The modern town of Mazara del Vallo lies on the south-western coast of Sicily. Created as a Phoenician outpost, it became a border post lying between the Phoenician and Carthaginian entrepôt at Motya/Marsala and the westernmost Greek colony at Selinunte. The medieval Arab conquerors appreciated its proximity to North Africa, and thus it became a major political and cultural centre as well as a working harbour. Its historic centre contains a number of typical Arab-Norman Sicilian treasures.
Its modern fortunes have not been so kind, as it has suffered economic decline and troubling social issues. Yet it remains a major fishing port and recent immigration from North Africa means the old traditional centre of the town, the Casbah, has a Berber and Muslim population again. Investment by regional governments has spruced up the city and it proudly displays one of Sicily’s most remarkable ancient treasures: the Dancing Satyr.
The Church of St Egidio is a solid, blocky Arab-Norman style building dating to the 14th century, capped by two traditional red domes. Below the crossing, on a special anti-seismic base, rather pointless in view of the ancient stone vaulting arching overhead, is the lone bronze sculpture of the dancing satyr. The town’s fishermen were responsible for its recovery in 1998, when it became tangled in their nets and was hauled aboard.
