The island of Linosa, with its volcanic origin and characteristic black color, is covered by low vegetation, from which the bright colors of the typical houses of the town located on the south-west corner stand out. It has an area of 5.3 square kilometers and a population of about 500 people dedicated largely to agriculture (capers, lentils). Cultivated terraces have been reclaimed from the volcanic mountains, whose highest peaks are Monte Vulcano (195 meters) in the south, Monte Rosso (186 meters) in the north, and Monte di Ponente (107 meters) in the west, plummeting down to the sea. The coasts are rocky, low and black, with thin spikes and studded with numerous rocks. Beautiful waters surround the island. A shoal covered by shallow waters can be found approximately 400 meters east of Punta Calcarella; another near the coast of Punta Arena Bianca, 220 meters west from the Old Port.
Rai1 : Linea Blu
LinosArt - Internationational Festival of Art (on September)
www.linosart.wordpress.com.it
The life of the island and its inhabitants
History
The island of Linosa has been called, over the centuries, by different names. Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD) speaks of Aegusa and Aethusa just as you would for synonyms indicating a single island, while the boards of the Egyptian geographer Claudius Ptolemy (160 d. C.) show these names as belonging to two different islands. Francis Maurolico (1494-1575) calls it Lanuresia, Domenico Fazello (1498-1570) Lenusa, Gaullier (1821) calls it Larniusa while others give it the name of Algusa. Knight Bernardo Maria Sanvinsente, captain and first governor of the Pelagie Islands, in a report written in 1849, eventually calls it Linosa.
It is believed that the island has been inhabited by various populations, and among them the Romans at the time of the Punic Wars, as confirmed by the presence of 150 tanks built for the collection of rainwater and located close to the slopes where the lava surface is smooth. The tanks demonstrate the use of the island by the Romans as a strategic base for their expeditions against Carthage from 264 to 164 BC. The Roman domination was followed probably followed by others such as the Phoenicians, Arabs and Saracens.
From the IX to the XV century there has been no news on Linosa, until in 1530 the king of Naples, Alfonso V of Aragon granted to John de Caro, the barons of Lichtenberg, the fief of Lampedusa and Linosa. For nearly three centuries the island remained uninhabited and served as a port for Mediterranean piracy. Captain Smith, who arrived on the island in the early nineteenth century, claimed to have found it deserted. It is only in 1839 that the Bourbon government decided to colonize the islands of Lampedusa and Linosa (which had both become wild and uninhabited forest), that Prince Tomasi di Lampedusa had sold to King Ferdinand II for the price of 12,000 ducats. An announcement was issued among the citizens of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to find volunteers willing to move to the island with the promise of the use of all the arable land and the annuity (that lasted fifty years) of three taris a day (Arab and Norman coins worth about 40 cents). A group of thirty people, families of skilled artisans (including the La Russa, Cavallaro, and Remirez family) from Ustica, Pantelleria and Agrigento decided to go. They arrived in Linosa on April 25th 1845, accompanied by Knight Bernardo Maria Sanvinsente, who took possession of the island with the title of Governor. Among the first settlers were also Menelaus Calcagno, a deputy health who acted as a mayor, a Priest, Pasquale Amato, and a doctor, Pasquale Bonadonna.
For those first occupants life was certainly not easy due to the lack of water sources, the difficulty of producing what was necessary for their personal and family life, and the inability to communicate with Sicily. And yet the population slowly grew, thanks to marriages between family members and the arrival of others, to touch the current figure which is around four hundred and fifty units. From the tales of the elders who still have vivid memories of their grandparents emerges a life led among huge sacrifices by these people, who showed great courage and an enviable ability to adapt.
Finally, at the beginning of the sixties, Linosa begins to change. The first scientific and technical innovations start to arrive from Sicily, even if with considerable delay, accompanied by the discovery, by the first tourists, of this wild and generous land, so close and yet so far from the clamor and progress of the”mainland". The first telephone was installed in 1963, the first power plant and public network, run by the SELIS (Electric Industrial Company of Sicily), on February 23rd. In 1968 the first Kindergarten, named after Pietro Tavani, was inaugurated. The same building would later also host the Elementary and Middle School. In 1973, SELIS activates a desalination plant which, with its 50 cubic meters of drinking water provided daily, solved to a great extent the demand for water supply. Until that date, in fact, the inhabitants of Linosa had as a single resource the rainwater collected in tanks, that provided just enough for home use, while the fields were suffering from the lack of rainfall, not enough to ensure the already modest harvests.
To radically change the habits of the citizens of Linosa, comes in 1976 the RAI (Italian Public Television), which installs a repeater for the first and the second channel, and four years later, Fininvest, with a repeater for Channel 5, Italia 1 and Rete 4. Piers are built in Scalo Vecchio, Pozzolana west and Mannarazza (all inaugurated in 1984), so that on February 16th 1985, for the first time, the "Paolo Veronese" ferry docked for the first time at the pier of Scalo Vecchio. Up until then, the ships would anchor far from the seashore and the transport of passengers and goods happened through large boats. Overall, the island has nowadays acquired a decent life quality, although much remains to be done.
