Taormina dates to around 396 BC after Dionysius I of Syracuse destroyed nearby Naxos in 403 BC and the Siculi formed a new settlement on the nearby Mount Taurus which gradually grew up into the city of Tauromenium () (modern Taormina).Diodoros xiv.58, 59
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Taormina continued to rank as one of the more important towns of the island, following the history of Sicily in being ruled by successive foreign monarchs. After the Italian unification, Taormina began to attract well-off tourists from northern Europe.
Ancient Tauromenion
The area around Taormina was inhabited by the Sicels even before the Greeks arrived on the Sicilian coast in 734 BC to found Naxos in Magna Graecia. After the destruction of nearby Naxos in 403 BC and the foundation of a new settlement on Mount Taurus, in 358 BC Andromachus collected the Naxian exiles together again from all parts of the island and established them at Tauromenium which became the successor of the ancient Naxos.Diodorus xvi.7
The new settlement seems to have risen rapidly to prosperity, and was apparently already a considerable town at the time of Timoleon's expedition in 345 BC. It was the first place in Sicily where that leader landed, having eluded the vigilance of the Carthaginians, who were guarding the Straits of Messina, and crossed direct from Rhegium (modern Reggio di Calabria) to Tauromenium.Diod. xvi. 68; Plut. Timol. 10. The city was at that time still under the government of Andromachus, whose mild and equitable administration is said to have presented a strong contrast with that of the despots and tyrants of the other Sicilian cities. He welcomed Timoleon with open arms, and afforded him a secure resting place until he was enabled to carry out his plans in other parts of Sicily.Diod. l. c.; Plut. l. c. Andromachus was not deprived of his position of power when all the other tyrants were expelled by Timoleon, but was permitted to retain it undisturbed till his death.Marcellin. Vit. Thucyd. § 27.
Little is recorded about Tauromenium for some time after this. It is probable that it passed under the authority of Agathocles, who drove the historian Timaeus into exile; and some time after this it was subject to a domestic despot of the name of Tyndarion, who was contemporary with Hicetas of Syracuse and Phintias of Agrigentum.Diod. xxii. Exc. H. p. 495. Tyndarion was one of those who concurred in inviting Pyrrhus into Sicily (278 BC), and when that monarch landed with his army at Tauromenium, joined him with all his forces, and supported him in his march upon Syracuse.Diod. l. c. pp. 495, 496. A few years later, we find that Tauromenium had fallen into the power of Hieron II of Syracuse, and was employed by him as a stronghold in the war against the Mamertines. (Id. p. 497.) It was also one of the cities which was left under his dominion by the treaty concluded with him by the Romans in 263 BC.Diod. xxiii. p. 502.
Tauromenium continued to form a part of the kingdom of Syracuse until the death of Hieron, and that it only passed under the government of Rome when the whole island of Sicily was reduced to a Roman province.
During the Second Punic War it would appear from a hint in AppianSic. 5 that it submitted to Marcellus on favourable terms and it is probable that it then obtained the peculiarly favoured position it enjoyed under the Roman dominion. Tauromenium was one of the three cities in Sicily which enjoyed the privileges of a civitas foederata or allied city, thus retaining a nominal independence, and was not even subject, like Messina, to the obligation of furnishing ships of war when called upon.Cic. Verr. ii. 6. 6, iii. 6, v. 19. The city, however, suffered severe calamities during the Servile War in Sicily (134–132 BC), having fallen into the hands of the insurgent slaves, who, on account of the great strength of its position, made it one of their chief posts and were able for a long time to defy the arms of the consul Publius Rupilius. They held out until they were reduced to the most fearful extremities by famine, when the citadel was at length betrayed into the hands of the consul by one of their leaders named Sarapion, and the whole of the survivors put to the sword.Diod. xxxiv. Exc. Phot. p. 528; Oros. v. 9.
Tauromenium again played a conspicuous part during the Sicilian wars of Sextus Pompeius, son of Pompey the Great, and, from its strength as a fortress, was one of the principal points of the position which he took up in 36 BC, for defence against Octavian (later Imperator Caesar Augustus). It became the scene also of a sea-fight between a part of the fleet of Octavian, commanded by the triumvir in person, and that of Pompeius, which terminated in the defeat and almost total destruction of the latter.Appian, B.C. v. 103, 105, 106-11, 116; Dion Cass. xlix. 5. The victor selected Tauromenium to receive a Roman colony, probably as a measure of precaution, on account of the strength of its situation, as we are told that he expelled the former inhabitants to make room for his new colonists.Diod, xvi. 7. Strabo speaks of it as one of the cities on the east coast of Sicily that was still subsisting in his time, though inferior in population both to Messana and Catana.Strab. vi. pp. 267, 268. Both Pliny and Ptolemy assign it the rank of a colonia,Plin. iii. 8. s. 14; Ptol. iii. 4. § 9 and it seems to have been one of the few cities of Sicily that continued under the Roman Empire to be a place of some consideration. Its territory was noted for the excellence of its wine,Plin. xiv. 6. s. 8 and produced also a kind of marble which seems to have been highly valued.Athen. v. p. 207. Juvenal also speaks of the sea off its rocky coast as producing the choicest mullets.Juv. v. 93.
