

The beginning of the new comune though was not the most happy, since the cholera epidemic began in 1854 inflicting a hard blow to their moderately fourishing economy.

As at first, as always through sacrifices and hopes, the population began to recover and as if to show a consciousness of a sense of identity and of wanting now a full share of the flow of history, in 1860 sent many of their young men to fill up the ranks of the red shirts of Garibaldi.

From 1854 until 1919 Furci did not have an administrative life of its own, encircled as it was by the comune of S. Teresa.

As earlier, with Bucalo and Porto Salvo-Barracca, they had fought for the independence of Savoca. Little by little, they became more populated and the needs of their people grew and were diversified. The spacious bed of the river Savoca did not constitute a difficult factor anymore and the physical element of detachment of the municipal seat then became a true and only boundary with the comune neighboring with which Furci for more than a century had shared its hopes and destiny.

Thus in recognition of their past history, of their growing importance, of the legitamacy of their hopes, in 1919, they receieved full autonomy, tenaciously pursued and hoped for a century, from when in 1820 it rebelled against the last abuse of despotic Savoca.

The birth of the new comune was blessed by law #1216 of the 20 th of July 1919.

Extracted from the book by Rocco Lombardo

“Acqua Di Mari, Acqua di Ciumi”

Published by Il Lunario 1995

As for the origin, the name derives from “terra furcae or fucus furcae” and spread “in virtue of the fact that in the area from which arose the actual district there were erected forks from which they hung the Saracens, who, by chance, were captured”. The assumption could have a believable base, without limiting only to the capture of Saracens (a sporadic event and for the most, improbable) but enlarging it to a tangible form in which to express the business of “mero e misto empero” up to the Archmandrita of Messina which, since the Baron of Savoca had jurisdiction of his hamlet, district, land, upon whom the hill cities administratively depended from of old. The land of Furci returned to the “almost diocese” over which the Archmandrite exercised not only his religious power but also his temporal. He himself had outward signs from the beginning that he had the right to carry “baculo” the jeweled miter, the pectoral cross among those of the second re-entrance, the use of a canopy, of the mozzetta, of a cap trimmed with green flocking and the right to reign over the territory possessing the forks, a visible symbol of the power of the feudal era, the exercise of which was a limited instrument, used, we want to believe rarely in concrete, and more frequently instead, used as a warning only against daring to think of attacking the rights of the Barons and Signore, the Archmandrite of SS. Salvatore of Messina.

Perhaps, a little simpler, this old name derived from a word of Greco-Byzantine origin indicating a location which mushroomed to the point of branching more streets aimed a Savoca, Mandanici, Locadi, Misserio.... In that case, the furcese area had continued to carry out the old role of a break indicated in the Itinerarium Antonini titled “Tamaricio sive Palma”, the point of a forking in the straight road toward this site (or these sites) of uncertain and contoversial location.

The identification of Furci with Palma is favored also by the discovery of the tombs found in the prior century and reported by Saitta and Raccuglia in their booklet about S. Teresa. “Each of them---wrote the authors in the 1800’s --- was found within the region of Furci, in a holding of Prince Mola , about 1858. They were closed with white marble covers symetrically placed near each other and containing bones and roughly made amphoras”.

sina.