Arts and Cinema
Giovanni Confortini Artist in Linosa.
After finishing school and working for years as an accountant in a few of Brescia’s private companies, Confortini has always been passionate about art and painting. 1989 is the year in which he discovers the “trompe l'oeil” reading interior design magazines. He is fascinated and starts to test his artistic abilities, achieving his best in painting. Soon, what started as a hobby turns into actual work as a result of advices and work requests from friends who are themselves fascinated by his growing skills and creative imagination.
The sensitivity for details is the key element for the work of the artist, who can see beyond his subject, capturing the spectators in a deception, given the hyper-reality of his paintings, or stimulating metaphysical sensations.
Beauty animates the art created by Confortini. The polished use of color, the balance in the composition that reminds of older times, the harmony, always make the final result satisfying to the spectators ‘eye.
The main technique is acrylic on canvas or canvas panels of various sizes.
Due to his interest in light and color, and true to his free spirit, as well as for a search of the Mediterranean, the artist has moved from his gallery in Brescia to the most pristine islands in the south of Italy (the Pelagie), where he is focusing on an “en plein air” experience that would be impossible at other latitudes.
www.giovanniconfortini.it
Terraferma A movie by Emanuele Crialese.
It’s the story of an island in Sicily, inhabited by fishermen. Barely touched by tourism, which is slowly beginning to change the islanders’ behavior and mentality, and at the same time disturbed by the arrival of illegal immigrants and by the new rule according to which they should not be rescued: a sharp contrast to the unwritten law of the sea, which instead compels to help. A family of fishermen with its old, authoritative patriarch, a young woman who fights for a better life, and a young man who, amidst all that, strives to find his way. All faced with a decision to make, which will possibly affect the rest of their lives.
The director Emanuele Crialese talks about “Terraferma” (www.marieclaire.it)
Pictures of the movie premiere in Linosa (repubblica.it)
68th Venice Film Festival (review by Giulia Bramati)
Food
For information about where to enjoy Linosa’s specialties please refer to the "Linosa’s Restaurants" guide
Climate-Flora-Fauna
The climate is the main problem of the inhabitants of Linosa. More than in any other country, life, employment opportunities and earnings are affected by the weather conditions. Set at a longitude between 35° and 36° parallel, and a latitude between 12° and 13° meridian, 165 km north from the African continent (Capo Africa - Mahdia), 167 km south of Sicily (Licata), 121 km south-east from Pantelleria, and 118 kilometers west of Gozo (Malta) the island benefits from the Mediterranean climate, certainly the most conducive to a long vacation with warm summers that reach up to 40 degrees in the shade but mitigated by the sea breeze, and mild winters during which the temperature rarely falls below 10° Celsius with clear, blue skies.
The flora includes more than two hundred significant species. The bushes are almost exclusively xerophile, with formations that consist mainly of Pistacia lentiscus, an evergreen shrub 1 to 2 meters high. From May to August, Thyme (thimus capitatus) an aromatic and medicinal plant, Maritime Cineraria (Senecio cineraria) and Poppy Sands (glacium flavum) are in full bloom, coloring the slopes of Monte Vulcano and Monte Bandiera with their vibrant shades.
On large areas of the coast between Arena Bianca and Pozzolana di ponente from July to October, sea lilies (pancratium marittimum), one of the most ornamental plants of Mediterranean, bloom. Growing all over the island is the caper (Capparis spinosa), a plant of great beauty from which you eat the buds that are harvested in the summer. The flowers have white or pink petals but the bloom only lasts from evening to morning.
Very common are wild tobacco (Nicotiana glauca) a shrub with long, yellow flowers, ginestrino (Lotus cytisoides) and prickly asparagus (Asparagus acutifolius), whose berries have well-known diuretic and sedative properties. In spring, the countryside is enriched with coats of yellow matricale (chrysantheum coronarium) of coronarium matricale (chrysantheum coronarium var discolor) and malva (canatera arborea). Also present throughout the island and used for reforestation are the acacia (Acacia longifolia) with its golden-yellow flowers, the tamarisk (tamarix African), and the mioporo (myoporum island), an evergreen shrub with white flowers.
Remarkable, also, is the presence of mosses and lichens of the xantoria and roccella families. Even a simple inshore dive in the island’s exceptionally clear waters is enough to admire the beautiful astrydes calycularis with its brilliant orange color and yellow, blue and red sponges.
The fauna of the island is very interesting for the presence of endemic species such as the lizard filfolense (podarcis filfolensis var. Algusae) and a particular variety of skink, the chalcides Diomeda, both of which perfectly adapted to the lava environment. Rare and interesting species of beetles and diptera are also present in the island, while the almost total lack of bees and wasps makes pollination of some plants virtually impossible.
