Senate of Messina

The Senate of Messina was an ancient city institution, emblem of the privileges enjoyed by the city of the strait from the 15th to the 17th century. The civic assembly, to which the members of the city nobility belonged, but also of the neighboring fiefdoms, finished exercising its functions in 1678, when it was suppressed by the Spaniards.

Messina, already in prehistoric times, was on a route of high importance for Mediterranean traffic and, with the advent of the Romans, it became the main port of Sicily. In this period the city of Messina became Civitas foederata of Rome obtaining numerous privileges also in the maritime and commercial sectors.

With the Normans, and with Count Roger in particular, Messina and its port became even more important. In this period the city became the seat of the Consulate of the Sea, a tribunal made up of consuls freely elected by merchants and navigiorum primates which issued rules and ordinances for the regulation of relations between merchants, exempted the people of Messina from taxes, customs and other payments by sea and by land and established other commercial advantages which further enhanced traffic.

There were links between the senators of Messina or Catania, for example, who belonged to the same families: Francesco Bisagni (1568) had senatorial ancestors in both cities.

The Consulate of the Sea, the construction of a new arsenal and of the dock, the establishment of an admiralty with jurisdiction over the port, the coasts, the littoral and the shipbuilding, together with many other privileges granted to the city, therefore contributed to making it one of the most important ports in the Mediterranean, both from a military and commercial point of view.

The Senates were established by the Spaniards in the main cities of the island, from Palermo to Trapani, to Syracuse. To the Norman-type privileges, the Aragonese added others in the fourteenth century. With Alfonso the Magnanimous, the maximum privilege of the city of Messina was recognized: the Senate, which became one of the hubs of the city administration.

In 1507, crowded with merchants from all over the world, to negotiate the prices of goods in precarious and unsuitable places, such as the Palazzo della Dogana, the city sent an embassy to Spain to ask Ferdinand II of Aragon for a fixed headquarters to conduct these dealings. The monarch agreed and work began.

It was then decided to build the Loggia facing the sea, next to the turreted gate of the Dogana Vecchia, so called because it led to the Palazzo della Dogana, already a favorite meeting place for merchants. The works ended in 1527. After completing the one-story building, it was understood that, due to its centrality, that building could also be the seat of other bodies or institutions. For which, in 1589, a significant expansion of the building was decided, in which the seats of the Tavola Pecuniaria and the Senate were transferred.