User:Pierluigivinci/sandbox

= Borgo Storico Pantano = Pantano is a historic village that belongs to the Municipality of Rometta

It was inhabited until the Second World War when a process of depopulation began and eventually ended around the 1960s.

It rises on a hilly area, perched on a ridge and falls into the “ecological corridor” of the Peloritani Mountains.

Since 2009 it has been registered in the REIS, the register of intangible inheritances of the Sicilian Region, in the book of "Professions, Knowledge and Techniques".

It can be reached from Messina-Palermo motorway, Rometta exit and continuing for about 5 km, along the Provincial Road 54, towards Rometta Mountain, past the close Village of Rapano

Hystory
Among the most ancient historical evidence there are traces of a document that sanctioned the transfer of a fund by the Latin Sisters of the Diocese of Messina to an inhabitant of Rapano-Pantani called Antonio Calabro. The land was located “in confinibus fumarie dicte Ramette" as stated in the original Latin language.

The Basilian nuns of S. Maria de Messana had settled in the feud of "Pantani" owned by noble Giovanni di Manna around 1296. After just eight years the nuns were forced to abandon the site, due to the many dangers they had to cope with, alone and isolated, and prayers often did not defend them from the malicious people who populated the neighborhood.

When the black plague of 1347 [2] struck the city of Messina aboard Genoese ships coming from central Asia, the exodus to "Pantani" began. The place was ideal in fact, in the municipality of "Rometta", secluded and isolated from the main town and where the most important notables of the city had their homes and economic interests.

A community of Jewish-Spanish origin, coming from the city of Pisa, was already present in the City of the Straits where it had already traded and owned pawn shops since year 1000.

The doctors at that time ignored the true cause of the epidemic, believing that the disease depended on the corruption of the air, the miasmas spread by the winds or just on bad astral conjunctions.

The only remedies that medicine of that time could suggest were the escape from the overcrowded places hit by the plague and the use of bloodletting.

"Pantani" had the ideal therapeutic conditions: fresh healthy air and a tank for the bloodletting therapy with the application of leeches.

The Jewish community settled in this secluded place, practicing their spagyric medicine, an intertwining of alchemy and herbal medicine also in collaboration with the famous historic pharmacy of Roccavaldina.

The seventeenth century saw the transfer of Rapano and Pantano to the Municipality of Rometta by the heirs of Niccolò Castagna, viceroy of Sicily from 1405 to 1422, in exchange for a payment of fifteen thousand scudi.

Previously, Pantano together with Rapano, had been a fiefdom of the Count of Bauso, successor of Castagna. Rapano and Pantano were considered as one, given that Pantano was located at the bottom of the valley and the Rapano fiefdom bordered Saponara river, Molinazzo valley and the fiefdom of S. Martino.

Origins of the name
The origin of the name Pantano starts from the assonances of some words, from linguistic stratification, from historical and geographical knowledge and from the ancient oral memories of the territory.

The toponym, according to these reconstructions, states that the original name was "Pantaclo" (five-pointed star inserted in a circle).

In ancient times the "5" was widely used as a sacred symbol, a representation of the microcosm and the macrocosm, that is, the combination in a single sign of all the creation of the cosmos. The five points of the pentagram symbolized the five metaphysical elements: water, air, fire, earth, and spirit.

The synthesis of the divine forces of the universe

Geological aspects
The village is located within a complex geological-geodynamic structure, known in scientific literature as "Arco Calabro Peloritano".

The geological peculiarity of this area is that it is made up of very ancient rocks, of a geological age of over three hundred million years, coming from the European continental border.

The characteristics of these rocks are clearly in contrast with the rest of Sicily and peninsular Italy, which is made up of much more recent rocks (no more than sixty-five-million-year-old) belonging to the African continental margin.

Alchemical aspects
The village has an ancient and peculiar stratification.

The historical memory of the last inhabitants did not help in the reconstruction of the past, but some clues have raised surprising questions.

It is likely that, for an instinct of conservation, certain segments of the history of the territory have been deliberately deleted. It is in fact surrounded by an aura of mystery.

Secluded and evocative, it keeps its austere essentiality intact, like the ancient monasteries where time has stopped.

Their care of the water, the adoption of sophisticated building techniques, the systems for capturing and collecting rainwater, the cultivation of medicinal plants and trees that identify the Jewish community make us aware of their great knowledge, often stigmatized as heretics and for this reason hidden but which actually moved the flourishing economy of the place.

The village, after the Inquisition, gradually was transformed into a rural site, mainly devoted to agriculture.

Many "Marranos", however, maintained their ancestral traditions, professing themselves publicly Catholics, but remaining loyal to Judaism in private.

They have left traces of their presence, through esoteric and alchemical references to "kabbalah" and the Jewish school of philosophical and theosophical thought.

The references, present in the old Convent, in the Church and in other scattered places, apparently hidden or without meaning, seem to constitute a map, suggesting an interpretative and coding system that refers to the texts of "gematria, notarikon and temurah"

The Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie
Dating back to the 15th century, it is the oldest sacred place in the district. Inside there is a statue of unknown origin of a rare Madonna breast feeding the Child Jesus. A painting from the late 1600s, stolen and now replaced by a copy for its iconographic importance. Finally, the altar and the particularly valuable columns in local stone. However it remains a place full of mysteries hidden in various esoteric representations, probably derived from the origins of a place of worship of the Jewish community.