Middle Ages
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and the Gothic Wars, Taormina found itself as part of Byzantine Empire. With the Muslim intrusion into Sicily, Taormina's importance grew as a Byzantine foothold. By the end of the 9th century, most of Sicily had fallen to the Emirate of Sicily, limiting Byzantine control to just Catania and Taormina. The devastation of Byzantine naval raids and the excessive cruelty of the Emir drove Messina to revolt unsuccessfully. The defeated rebels fled to Taormina, and drew the Emir into conquering Taormina and Catalania in 902, during which many Christian residents were enslaved. But in 911, the Christian population successfully drove the Muslim rulers from the city. For eight years, Muslims made attempts to retake the city without success, but in 919 a new emir made a truce, which lasted until 962 when Fatimids had stabilized their rule over the island. Taormina fell in siege of 30 weeks. Taormina was renamed "Al-Mu'izziyya" in honour of Caliph al-Mu'izz (reigned 953–75).
Muslim rule of the town (see History of Islam in southern Italy) lasted until 1078, when it was captured by the Norman count Roger I of Sicily. At this time Taormina and the surrounding Val Demone were still predominately Greek speaking.
After the fall of the Normans and of their German (imperial) heirs, the Hohenstaufen, Taormina followed the history of Sicily under the Angevins and then the Crown of Aragon. In 1410 King Martin II of Sicily was elected here by the Sicilian Parliament. Later Taormina was under Spanish suzerainty, receiving the status of "city" in the 17th century.
In 1675 it was besieged by the French, who had occupied Messina. The troops sacked the town destroying the top part of the Middle Tower that divides Taormina between the ancient Greco-Roman section and the later medieval southern zone.
Modern age Beginnings of tourism
Under the Bourbon dynasty of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, which lasted until 1860, Taormina did not have a relevant role; however, it obtained an easier access when the Catrabico promontory was partially cut and a seaside road connecting it to Messina and Catania was created. Eventually it received also a station on the second-oldest railroad in the region.
Travellers, usually well-off northern European men on a sort of Grand Tour, brought Taormina, and especially the ruins of the Ancient Greek theatre, to international attention. One of the first was Patrick Brydone, who wrote A Tour through Sicily and Malta, in a Series of Letters to William Beckford, Esq., of Somerly in Suffolk, published in 1773. Soon afterwards Henry Swinburne visited; his Travels in the two Sicilies. 1777-1780 was published in 1783. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe visited in 1786, but did not publish Italian Journey until 1816.
Following the Unification of Italy in 1860, a German landscape painter moved to Taormina. Otto Geleng (1843-1939) was one of the first artists to capture the beauties of Sicily, and his exhibitions in Berlin and Paris lured northern Europeans to see for themselves. He married an Italian woman and settled in Taormina, renovating a palazzo into the first full-scale hotel to greet these visitors. In the 1870s he served as mayor.
Charlotte Hood, 3rd Duchess of Bronté, an English woman who had married into a Sicilian dukedom, purchased land in Taormina in 1867.
Gay heyday
It was in 1878 that Geleng's countryman Wilhelm von Gloeden took up residence in the town and changed its destiny. He spent most of his career as a photographer, of landscapes and of male nudes, both of which drew more attention to Taormina. "Largely as a consequence of his photographs' popularity, the town became a tourist resort with good hotels." Gloeden learned from and worked with two Italian photographers, Giovanni Crupi (1859–1925) and Giuseppe Bruno (1836-1904). Edward Chaney, an expert on the evolution of the Grand Tour and of Anglo-Italian cultural relations, described the town as attracting "male refugees from more repressive climates"; the Labouchere Amendment, under which Oscar Wilde had in 1895 been sentenced to two years' hard labour, made Britain particularly risky to live in. Von Gloeden's studio drew high-ranking clientele: on one day in 1904, his visitors' book was signed by Kaiser Wilhelm II as well as Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg and Kuno von Moltke (of the Harden–Eulenburg affair).
Many European wanderers appreciated the charms of the town. Richard Wagner and his wife Cosima spent the 1881-1882 winter and early spring in Sicily, and on a day trip to Taormina, the composer expressed the wish that "we should have fled there in 1858 and spared ourselves many torments. The children could have lived on prickly pears!"
The wealthy and well connected Florence Trevelyan settled at Taormina in 1884, staying first at the famous Hotel Timeo. She loved birds (and dogs, but was not fond of cats) and purchased Isola Bella, now a nature reserve, to protect the sea bird habitat. In 1890 she married Salvatore Cacciola, a doctor and for many years mayor of Taormina.Newcastle Courant newspaper, August 2, 1890 She built as her marital residence a substantial villa on Via Teatro Greco,National Probate Index, Probate Registry, https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk. CACCIOLA Salvatore of 27 and 29 Via Teatro Greco Taormina Sicily Italy died 17 November 1926 at Taormina Probate (limited to settled land) London 12 July to Charles Philips Trevelyan M.P. and John James Withers solicitor. Effects £6683. (quoted in ) now known as Palazzo Acrosso-Papale.Sara Mostaccio; The house of "Doctor Papale, Medical Surgeon", is today no.41, as marked by a marble sign; now apparently the home of Dino Papale, lawyer, prominent citizen and supporter of Donald Trump She bought hillside land and created an urban pleasure garden, with shade and views, which after her death became a public municipal park.Esproprio di pubblica utilità. Gazzetta Ufficiale del regno d'Italia del 23 marzo 1923The Colonna Park and Municipal Gardens; additional land was given to the town by Dr. Cacciola