Mito, difesa, incorporazione paesaggistica e (s)ragione. Declinazioni ideologiche di un porto naturale al centro del mediterraneo

The geographical position of Messina is as exceptional as its morphology. Located in the centre of the Mediterranean, it overlooks the channel of the Strait of Messina «which connects the two most frequented Mediterranean basins of antiquity: the Tyrrhenian and the Ionic-Egyean» (Ioli Gigante, 2010, p. 11). But this geostrategic quality would have been in vain without the presence of an enormous protuberance of land, in the shape of a sickle, capable of constituting a large natural harbour that would generate the favourable condi- tions for the transformation of the previous settlements into cities. The chapter will try to read the sociological implications of this geomorphological exceptionality through the city, the scythe and the open landscape of the Strait of Messina. The cyclical devastations produced by the earthquakes that have hit the city are not only dramatic social catastrophes but also extraordinary urban zeroes that allow us to raise the analysis to a paradigmatic dimension able to read in a pure way the ideologies that underlie the design of the architectural diaphragm placed between the city and the sea.