Description

View of the small port of Marzamemi (SR)

Marzamemi is a hamlet of the municipalities of Noto and Pachino, in the free municipal consortium of Syracuse in Sicily.

The village was born around the landing, which later became a fishing port, and developed thanks to this latter activity, still widely practiced today, also equipping itself with a tuna fishery, among the most important in Sicily. The tuna fishery of Marzamemi dates back to the time of Spanish domination in Sicily in 1600 under the reign of Philip IV, which in 1655 was sold to Baron Simone Calascibetta of Piazza Armerina.

The origin of the name Marzamemi is controversial: according to some it derives from the Arabic words marsa ("port", "roadstead", "bay") and memi ("small"), while according to the glottologist from Noto Corrado Avolio, in his Saggio di toponomastica siciliana, the toponym derives from the Arabic marsà al-ḥamāma, meaning "bay of turtledoves", "due to the abundant passage of these birds in spring".