Bystander and main point city of Sicily with 270.000 inhabitants. Sets on the narrow one that from it he/she takes the name to the feet of the Peloritani Mountains in a bright scenery the sea and the verdant mountains that give her an unique charm. Its history has ancient: you/he/she was founded in the VIII sec. a.C. with the name of Zancle from farmers Calcidesi. Subsequently it belonged to the Carthaginian ones, to the Romans, to the Goths, to the Byzantines, to the Mussulmanis, to the Norman ones, to the Svevis, to the Aragonese ones and finally to the Borbonicis. For the wars and the earthquakes you/he/she has known more times the destruction. After the 1908 terrible earthquake, you/he/she was almost entirely reconstructed with roads wide and rectilinear and ample plazas that give her a modern aspect. To see the Cathedral (native of 1907, but more times reconstructed, on the splendid façade of particular note the Gothic portals), with the grandiose astronomic bell tower that every midday offers the unusual show of the automatons in movement. On the plaza there is the 1547 Orione Fountain, work of Michelangelo from Montorsoli, considered the most beautiful fountain of the '500 European. There is a little far the suggestive Church of the SS. Announced of the Catalans, of Arab-Norman epoch (XII-XIII sec.). On the overlooking piazzetta h posts the statue of Don Giovanni of Austria (winning of the battle of Lepanto) of Andrew Calamech. Not distant there are the ruins of the Church of Saint Maria Alemanna of the XIII sec. what the most beautiful and important Gothic construction in Sicily was. In the Regional Museum (Avenue of the Liberty) among the other works I am her/it "Resurrezione of Lazzaro" and "The adoration of the shepherds" (1609) of Caravaggio and the exceptional one "Madonna of the Rosary" (1473) of Antonello from Messina. The visit in Messina cannot tell him concluded without a walk along the Coast that conducts to the lakes of Ganzirri and the attractive country of Tower Lighthouse, on the point of the Head Peloro.