The history of Torregrotta begins in Roman times with the formation of the first latifundia. and encompasses the historical and social events that have taken place up to the present day within the municipal territory and are closely related to it. Since the Middle Ages and throughout the modern age the area was subject to the jurisdiction of the fief of Santa Maria della Scala and, to a lesser extent, that of Rocca.. The predominantly peasant population concentrated in the hamlet of the Scala fief, abandoning it beginning in the 14th century.. The modern town came into existence only in the early 1500s when the hamlet was rebuilt at the behest of Emperor Charles V and developed over the following centuries... With the dissolution of the fiefdoms following the administrative reforms of the Bourbons, the hamlet, called Torre, and its possessions came under the control of the Municipality of Roccavaldina. Beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century, the social and economic development of Torre, which by then had become Torregrotta, caused a series of contrasts with Roccavaldina, first in the religious and then in the civil sphere, culminating in the administrative split of the two communities in 1923..
Ancient Age
Hypotheses on early settlements No archaeological finds have ever been officially discovered in the Torregrotta territory that could attest to the existence of settled human groups during ancient times.. However, in the early 1990s, persistent rumors were reported about the discovery of several objects of probable Greek origin, perhaps belonging to a funerary set, found during a foundation excavation which then mysteriously disappeared.. The hypothesis of historiographers is that already in pre-Hellenic times there was human habitation in the area.. This could be evidenced by the remains of Sicanian tombs: it was customary among this population to bury corpses in caves carved into the rock, similar to those found in the portion of the hillside between Torregrotta and the hamlet of Cardà in the municipality of Roccavaldina.. Similar ravines are also found in the neighboring municipalities of Monforte San Giorgio and San Pier Niceto.. The Sicanians were replaced by the Sicels. and later by the Greeks..
During the Greek-Sicilian period it is agreed that in the territory of the Torregrotta plain, along the entire course of the Niceto stream. and on Torregrotta soil itself, there were small rural peasant settlements. A clue to this is an archaeological discovery that took place in 1949 in the Annunziata district of the neighboring municipality of Monforte San Giorgio, where several silver and bronze coins were found dating indicatively to 339 B.C. and today preserved at the archaeological museum in Syracuse.. Furthermore, there is evidence that even before 396 B.C. large quantities of agricultural products were already arriving at the port of Messina and that these came from the northeastern hinterland of Sicily. Agricultural activity in the area is also justified by the fact that the valley's soils were particularly fertile due to the abundance of water provided by the Niceto.
Roman latifundia
With the Roman conquest, which took place in 260 B.C. after the Battle of Mylae,. the coastal part underwent a process of land reclamation and deforestation mainly due to military purposes.. In 210 B.C., work was started on the construction of the Via Valeria,. which, roughly tracing the current route of State Road 113,.. allowed the transit of large chariots and war machines. After the Second Punic War, latifundia were formed in the territory of the present-day municipality, with the very probable creation of a permanent housing settlement. The entire area, including both Torregrotta's soil and that of other present-day neighboring municipalities, was named Lavina after the watercourse, now only a small stream, which flows on the edge of Torregrotta and which, according to historians' hypotheses, was for a long time among the most important in the surrounding area, especially from the economic point of view. Deforestation also continued with the introduction of cereal crops, vines, olive trees and fruit trees. To facilitate transfers of the labor involved in the work, a pagus, or small camp, was founded on a surrounding hill, not far from present-day Roccavaldina. Of the ancient roads used as a route between the Via Valeria, the latifundia and the pagus, a short section of today's Via San Vito remains, which, in the opinion of scholars, "could be traced right back to the period of Roman rule." It is unclear who the owners of the latifundia were. According to some, and this is the case of historian Francesco Ioli, the portion of land surrounding the Lavina Creek was assigned to a tribune since it was the practice to distribute the conquered territories among military leaders who had demonstrated their valor during the war. Historian and writer Angelo Coco, echoing what was argued by Prof. John Wacher, believes instead that the lands went on lease to some wealthy Romans who had offered money to subsidize the expenses of the Hannibalic War.
Two centuries later, in 36 B.C., the famous Battle of Naulochus, decisive in the civil war between Caesar Octavian and Sextus Pompey, took place in the waters in front of Torregrotta.. Prior to the battle, Pompey's 300 ships took refuge at Naulochus, an ancient vanished city about which several hypotheses have been made for its exact location..