Birdlife is interesting as well, as the island is a nesting site for many seabirds such as berta minore (puffinus puffinus), the herring gull, the gheapo, the warbler, the passera mattuggia, the fanello and the assiolo (Otus scops), a small insectivore owl, colloquially referred to as “cuccareddru”. A lot of species also transit as the island is located on one of the main routes of migration.
Linosa is an exceptional point of observation for the Cory's shearwater, a bird that spends its life in the open sea and comes back to the shore only during the breeding season. Shearwaters feed on small fishes, shrimps and squids. They are the real sailors of the sea, going around for long distances, almost sliding on the water, alternating a slow glide with deep wing beats. During the winter they’re found in the Sicilian Channel and the Atlantic, and return to land to nest in the months of February and March. In April, a colony usually counts over 10,000 couples and, after the courtship ritual before mating, the laying of the eggs takes place between May and June. Shearwaters use natural cavities or bushes as nests, and the island of Linosa offers optimal conditions for these birds’ nesting. The incubation of the only egg laid by each couple, cared to by both male and female for 8-10 consecutive days, has a duration of approximately 54 days. Hatching usually takes place between the 10th and 20th of July. The chick, is taken care of by either one of the parents day and night during the first week, then as it grows older is left alone during the day and only visited at night when the parents return to the nest to feed it with an oily liquid consisting of a protein concentrate of semi-digested fish mixed with a substance produced by the parents themselves. In Linosa, for the whole duration of the breeding season it is possible to observe, just before sunset, the formation of large flocks near the coast. They reach the nesting areas in the afternoon, but until dusk the entire colonies gather at sea, near the cost, and come ashore only when darkness falls. If the moon is full or nearly so, the entry is further delayed until its sunset, and the few that come back do not emit any sound. The return on the ground takes place when it is completely dark, accompanied by a distinctive sound, a lament like the cry of a newborn, sang with more penetrating tones by the males and with a more raucous tone by the females. Both males and females sing during the darkest, moonless night, but they become very silent at its rising. At dawn, they migrate towards the sea. From the characteristic song of shearwaters originated the legend according to which these birds are the reincarnation of the souls of Diomedes’ comrades, condemned to wander in search of their leader who died in battle.
In 1991, Linosa has been included in the regional plan for parks and natural reserves as a natural reserve, with an area of about 81 acres, also for the protection of the turtle “Caretta Caretta”, or loggerhead turtle which, of the seven species of sea turtles existing, is the only one to nest regularly in the Mediterranean, along with Chelonia mydas, or green sea turtle. The Caretta Caretta can reach one meter in length and a maximum weight of 200 kg, has a reddish- brown carapace and females attain sexual maturity between ten and thirty years. Usually roam the seas but a few weeks after coupling come back to the ground to nest, usually to the same beach where they were born, expertly moving as if they’ve always known the place. Under cover of darkness, females reach the beach and, after a moment of stillness as if to catch their breaths after the long march, they start to dig a circular ditch in the sand with their legs, as if they were four blades coming out from under the carapace. Slowly, as their legs work in sync and their eyes water to remove the sand, the turtles turn the ditch into a deep hole about two feet and then start to lay their eggs, from eighty to a hundred, as big as ping pong balls. After the deposition, the female covers the hole with sand, removes any trace of the nest’s presence and quickly backs into the water, leaving the heat of the sun to complete the incubation. After about two months, the little ones come out of their shells. They are just five centimeters long and yet, all working together, they manage to fight their way to the surface. They too are waiting in the dark to reach the sea. Only 1 in 1000 will be able to reach adulthood, the others will become easy prey for fish and seabirds.
In August 2000 the Center for Information and Retrieval of Sea Turtles was opened, in the framework of the Caretta Caretta project supported by the European Commission's LIFE Nature program. The center, in addition to housing a permanent exhibition on sea turtles, provides housing tanks and a veterinary laboratory, this is because you often have to intervene to treat sick or injured specimens that are recovered with the help of local fishermen.
Sea Turtle Rescue Centre of Linosa (CRTM)
The “Hydrosphera” association studies and protects sea turtles in Linosa since 1994. Linosa is one of the three most important nesting sites for Caretta Caretta and in the summer, on its black sand beach framed by the beautiful bay of Cala di Pozzolana di Ponente, the fascinating ritual of spawning and the birth of the small turtles repeats itself. Linosa’s CRTM is one of the most important in the Mediterranean for the number of specimens taken care of, and numerous studies have been conducted in collaboration with several Italian Universities. The beautiful island waters are also home to at least four species of cetaceans, that CRTM began monitoring in 2011; bottlenose dolphins, striped dolphins, Risso's dolphins, and common dolphins are all the species sighted so far, and the subject of the first study on cetaceans started on the island.
If you wish to participate in an eco volunteering campus or a CRTM course, you will live a unique experience and contribute to the conservation of nature.
To learn more:
www.marineturtle.it
info@marineturtle.it
Facebook