Motta Sant'Anastasia is a comune

Comune

In Italy, the comune is the basic administrative division, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township or municipality.-Importance and function:...

(municipality) in the Province of Catania

Province of Catania

Catania is a province in the autonomous island region of Sicily in Italy. Its capital is the city of Catania.It has an area of 3,552 km², and a total population of 1,073,881 . There are 58 comunes in the province, see Comunes of the Province of Catania...

 in the Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 region Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

, located about 160 km southeast of Palermo

Palermo

Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...

 and about 9 km west of Catania

Catania

Catania is an Italian city on the east coast of Sicily facing the Ionian Sea, between Messina and Syracuse. It is the capital of the homonymous province, and with 298,957 inhabitants it is the second-largest city in Sicily and the tenth in Italy.Catania is known to have a seismic history and...

. As of 31 December 2007, it had a population of 11,203 and an area of 35.7 km².

The municipality of Motta Sant'Anastasia contains the frazione

Frazione

A frazione , in Italy, is the name given in administrative law to a type of territorial subdivision of a comune; for other administrative divisions, see municipio, circoscrizione, quartiere...

(subdivision) Piano Tavola and also the Naval Air Station Sigonella. The latter accounts for the substantial numbers of American military personnel and their families who reside in Motta Sant'Anastasia.

Motta Sant'Anastasia borders the following municipalities: Belpasso

Belpasso

Belpasso is a comune in the Province of Catania in the Italian region Sicily, located about 150 km southeast of Palermo and about 10 km northwest of Catania...

, Camporotondo Etneo

Camporotondo Etneo

Camporotondo Etneo is a comune in the Province of Catania in the Italian region Sicily, located about southeast of Palermo and about northwest of Catania...

, Catania

Catania

Catania is an Italian city on the east coast of Sicily facing the Ionian Sea, between Messina and Syracuse. It is the capital of the homonymous province, and with 298,957 inhabitants it is the second-largest city in Sicily and the tenth in Italy.Catania is known to have a seismic history and...

, Misterbianco

Misterbianco

Misterbianco is a comune in the Province of Catania in the Italian region Sicily, located about 160 km southeast of Palermo and about 6 km west of Catania...

.

Giuseppe Di Stefano

Giuseppe Di Stefano

Giuseppe Di Stefano was an Italian operatic tenor who sang professionally from the late 1940s until the early 1990s. He was known as the "Golden voice" or "The most beautiful voice", as the true successor of Beniamino Gigli...

 was a native of Motta Sant'Anastasia.

History

Motta, like other cities in the Simeto Valley, has ancient origins. Archaeological studies dating back to 1954 in contrada Ardizzone, attest Greek

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 presence in the territory around the 5th–4th centuries BC. The Roman period, however, was evidenced by the discovery of some coins from the period of the great empire, and a mosaic

Mosaic

Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...

 found in contrada Acquarone , belonging to a villa

Villa

A villa was originally an ancient Roman upper-class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became small farming compounds, which were increasingly fortified in Late Antiquity,...

.

On behalf of Motta Sant'Anastasia name there are several hypotheses. According to some scholars Motta (pre-Roman name) and Anastasia (Greek-Byzantine name) have similar meanings and indicate the nature of the place, the typical relief of the territory that has been characterized by the Neck and the surrounding area of Motta Sant'Anastasia. Later in the 12th–14th centuries, the two names were combined and citizens joined in devotion and worship of Sant'Anastasia, patroness of the town.

Motta, since the period of Dionysus

Dionysus

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

, tyrant

Tyrant

A tyrant was originally one who illegally seized and controlled a governmental power in a polis. Tyrants were a group of individuals who took over many Greek poleis during the uprising of the middle classes in the sixth and seventh centuries BC, ousting the aristocratic governments.Plato and...

 of Syracuse, has held a role of considerable importance as a stronghold of warning and defence.

This role grew during the Norman period with Ruggero d'Altavilla, who had built a tower to guard the entrance of the plain of Catania

Catania

Catania is an Italian city on the east coast of Sicily facing the Ionian Sea, between Messina and Syracuse. It is the capital of the homonymous province, and with 298,957 inhabitants it is the second-largest city in Sicily and the tenth in Italy.Catania is known to have a seismic history and...

 and protect the possessions of the Normans from Saracen incursions. The characteristics of the area, the remains of defensive structures and housing highlight the typical medieval town. "La Motta", in fact, consisted of an elevated place from where it was possible to control the entire territory. In England, around 1066, on "Motta" of places of conquest, the Normans built a wooden tower to defend the occupied territories. But in Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

, for the lack of forests, the Normans had to build their towers with basalt

Basalt

Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...

 stone. At "Motta" this construction was facilitated by the morphological conformation of the place, that it lends itself well to building the defensive outpost.

The first settlement outside the walls was the district Urnazza that, around 1500, was erected near the church of St. Anthony, then the place of burial for the neighborhoods "Urnazza" and "Matrix."
In 1526 the city became a fief of Antonio Moncada, Count of Adernò, and for four centuries, until 1900, the castle was intended to be a prison

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

.

In the second half of 1600 there were 560 inhabitants in Motta. Between the second half of 1700 and 1800 there was the beginning of the development of the structure of the town, with the birth of new neighborhoods, such as "Cross", "Well," "Sciddichenti". In 1798 the inhabitants of Motta became 1400 and in the census of 1831 arrived to 2181.
On 1 January 1820 the Court of Catania founded the town of Motta Sant'Anastasia.

The Neck

The Neck is the rock upon which the oldest part of Motta Sant'Anastasia was built, and it is of volcanic origin. A long and intense eruption dating back to 550,000 years ago caused the formation of a volcanic cone.
Over the centuries, due to the processes of erosion, the cone has acquired its current shape named "columnar rocks", a prismatic hexagonal and pentagonal section more or less regular, reaching a height of 65 meters.

Motta is one of the only example of "Neck" in Italy. Other cases are found in France (Le Puy of Velay) in Algeria (Tamanrasset-Ahaggar) and USA (Missouri, Montana, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico). The vegetation on the rock is made up of lichens and Indian fig (Opuntia Ficus Indica Mill).

The Norman tower (Dongione)

The Tower of Motta (or "Dongione") was built between 1070 and 1074 (it seems on the ruins of an Arabic tower) by the will of the great Count Roger the Norman. The massive tower with a rectangular plan (with dimensions: 21.54 x 9 x 17.10 m) is about 21 meters high and is a typical defensive structure of the late Middle Ages. The roof terrace retains almost intact battlements (22 merlons with rounded head).

The structure consists of three elevations. Only the first of these is still the original arched windows ogive (external) and at all sixth (inside). The other two square windows, on other levels, such as the current front door, go back to the 15th century.

The ground floor was designed for military housing. In it there are a number of holes for defence.