Tindari (Messina Province) is 105 km from Messina, on the Cape Tindari promontory, on the Tyrrhenian coast.
"Tindari, mild I know you - between ample hills suspended over the waters - of the sweet islands of the god..." (Salvatore Quasimodo, "Vento a Tindari")
Tyrndaris was founded in 396 BC by Dionysius I, tyrant of Siracusa, in an area inhabited since prehistoric times.
An ally of the Romans during the Punic Wars, it prospered in the Imperial Age.
According to Pliny part of the town collapsed into the sea, in the first century BC, after a landslide, signs of which can still be seen from the Christian Sanctuary on the north side of the promontory.
Having become a diocese in the early years of Christianity, it was destroyed by the Arabs in 836.
The present town dates from 1094, when Roger I founded a Benedictine abbey here. During the War of the Sicilian Vespers, it was burned down by Frederick II of Aragon, for remaining faithful to the Angevins; it was rebuilt but again sacked and burned by the pirate Barbarossa.
Points of interest: Sanctuary of the Black Madonna, Boundary walls, Greek Theater, Museum, Ancient town, Basilica and the Thermal Establishment.
Links to other sites about Tindari include:
My latest book on CD is titled Sicily - A Reference for Researchers and is now available. With a file for each town (plus many other files), it relates the history of Sicily as reflected in the photos, records and festivals of its towns. It contains over 2500 text and photo files and can be ordered at CD order.
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