Overview

Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto was born from the union, decreed in 1835 by Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies, of the two ancient districts of Barcellona and Pozzo di Gotto. It inherits part of its name from the Catalan city due to its mountaneous-geographical position: nestled between the sea and the hills. Between the Tyrrhenian Sea with the Aeolian Islands, Tindari Gulf, Milazzo and the charming villages of Castroreale, S. Lucia del Mela and Novara di Sicilia. In ancient times in the territory of Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto there were settlements scattered in the hills, such as Pizzo Lando (10th century BC) and St. Onofrio Mount. In the seventies of the twentieth century the remains of an Acropolis and a Necropolis (IX-VIII century BC) consisting of cave tombs, in the area of St. Onofrio Mount, were brought to light by the Superintendency: the Sicilian town of “Longane”, where a ‘bronze caduceus’ was found, exhibited today at the British Museum in London. Numerous villages, some existing since the Middle Ages, such as the fraction of Gala which counted the presence of Basilian monks, subsequently gave birth to the centres of Pozzo di Gotto and Barcellona. The construction of the well, carried out in 1463 by the nobleman Nicolò Goto from Messina, can be considered the birth certificate of the Pozzo di Gotto farmhouse, which took its name from that initial gesture and from its creator. The building, starting from 1595, of the Church of St. Sebastian (Basilica) states the real birth of Barcellona. Barcellona and Pozzo di Gotto are separated by the Longano stream.