The Patron
San Vito
San Vito is Mazara del Vallo's patron, with the feast on 15 June. Local tradition also includes an August celebration tied to the blessing of the fishing fleet, without resolving the relationship between the two dates.
— Castellesi
CASTELLESI COMUNE
Trapani,
Sicilia
One name that can mean a town, a district or a third of Sicily.
Mazara del Vallo stands at the mouth of the river Mazaro on Sicily's south-western coast, a hundred and fifty kilometres from Africa. It has the largest fishing fleet in Italy and a substantial Tunisian community, and the old quarter is still called the Casbah .
Its name appears in Sicilian records at three completely different scales, and confusing them will send a search badly astray.
The Name
Three Mazaras
Val di Mazara, Distretto di Mazara and Comune di Mazara del Vallo refer to three different geographic scales. A source saying only "Mazara" is therefore not useful until that level is identified.
The Landmark
Santissimo Salvatore
The Cattedrale del Santissimo Salvatore belongs to Mazara's own diocese, established in the Norman period. Parish research should therefore be directed to Mazara del Vallo rather than Trapani or Palermo.
Did you know?
FIRST ESTABLISH THE SCALE
Mazara can mean three different places
A reference to Val di Mazara may mean much of western Sicily, while Distretto di Mazara means the Bourbon administrative district and Mazara del Vallo the comune itself. Maritime families also require checking the separate sea levy.
LA PARLATA
How they speak
Italian is standard. Sicilian is widely represented in local speech and culture.
First decide what Mazara means
Mazara was a Phoenician and then Greek settlement at the river mouth, but its decisive moment came in 827 , when the Arab conquest of Sicily began with a landing here. For the next two and a half centuries Mazara was an important Muslim town, and it gave its name to the Val di Mazara , the western third of the island — one of the three administrative divisions the Arabs established, which outlasted them by eight hundred years.
The Normans took the town in 1072 and made it a bishop's seat ; the cathedral was founded soon after. Under the Bourbons Mazara was the seat of a district of the Valle di Trapani, with a sub-intendancy whose records run from 1837 to 1860.
What defines the modern town is the sea. Mazara has the largest fishing fleet in Italy , working the Sicilian Channel toward Africa, and from the 1960s that fleet drew Tunisian labour in large numbers. The old Arab quarter, still called the Casbah , is once again a North African neighbourhood — a continuity of eleven centuries that is unusual anywhere in Europe.
In 1998 a fishing boat pulled from these waters the Dancing Satyr , a Greek bronze of extraordinary quality, now the town's chief treasure.
Postcards from Mazara del Vallo
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Where this
belongs
belongs
PROVINCIA DI TRAPANI
Discover the beauty, culture and traditions of Trapani and its remarkable comuni.
EXPLORE TRAPANI →REGIONE SICILIA
From the mountains to the sea, Sicilia is a region of history, flavor and soul.
EXPLORE SICILIA →From the passenger index
At least 38 people who gave Mazara del Vallo as their home are recorded by name among Italian arrivals in the United States — each with the ship they sailed on and the day they landed.
A floor, not a total. The index covers arrivals through 1912, holds nothing between May 1907 and December 1911, and many passengers were written down with no home town at all. Where a name is there, it is there with its record.
Have Orso look for your family →Ready to visit
An Arab quarter and a Greek bronze
Getting there
The nearest major airport is Trapani Birgi Airport.
Mazara is a working fishing port that feels closer to North Africa than most of Italy, and that is its interest. The Casbah is a living quarter rather than a preserved one, and the fishing harbour is busy at all hours.
For a descendant it is compact and legible: the cathedral, the old quarter, the port where the fleet ties up, and the parish churches.
The Satiro Danzante in its museum is worth the visit on its own — a Greek bronze of the first rank, pulled out of the sea by a Mazarese trawler.
Trapani about an hour, and Selinunte — among the largest Greek archaeological sites in the Mediterranean — is half an hour east.
What to see
Il Satiro Danzante — the Greek bronze raised from the Sicilian Channel, in its own museum.
The Casbah — the Arab quarter, then and now.
The Cattedrale del Santissimo Salvatore — Norman foundation, seat of the Diocese of Mazara del Vallo.
The fishing port — the largest fleet in Italy, and the trade most Mazaresi lived by.
The river Mazaro and the lungomare — the town's edge on the sea.
Selinunte — the great Greek site half an hour east.
Your family's parish — the record-keeping institution before 1820.
Family history
Where the records are
Archives and registers
Find the Trapani archive on Antenati
Mazara is in Trapani province. Do not confuse the comune with the Val di Mazara, one of Sicily's three historic divisions, or with the Sottointendenza di Mazara, its district.
antenati.cultura.gov.itWhy Sicilian records begin in 1820
Antenati's own explanation of the dates.
antenati.cultura.gov.itRelated places
Keep exploring
The journey does not end at the boundary of one comune. The province, the region and the neighbouring towns often hold the rest of the picture.
Your Roots. Their Story. Your Place.
Mazara del Vallo is more than a place on a map. It is a part of you.
FIND YOUR COMUNE →