The Convent of the Latin Basilian Sisters of S. Maria de Messana
It dates back to 1296, most of it has been restored. It preserves some stones, present in ancient times in religious places, which were not chosen randomly. Presumably they represent the synthesis of opposing polarities. The place is surrounded by an "Ortus salutaris" or "Simple gods" where spontaneous plant varieties grew with medicinal virtues and medicinal herbs that the "Infirmarius" a God-fearing religious in charge of transforming them into ointments, potions, decoctions and poultices.

Next to the vegetable garden, the remains of an "Armaria pigmentariorum", a primordial monastic pharmacy and immediately after a "Xenodochio" for the hospitality and care of pilgrims.

Torre del Baly
Dating back to the 11th century, established by the “Dayan kelaly”, judge of the Jewish communities of Sicily, with the task of direct control over the economic and legal activities of the Jewish communities, as well as a single interlocutor in the territories.

Ancient Palmento
Philologically restored, it dates back to the 14th century. A rural architecture used for the work of pressing grapes. The beating work took place in the tank, where the grapes were harvested and then pressed by women and children and became an occasion for celebration and socialization. Currently the millstone is used as a "Spezieria" shop-laboratory, where medicaments based on medicinal herbs are prepared and sold based on the ancient conventual roots of the place.

Territory Interpretation Center (CIT)
A museum-exhibition area, housed in a restored fourteenth-century building, dedicated to the roots and testimonies of the area to enhance the historical, cultural and natural heritage. Also used as an educational and conference room, equipped with all advanced digital facilities where to interpret the past and plan the future through a specific interpretation, the "Parish Map", the community map that shows the heritage, landscapes, knowledge and memories of the place.

Places of Naturalistic Interest
The town is surrounded by a large botanical garden, rich in valuable naturalistic and landscape features and its own natural biodiversity, detected by a naturalistic analysis, conducted in collaboration with the Faculty of Natural Sciences and the Botanical Garden of the University of Messina. From the faunal point of view, it falls into an area of ​​European interest, due to its importance with respect to the routes of migratory birds. The area also falls within the "ecological corridor” Natura 2000 of the "Peloritani Mountains" strongly characterized by one of the richest hydrographic networks in the Tyrrhenian coast of Sicily.

All surrounded by a naturalistic itinerary on comfortable paths, which winds along ancient dry-stone walls with the Aeolian Islands as a background. Observation places for birdwatching are called "pagghiari" (haystacks), they overlook natural ponds, rest and refreshment areas for the birds. It is also possible to discover along the way a remarkable variety of spontaneous medicinal and edible plants that originally were carried out by the greatest  doctors and apothecaries of the time.

Recovery, restoration and redesignation
The partial recovery already started is not intended as a structural recovery operation.

Its main aim is to meet the principles of sustainable development, the conservation of natural resources, the accurate interpretation of the territory, the authentic experience of the past with its intrinsic values.

In the first phase, the recovery concerned the environmental aspect, with the safety of the area, through an adequate infrastructure of the territory: naturalistic engineering and water system management works, slope stabilization, reconstitution of terracing systems. All this works allowed naturalistic itineraries and interventions for the conservation and observation of biodiversity with the restoration of old pathways, the creation of water supply points and sustainable equipped areas. An intervention mainly aimed at preserving, improving and promoting the natural functionality and requalification of the present wetlands.

In the second phase of structural recovery, the policy was an integrative reconstruction, a philological recovery aimed at making the current interventions easily distinguishable, helping to understand the unity of the village, respecting its architectural integrity. Our will is to restore the village to its most authentic aspect, renewing its individual construction elements, consolidating and reconstituting stone walls and plaster, also integrating sophisticated plant equipment to meet the needs of contemporary life. The building techniques adopted for the renovation, have come as close as possible to the original ones, favoring the recovery of the existing, through sustainable construction techniques and with local material, without erasing the signs of time, drawing a significant picture, for the understanding of tradition and local identity, through the constructive stratifications, the conservation of the original airspace, the number and size of the openings, the internal partitions and, where possible, the intended use of the rooms in the original domestic organization. The execution of the works was mainly made from recycled material and, when not possible, with material coming from the same geographical area.

We have also preserved traces of the first settlers in the plasters and stratifications of the buildings. These represent an integral part, according to our policy of intervention, of the identity of this place. In the houses where action has already been taken, the original form has been brought to light after removing the traces of the modernity of the restoration from the 40s and 50s which took into consideration only the comfort of the site.

Culture
A cultural center in a place of awesome naturalistic beauty and richness of historiographic sources. Recovery of the memories of the territory with the interaction of new creative learning tools, have created an ideal venue where religious and cultural events and workshops take place periodically. Experiential, scientific studies, academic publications, memoranda of understanding, literary, artistic, theater and cinema productions. A cultural ferment flanked by didactic-experiential and excursion-ethnobotanical activities.