Pace del Mela

Photo © A.A.P.I.T. Messina

Pace del Mela ((Zip Code 98042) is 303 km. distant from Agrigento, 236 km. from Caltanissetta, 130 km. from Catania, 195 km. from Enna, 37 km. from Messina, which province it belongs to, 228 km. from Palermo, 234 km. from Ragusa, 188 km. from Siracusa, 327 km. from Trapani.

The municipality has 6.089 inhabitants and an area of 1.210 hectares for a population density of 499 inhabitants per square kilometre. It rises along the coast on a hilly area and is 114 metres above sea-level.

The Town Hall is placed in via Antonio Gramsci n. 1, tel. ++39 090-933401 fax. ++39 090-933085.

Main economic activities, developed in the hilly area, are agriculture and breeding.The prevailing cultivations are potatoes, citrus fruit, cereals, olives, wine-grapes, fruit, citruses and legumes. The present breedings are those of cattle and sheep ones.The handicraft activities and manufacturers, in the last few decades, have been developed instead along the wrap coastal.

Photo © A.A.P.I.T. Messina  

Pace del Mela derives its name from Latin Pax, that means "peace", the addition derives from the name of the river next to it.

The small town is made up of two nuclei: Pace Inferiore and Pace Superiore, The first testimonies on the inhabited of Pace Superiore go back to the beginning of 1700 when the "metatieri", that they cultivated "large landed estate of the Pace", they settled down on a correspondent territory to the ancient large landed estate of Drisino, Camastrà and in part Cattafi or Archi.

The Drisino country house was donated in the june of the 1011 from the Great Count Ruggero of Altavilla to the Benedictine abbey of the SS.Trinità of Mileto. In 1277, during the angevin domination, the country house comes given in emphyteusis to the heir of the Bongiovanni Falcone, to their the families Riso and Bonifacio succeeds and from this last, in 1389 based on of the testamentary legacies, the large landed estate passes for two thirds party to the Monastery of San Placido di Calonerò and for a third party to the messina's Hospital of Saint Leonardo or Sire Great Angel.In the course of the centuries the remaining part of the large land estate will acquired from the Benedictines of the monastery who will hold it until 1866. For for the law on the abolition of the religious orders and the alienation of the ecclesiastical assets, the country house will put to the auction and acquired from private Lo Sciotto of Saint Lucia, Cavallaro of Barcellona, Cucinotta of Pistunnia, Bruno and Crimi of Messina and the Ilacqua of Spadafora.

Of the large landed estate of Camastrà news is had from 1270, during the angevin period, even if the name laughed them to the byzantine period. Camastrà's large landed estate was always in hand to messinese families, in the course of the centuries passed from the Crisafi to the Balsam.

In 1530 it was acquired from Mariano Basilicò then passed to its heirs until 1596, when it came acquired from Pietro Pollicino. In the 1633 passed to the Gordone that held it until the ours days.

Pace Inferiore, to the end of the XIX, developed along it wrap coastal of Giammoro crossed from the "Via Regia del Dromo" (state road them 113), while the opening of the railway station (20 june 1899) and of the tramway line Messina - Barcellona (21 May 1893) contributed to the inhabited and economic development.

Photo © A.A.P.I.T. Messina 

Subsequently Pace del Mela was fraction of Saint Lucia del Mela, when the 18 July 1926 became independent common.

Between monuments we remember: the baronial palace of Gordone, restructured in the 1706 and today fatiscente, the church of the "Madonna dell'Abbondanza" constructed in 1720, the church of "Saint Maria of the Visitazione" (1763) to whose inside burlaps of unknown authors of the half of the seven hundred, the Pugliatti Palace, the ancient cenoby of the Cassinesi friars, the octagonal fountain of the Sea horse, (XVIII century) of remarkable architectonic interest, attributed to Giovan Batiste Vaccarini (1702-1768), and the Carpi Palace today center of the municipal library.

Of the end of the eight hundred they are some elegant palaces: the Palace Sciotto near at the municipality, two house, in liberty style, of the families Certi and Crimi on the state road "Giammoro" and Sturiale villa in "contradas Catenella"

Other architectonic structures connected to the Benedictine presence are the rural complex called Monaci Houses and the Beam, an immense rectangular courtyard anciently encircled from warehouses, oil mill and palm groves.