Piazza Mokarta is one of the main squares of Mazara del Vallo and opens towards the sea. Its name comes from Porta Mokarta, the town gate that stood here, itself named after the castle of Moyharta or Moxharta marked on medieval maps, to which the road outside the walls led. A legend, also recorded by Giuseppe Pitrè, links it instead to an Arab general defeated by Roger I.
What to see
The square is dominated by the Norman Arch, the last trace of the town's Norman fortifications: it was the gate of the castle that Roger I of Hauteville had built in 1072-1073, after taking Mazara from the Arabs, at the south-east corner of the walls. In 1880 the castle was demolished to make a public garden, leaving only the gate with its two pointed arches in tuff; together with the Dancing Satyr it is the town's best-known symbol. Kings and queens stayed in the castle, among them Frederick III of Aragon and Queen Eleanor of Anjou, in 1318, and from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century its underground rooms were used as a prison.
On the side facing the sea stands Pietro Consagra's bronze fountain-sculpture, «Men who come from the sea», with sea monsters rising from the water. A few metres away is the cathedral of the Santissimo Salvatore, which according to tradition Roger had built to fulfil a vow.
Visiting
The square and the Norman Arch can be seen freely, at any time.
Our editors' tip
On the façade of the nearby cathedral is a marble group of 1584 with Roger on horseback and a Saracen beneath the horse: according to Pitrè, it was the people who saw in that Saracen a captain named Mokarta.
