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HISTORY
 Zafferana
Etnea, summer and winter tourist resort for Etna, arises at 600 metres
above sea level, on the eastern slopes of Etna, the highest active
volcano in Europe.It’s the aim of tourists attracted by the spectacularity of its eruptions, as well as of so many holidaymakers in the summer period attracted by the artistic, monumental and cultural heritage, of hiking lovers through suggestive natural paths along the volcano and the numerous skiers in winter. It counts about 8,250 inhabitants; it in 23 Km far from Catania and 24 far from Taormina. Denominated the “Pearl of Etna”, it is immersed in the green of the Park of Etna and its position permits to admire an enchanting view that in the bright days sweeps from the coasts of Calabria to those of the gult of Syracuse. 
Zafferana is a town recently formed costituted in 1826 whit a decree
issued by Francesco I Kings of the two Sicilies. It derived from the
aggregation of the boroughs of “Zafarana”, “Ballo”,
“Rocca d’Api”, “Sarro” and “Pisano”,
and later about in 1830 of “Cancelliere” and “Fleri”
too. The birth of Zafferana is linked to the Priorate of St. James,
a medieval Benedictine monastery with cherch annexed. The monastery
was situated in the valley; we can reach it from a road entitled to
the town puts saint, that from the centre of the town puts into the
above medieval valley.The origins of the Priorate date back around the 12th century. Priorates were small partes of the territory owned by the Episcopal Mes where some chapels granted to the deserving monks for their maintaininig and for that of poor people were erected. 
The monks did their manastic exercises under the direction of an old
monk called “Prior”. The “Priorate of St. James”
was a rural priorate whose monks followed St. Benedect’s rule:
“ora et labora” that is the prayer and the work in the
fields. The exact location of the Priorate was in the Homonymous valley
uphill of Zafferana, in the vineyard denominated “Ursina”.In 1464 there was the end of the Priorate and the union with tha of Sant’Agata la Vetere. Today there aren’t any traces of the monastery, that was trasformed into a rural house, while it seems that the church existed until 1693, the year in which it was destroyed by the earthquake that hit so many Etna towns. The history of Zafferana begins in the first dacades of the 17th century, as we can deduce from a notorial document which speaks about the first borough of St. James that in its turn had been so called from the presence in it of cubicles where the hermits retired. Instead of these cubicles, in the same place, an aedicule dedicated to the Madonna of the Graces has been built . Small altar of Piano dell’Acqua  The small altar of Piano dell’Acqua, arises in the homonymous zone at tha foot of lava flow of 1991-1993 that seriously threatened the town of Zafferana touching lightly some rural houses. It was built by the belivers in 1994 as a thanksgiving sign for the escaped lava danger and in made u of a beautiful modern statue of the Madonna of the Providence, placed inside a holy enclosure limited –by a lava stone fence and boarders. |
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