Torregrotta ( Sicilian: ''Turri'') is a small town and municipality (''

comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...

'') in the

Metropolitan City of Messina The Metropolitan City of Messina ( it, Città metropolitana di Messina) is a metropolitan city in Sicily, Italy. Its capital is the city of Messina. It replaced the Province of Messina and comprises the city of Messina and other 107 municipalitie ...

in the

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

region

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

, located about east of

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

and about west of

Messina Messina (, also , ) is a harbour city and the capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of more than 219,000 inhabitants in ...

. It is the twelfth most populous municipality in the Metropolitan City and the most densely populated. The urban area, located at 44 m a.s.l. in the Niceto valley, it stretches between the

Tyrrhenian Sea The Tyrrhenian Sea (; it, Mar Tirreno , french: Mer Tyrrhénienne , sc, Mare Tirrenu, co, Mari Tirrenu, scn, Mari Tirrenu, nap, Mare Tirreno) is part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy. It is named for the Tyrrhenian pe ...

and the first

Peloritani The Peloritani ( Sicilian: , it, Monti Peloritani) are a mountain range of north-eastern Sicily, in southern Italy, extending for some from Capo Peloro to the Nebrodi Mountains. On the north and east they are bordered by the Tyrrhenian a ...

mountains. Originally built in medieval times as a

farmhouse FarmHouse (FH) is a social Fraternities and sororities in North America, fraternity founded at the University of Missouri on April 15, 1905. It became a national organization in 1921. Today FarmHouse has 33 active chapters and four associate ch ...

of the Santa Maria della Scala fief, it was rebuilt since 1526 after a period of neglect. At the beginning of the 19th century, it became a sub-municipality of

Roccavaldina Roccavaldina ( Sicilian: ''Roccavaddina'') is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Messina in the Italian region Sicily, located about east of Palermo and about west of Messina. Roccavaldina borders the following municipaliti ...

from which it obtained administrative autonomy in 1923. The sixteenth-century nucleus extended above all since the second half of the nineteenth century. Center historically linked to

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

, origin place of sbergia, Torregrotta has lost the traditional agricultural vocation in favor of tertiary sector.

Clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

extraction and transformation industry had a certain impulse in the twentieth century, almost completely ending in the 2000s. Medium and small craft enterprises prevail.

Transport

Torregrotta is served by the Torregrotta railway station which has regular connections to

and to the main towns of the northern coast of Sicily. Services are provided by

Trenitalia Trenitalia is the primary train operator in Italy. A subsidiary of Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, itself owned by the Italian government, the company was established in 2000 following a European Union directive on the deregulation of rail transp ...

Monuments

The traces of Torregrotta's architectural and artistic past are very few but significant: in via Mezzasalma you can still see the only remaining crenellated portal of the ancient Castrum dating back to the sixteenth century. Interesting traces of the original settlement can be found enclosed in the area around Via Trieste, where the remains of the ancient Castrum tower and houses from periods between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries still exist. Incorporated among the ruins of an eighteenth-century house are the remains of a church which, due to its architectural style, can be traced back to the 1300s. Another interesting trace, especially for its historical value, is the stone icons depicting the Madonna della Scala, which had the function of marking the boundaries of the fief. Those that remain in the municipal area are located in via dei Mille and in the district of Largari. Equally important from a historical point of view is the painting preserved in the church of S. Paolino depicting the deposition of Christ from the Cross, a canvas dating back to 1671, commissioned by the priest Don Nicolò Bitto (depicted in the right corner, below) to adorn the church of Maria SS. Della Pietà, no longer existing today. Finally, the war memorial, recognition of the Torresi towards the martyrs of the battlefields, which was the first to be inaugurated in Sicily in September 1919.

References

External links

Official website
Cities and towns in Sicily {{Sicily-geo-stub