Motta San Giovanni

The name turns up for the first time in a document of 1412: back then it was a village dependent on Santo Niceto, taking its name from the monastery of Saint John the Theologian. When in 1465 the Aragonese brought Santo Niceto down, the village inherited its autonomy the following year, and of the castle of Sant'Aniceto, Byzantine and later Norman, the walls still stand in full view of the Strait. The inhabitants, though, tell another origin: in the sixteenth century, during one of the many Turkish attacks, the town was fiercely defended by a knight named Giovanni, and to them a man like that could only be a saint.

Electric light arrived very early, and thanks to a private citizen. Between 1912 and 1913 one of the townspeople, Carmelo Catalano, built a hydroelectric plant using the waters of the district and ran a power line up to the houses: Motta had light bulbs while the neighbouring villages were still lit with oil and paraffin. In 1915 came the first electric grain mill as well, with millstones imported from France because they had one precise quality, they left no grit in the flour. The other trade of the town is pietra reggina, the soft building limestone quarried in the Sarto district and on the headland of Capo dell'Armi.