Ancient Zancle (so-called for the sickle shape of its harbor) existed as a native Sicilian settlement before the arrival of the Greeks in 756 BC. Expanded to form a thriving port city during the Greek colonization of Sicily, Messina remained prominent for centuries. The Romans recognized its strategic importance. To the Saracens, who never controlled much of Calabria, it was the northern and eastern limit of a Muslim dominion. To the Normans, Messina was an essential foothold in their conquest of the island during the eleventh century, though their first ships actually landed at a point on the Ionian coast south of the city in the middle of the night.

In mythology, Scylla and Carybdis threatened the intrepid Odysseus at the Strait of Messina, which Hercules swam and the Argonauts sailed. And when Artemis changed Arethusa into a spring of water to escape the river god Alpheus, the beautiful maiden emerged on the island of Ortygia, in Syracuse, where a spring bears her name.

Throughout the Middle Ages, Messina was the most important port of departure for European knights on their way to the Crusades. Such a Crusade prompted the visit of Richard the Lionheart and King Philip II of France Messina Cathedral and Portin 1190. Generally ignored by historians is the fact that the two monarchs and their crusader knights sacked Messina on that occasion. Messina remained the second most important city of Sicily until the seventeenth century, when its position was challenged by Catania. There were fleeting periods when Messina's economic and political power rivaled that of Palermo.

The twelfth-century Norman-Arab style of the Church of the Annunciation of the Catalans (Annunziata dei Catalani), on Via Garibaldi near Via Cesare Battisti, differs from the architecture of the other Norman-Arab churches in Sicily. Its exterior is more Byzantine than those of most of the other churches.

Messina has often been associated with its disasters. The bubonic plague was brought to Europe on a ship that arrived in Messina, and several earthquakes have destroyed parts of the city over the centuries. The most destructive was that of 1908. The Allied bombardment of 1943 earned Messina the nickname "The City of Ghosts" because many residents sought safety in the outlying towns.

In their haste to see other sights, visitors often overlook Messina, whose reconstructed Norman cathedral is its most famous sight. Before describing that majestic church, we would like to introduce you to another one that is historically important but often ignored.

The Church of Santa Maria Alemanna (Saint Mary of the Germans) stands in isolation a few blocks from the train station in a part of the city that visitors hardly ever see. Its construction was probably begun around 1194, when the Emperor Henry VI arrived at Messina to ascend the Sicilian Throne. Completed some years later, it was the place of worship of the Germans who remained at Messina during the reign of the young Frederick II von Hohenstaufen, which began following Henry's death in 1197. Henry was buried not at this very German church, but at the Cathedral of Palermo. There were never very many true Gothic churches in Sicily (where one hears phrases like "Romanesque Gothic" or "Catalan Gothic"); Santa Maria is one of the very few such churches still standing.

Though only the apse and half the nave have survived (with the upper portions of the structure undergoing an extensive reconstruction using materials far too distinct from the original gray stone), the church's medieval Gothic splendor is still evident. Arched windows reach upward to culminate in majestic points, and pilasters arch out of supporting columns to form shapely buttresses. This church would hardly be noticed in England, France or Germany but in Sicily its particular architectural style is indeed rare. The Abbey of Santa Maria della Valle (Saint Mary of the Valley), built outside the city during the same period, is another rare Sicilian example of true Gothic design. Hidden on an obscure street between Viale San Martino and Via Garibaldi (a few blocks from the railway station) and surrounded by unsightly buildings, the Church of Santa Maria Alemanna stands below ground level and is rarely open to the public, though much of its open interior is visible from the outside. Because of its unappealing location and incomplete condition, it is virtually ignored by travel guides and tourists, but a brief visit to the Church of Santa Maria could give your visit to Messina a taste of what the city was like when its ancient stone streets echoed with the footsteps of presumptuous kings and overzealous knights.

The cathedral, where Richard the Lionheart worshipped in 1190 en route to a Crusade, was erected during the twelfth century Norman dominion and its style resembles that of both the Basilica of Saint Nicholas and the cathedral at Bari. Most of the present cathedral is actually a reconstruction, the original building having been almost entirely destroyed by earthquakes; a few segments of the original walls remain.