Culture
Mazara del Vallo, a city rich in history and charm, boasts a medieval past characterized by lively multiculturalism and thriving economic development. After the Norman conquest, the population of Mazara was made up of four distinct ethnic groups: Latins, Greeks, Muslims and Jews. Each community inhabited a specific neighborhood and enjoyed religious freedom. Mutual tolerance was a fundamental value, allowing peaceful coexistence between different groups. In the book “Knowing Mazara” by Antonino Sammartano we read: “Until the 14th century, the city was divided into districts, in each of which stood a church, from which the district itself took its name, with a square in front and adjacent to it.
Next to the Cathedral was the main square of the city (as still today), on which the church and monastery of Santa Chiara opened, from the second half of the 14th century onwards the Palazzo Chiaramonte (a part of which was later used for the construction of the Bishop’s Palace), and the seat of the civic judiciary. It was a meeting place for citizens and the official center of the city, where couriers arrived with dispatches. The General Council, however, that is, the assembly of the people, was held in the Cathedral.
Another important square, called «La Ganea», was the market square, the center of the city’s economic affairs. The streets intertwined in various ways and some of them took their names from the guilds of artisans, workers or merchants who lived there. The houses generally opened onto courtyards, which had the common well and wash house in the centre. [….] It was from the end of the 15th century, when in 1493 the Jewish community, by an edict issued the previous year by King Ferdinand the Catholic, was expelled from the city, that a process of assimilation and fusion between the three remaining ethnic elements began. : process that led to the definitive prevalence of the Latin element.” The port represented the economic engine of the city.
Already exploited by the Phoenicians and Selinuntini, it found its peak with the Muslims, who valorized its commercial potential. Expansion and dredging works, combined with the natural conformation of the mouth, made the port a focal point for maritime traffic, also immortalized in medieval nautical charts. Consequently, maritime trade, in that historical period, was the soul of Mazara. During Muslim rule, trade was mainly directed towards African ports, while with the Norman conquest new routes opened towards the thriving Italian and Catalan coastal cities.
“Maritime trade was, therefore, a natural vocation for Mazara. And if at the time of Muslim domination it was directed mainly towards African ports, after the Norman conquest new commercial relations opened with the then flourishing maritime cities of Italy and Catalonia. Colonies of Genoese, Pisan, Amalfi, Catalan and Venetian merchants, as we said above, were present in Mazara until the 14th century. The port was equipped with the “loader”, i.e. a set of warehouses used to store cereals for export, which stood near the mouth of the river at the southwestern corner of the city walls surrounding the city.
It was defended by a tower equipped with artillery and administered by a portulan, some officers and a warehouseman, who were entitled to a percentage of the “trade” rights, i.e. export, due to the Royal Curia.” In addition to official trade, piracy also flourished, as was customary in the maritime cities of the time. A certain Graffeo Giorgio, a Mazarese corsair, attacked and plundered Genoese and Pisan ships in 1360 and 1371, despite protests and diplomatic interventions.
“We know of a certain Graffeo Giorgio, from Mazara, who in 1360 attacked and plundered six Genoese cargo ships in the Sardinian sea and in 1371 a Pisan ship. The protests of the Genoese and Pisan magistrates and the intervention of King Frederick III resolved the issue in those two circumstances, but those pirate actions will not have been the only ones carried out by Graffeo, nor will he have been the only one to practice piracy.”
