Taormina | EPFL Graph Search

Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?

Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.

Taormina (UKˌtɑːɔːrˈmiːnə , US-nɑː , also taʊrˈ-, ta.orˈmiːna; Taurmina) is a comune (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Messina, on the east coast of the island of Sicily, Italy. Taormina has been a tourist destination since the 19th century. Its beaches on the Ionian sea, including that of Isola Bella, are accessible via an aerial tramway built in 1992, and via highways from Messina in the north and Catania in the south. On 26–27 May 2017 Taormina hosted the 43rd G7 summit. History of Taormina The history of Taormina dates back to before Ancient Greece established its first colony on Sicily in 734 BCE in Magna Graecia. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Taormina continued to rank as one of the more important towns of the island. Taormina followed the history of Sicily in being ruled by successive foreign monarchs. After the Italian unification, Taormina began to attract well-off tourists from northern Europe, and it became known as a welcoming haven for gay men and artists. The present town of Taormina occupies the ancient site, on a hill that forms the last projecting point of the mountain ridge that extends along the coast from Cape Pelorus to this point. The site of the old town is about above the sea, while a very steep and almost isolated rock, crowned by a Norman castle, rises about higher. This is the likely site of the ancient Arx or citadel, an inaccessible position mentioned by ancient writers. Portions of the ancient walls may be traced at intervals all round the brow of the hill, the whole of the summit of which was occupied by the ancient city. Numerous fragments of ancient buildings are scattered over its whole surface, including extensive reservoirs of water, sepulchres, tessellated pavements, etc., and the remains of a spacious edifice, commonly called a Naumachia, but the real purpose of which it is difficult to determine.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related concepts (9)

Normans

The Normans (Norman: Normaunds; Normands; Nortmanni/Normanni) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norse Viking settlers and indigenous West Franks and Gallo-Romans. The term is also used to denote emigrants from the duchy who conquered other territories such as England and Sicily. The Norse settlements in West Francia followed a series of raids on the French northern coast mainly from Denmark, although some also sailed from Norway and Sweden.

Aghlabids

The Aghlabids (الأغالبة) were an Arab dynasty from the tribe of Banu Tamim, who ruled Ifriqiya and parts of Southern Italy, Sicily, and possibly Sardinia, nominally on behalf of the Abbasid Caliph, for about a century, until they were overthrown by the new power of the Fatimids. In 800, the Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid appointed Ibrahim I ibn al-Aghlab, son of a Khurasanian Arab commander from the Banu Tamim tribe, as hereditary Emir of Ifriqiya, in response to the anarchy that had reigned in that province following the fall of the Muhallabids.

Emirate of Sicily

The Emirate of Sicily or Fatimid Sicily (ʾImārat Ṣiqilliya) was an Islamic kingdom that ruled the Muslim territories on the island of Sicily between 831 and 1091. Its capital was Palermo (Arabic: Balarm), which, during this period, became a major cultural and political center of the Muslim world. Sicily was part of the Byzantine Empire when Muslim forces from Ifriqiya began launching raids in 652. Through a prolonged series of conflicts from 827 to 902, they gradually conquered the entirety of Sicily, with only the stronghold of Rometta, in the far northeast, holding out until 965.