A Thousand Years of History<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div>“those who really want to discuss salt marshes need to come here,
in the west of Sicily…
…old, very old salt marshes, founded already by the Phoenicians.”
(Voltaire wrote in the late 1700s)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>The history of our salt pans has been closely related to the cultural history of Sicily and Mediterranean civilizations. Salt <\/a> has served all peoples: from those who began using it for cooking food, to those who employed it for food preservation. For the Phoenicians, for example, who based their commercial penetration on long sailings, having fresh water and salt available were the indispensable pre-conditions for identifying, along their trade routes, places to set up their coastal colonies, of “bunkering stations,” became indispensable for supplies. <\/span> Pliny the Elder mentions salt cultivation as early as Roman times in Italy, also mentioning Trapani. We have other written evidence of the existence of salt pans in the Trapani area dating back to the time of Muslim rule in Sicily <\/a>; the well-known Arab chronicler Edrisi (or Idrisi), who in 1154, when describing Trapani, says “right in front of the city gate there is a salt pan.” <\/span>The construction of the Ettore and Infersa salt pans along the Stagnone coast was authorized between 1492 and 1508 by the Spanish viceroys of Sicily. Whether this was an amnesty of pre-existing facilities or a founding act of the salt pans is unknown to us. But it was on May 25, 1562 that the first sale was recorded, at the deeds of notary Bartolomeo Passalacqua, of a half of “salinam unam… cum domo molendini,” from Magnifico Hector de Grignano to Magnifico Joannes Petrus de Manuelio. <\/span>It is likely that it was actually Hector de Grignano who named the “Salina Ettore.” While it is certain that the deed testifies to the existence, even at that time, of a mill dedicated to milling salt in the Marsala Salt Pans.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>
“those who really want to discuss salt marshes need to come here,
in the west of Sicily…
…old, very old salt marshes, founded already by the Phoenicians.”
(Voltaire wrote in the late 1700s)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>
The history of our salt pans has been closely related to the cultural history of Sicily and Mediterranean civilizations. Salt <\/a> has served all peoples: from those who began using it for cooking food, to those who employed it for food preservation. For the Phoenicians, for example, who based their commercial penetration on long sailings, having fresh water and salt available were the indispensable pre-conditions for identifying, along their trade routes, places to set up their coastal colonies, of “bunkering stations,” became indispensable for supplies. <\/span> Pliny the Elder mentions salt cultivation as early as Roman times in Italy, also mentioning Trapani. We have other written evidence of the existence of salt pans in the Trapani area dating back to the time of Muslim rule in Sicily <\/a>; the well-known Arab chronicler Edrisi (or Idrisi), who in 1154, when describing Trapani, says “right in front of the city gate there is a salt pan.” <\/span>The construction of the Ettore and Infersa salt pans along the Stagnone coast was authorized between 1492 and 1508 by the Spanish viceroys of Sicily. Whether this was an amnesty of pre-existing facilities or a founding act of the salt pans is unknown to us. But it was on May 25, 1562 that the first sale was recorded, at the deeds of notary Bartolomeo Passalacqua, of a half of “salinam unam… cum domo molendini,” from Magnifico Hector de Grignano to Magnifico Joannes Petrus de Manuelio. <\/span>It is likely that it was actually Hector de Grignano who named the “Salina Ettore.” While it is certain that the deed testifies to the existence, even at that time, of a mill dedicated to milling salt in the Marsala Salt Pans.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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