Medieval Age
From Casale del Conte to Rachal Elmelum At the fall of the Western Roman Empire the territory called Lavina, of which the present municipality was part, fell first to the Ostrogoths, who had occupied Sicily in 476, and then to the Byzantines. The area around the Lavina stream was then granted to a tribune and named Casale del Conte (Casale Comitis). in honor of the new landowner who was also a palace courtier of Emperor Justinian I. The hamlet was a small settlement surrounded by a vast expanse of farmland in which villagers devoted to cultivating the land lived.. Under the Byzantine Empire there were several centuries of peace and stability until 827 when the invasion of Sicily began by the Saracens. who reached Casale del Conte only around the year 870. The Arabs, who imported the customs and traditions of their place of origin, razed the Casale to the ground and settled in what is now the Torregrotta district of Radali, on the top of a hill overlooking the present-day town, as they preferred the low elevations near the rivers. The whole area was renamed Rachal Elmelum or more likely Rahl el Melum, a term closely related to Radali that is a clear linguistic evolution of the original Rahl, a term used to denote small inhabited localities, which later turned into Rachal, Racchal, Ragali and finally into the present word. The village of Radali was made up of small houses made of stone, mud and straw, often formed by a single communal room for men and animals, while in the surrounding fields and orchards irrigation was widely used,. and, according to tradition, sbergia peaches were first cultivated.
The fiefdom of Santa Maria della Scala Islamic rule lasted until 1061 when the Normans led by Roger of Hauteville initiated the conquest of Sicily... The new rulers, of the Christian faith, in order to facilitate the religious conversion of the population, encouraged the establishment of monasteries to which they also dispensed large rural portions of territory. This was the reason why, in March 1168, the Norman King of Sicily William II, still 15 years old, and his mother Queen Margaret of Navarre granted and donated to the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria della Scala in Messina the ancient Byzantine hamlet:..
The donation, also reconfirmed later by Emperor Henry VI,. represented the birth of the fief of Santa Maria della Scala, or simply Scala fief, which, however, was given this name only in later centuries.. The fief included the present-day hamlets Fondachello and Tracoccia of the Municipality of Valdina and most of the territory of Torregrotta, from the coast to approximately today's Via Libertà, that is, near the former Kindergarten building.. From the latter street, towards the south, extended the royal property of Rametta (today's Rometta), which included all the territories between the Gallo stream and the Muto stream.. In the territories of the hamlet, due to the "professional manpower" who lived here since earlier times. but whose actual numerical extent is unknown, agricultural production was promptly started without the investment of large sums of money. Benedictine nuns were also exempted from paying tributes, which were usually mandatory for those who received donations from the ruler.. On January 13, 1196,. Queen Constance, to avert the hamlet being taken away from the nuns, reconfirmed the donation made by her two predecessors by extending the boundaries to Niceta's vast estate.. The latter was located in the present-day municipality of Monforte San Giorgio and was brought as a dowry to the monastery by a nun named Maria.. Frederick II, the first King of Sicily of the Swabian dynasty and son of Constance,. also confirmed the previous donations in August 1209, when he was still a minor. Frederick himself, having now come of age, during an assembly held in Capua in 1220, ordered the revocation of all the privileges he had granted up to that time since many of them had been extorted by mystification and deception. Therefore, on July 11, 1221, after receiving the nuns Margaret and Catherine and viewing the documents sent by Abbess Barbara, he reconfirmed for the second time the bestowal of the Casale Comitis to the nuns of Santa Maria della Scala. Later, at a time when relations between the papacy and Frederick II were openly hostile due to the latter's excommunication, the ruler allowed the church's property to be plundered;. thus a judge from Messina, Afranione de Porta, taking advantage of the situation seized the Scala fiefdom, whose ownership later passed to his son Bartolomeo.. Upon the emperor's death, the Casale was occupied by a group of Messinians until, on June 10, 1267, the papal legate in Sicily, Cardinal Rodolfo de Chevrières, sent to the island to reinstate the ecclesiastical property robbed by the secular feudal lords, issued a sentence in which he stipulated the restitution of the fief to the legitimate owners. Meanwhile, the installation of the new King Charles I of Anjou in 1266 had opened the brief Angevin period during which the nuns of the monastery of Santa Maria della Scala failed to return possession of the Casale:. the sovereign, in fact, simulated approving the rulings but did not order their actual implementation.. In the uncertainty, the Casale was again usurped by the judge's nephew Afranione de Porta.
After the Sicilian Vespers of 1282, the throne of Sicily was claimed by Peter III, inaugurating the period of the Aragonese dynasty.. On April 3, 1289, during the reign of James II of Aragon, the judges of Monforte, Bonsignorino de Neapoli and Joannes de Peretti, redelivered the Casale to the nuns of Santa Maria della Scala, as a result of a ruling of the Magna Regia Curia and 22 years after that of Cardinal de Chevrières.
The fiefdom of Rocca and the historic division