This fountain has been pouring water for more than a thousand years and pours it still. The Arabs built it beside a spring, in the hamlet they called Alqamah, from which the town takes its name. It is one of the very few Arab works still standing in western Sicily, and the only one that goes on doing the job it was made for.
What to see
It stands in the lower part of Alcamo, a few hundred metres below the sanctuary of the Madonna dei Miracoli. It is a plain structure, of the kind built to last: a basin, the jet, the stone worn away where for centuries people leaned to fill their jars. A strong earthquake at the end of the fifteenth century damaged it and it was later restored.
The geographer Idrisi, who in 1154 described Sicily for king Roger, called Alcamo a manzil, that is a group of houses, and praised its fertile lands and its market. The centre was inhabited by Muslims and divided into four hamlets; then Frederick the Second, after some revolts, had the Saracen population removed and the hamlets became Christian. The fountain stayed.
Visiting
It is out in the open, along the road, with no ticket and no hours; it is a short way from the sanctuary and goes well with a walk through the old town. A quarter of an hour.
Our editors' tip
Put a hand under the jet. It sounds like nothing, and it is instead the most direct way to touch a thousand years of the town's history: that spring decided where the place would be born, gave its name to the Arab settlement and went on serving whoever came later, without asking anyone their religion.