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Of this important structure, called “Fondaco,” now non-existent, which stood along the present Via Vittorio Emanuele, next to the Misostraco, historical property of the Carafa princes of Roccella, there are records taken from various archives, including the State Archive of Reggio Calabria.
To better understand the subject, it is necessary to make a preamble. From the second half of the 1200s, there are frequent mentions of Roccellam et Sanctum Victorem, Roccella di S. Vittore or Roccella Sancti Victore. These mentions give us certainty of the existence of two distinct and distant communities: Roccella on the rock and S. Vittore on the coast.
There is evidence of the presence of the Fundaco in S. Vittore since the 1400s. Regarding the functions of the fundaco, it is useful to report the following quote: “Roccella, conversely, had ‘lo fundaco,’ and this was a structural element that, especially in the 14th-16th centuries, provided the community with dynamic factors and vitality that the agrarian framework would not have allowed. Fundaco was equivalent to customs, a commercial as well as fiscal point with a small nucleus of employees (customs officers, cashiers, weighers, unloaders, etc.)… In the 15th century, the ‘Fundaco’ of Roccella played a primary role in serving a wide area including the lands of the two dioceses of Gerace and Squillace. It depended on the district of Crotone and a surviving Aragonese register offers data for the years 1480-81 on the income and outcome of iron, ‘acciaro,’ and salt.“
More detailed is the description of this important structure, reported in the Apprezzo de La Roccella of 1707: “There is a large building called the fundaco, which consists of a composition of several houses with a little wooded land, it consists of a building much longer than wide, at the beginning towards noon there is said Fundaco, consisting of a large room for storing iron or other goods where the cashier, vice-secretary under which fundaco there is the subfundaco (of Badolato), of sea salt, and then follows the oven room where bread and wine are baked and sold, and then follows the stove of the same afterward follows another room for the cellar and afterward a general room for a stable with a capacity of about 12 posts, above the aforementioned there is a corridor with 4 rooms divided among themselves with roofed framework for use as accommodations, and afterward there is another large room uncovered but with the planks as flooring, and afterward follows another room roofed with a roof for use as a hayloft, which corresponds above the stable, and towards the east there is a little land with a capacity of about two stables where there is a celzo tree and several pomegranate trees. Said fundaco, shop, oven, stable, accommodation, and territory in said year 1707 and for several years before were rented by Carlo D. Errico for 70 ducats”.
Furthermore, in the Onciary Cadastre drawn up in the mid-1700s, among the assets of our Prince Carafa, we read: “there is the Fundaco, or Inn, which said useful Lord (the Carafa) maintains at the coast of said City for the lodging of Passengers…”
The Fundaco had economic and commercial importance and for at least four centuries played a vital and prestigious role throughout the maritime area between Reggio and Crotone. Regarding the correct and precise location, elders of the village report that their ancestors indicated the area ‘u Fundacu at the intersection of the current Via Nanni with Via Vittorio Emanuele; in support of this thesis, several acts from the 1800s are documented, which called the first part of Via Vittorio Emanuele “Strada Fundaco” or “Strada Priorato.”
Supporting this statement are several acts from the 1800s, which called the first part of Via Vittorio Emanuele “Strada Fundaco” or “Strada Priorato.”
The minutes of a council meeting of our Municipality are reported:
“In the year one thousand nine hundred twenty-nine, on the twenty-ninth day of July at 7:00 p.m. in Roccella Jonica and in the usual hall…
Present: Bottari Cav. Vincenzo Mayor, Alì Giuseppe, Alì Luigi Maria, Congiusta Vittorio, Falcone Vincenzo, Tassone Vincenzo, Minici Giuseppe di Vincenzo, Minici Avv. Filippo, Minici Giuseppe di Luigi, Cartolano Francesco, Ursino Raffaele, Bova Avv. Eugenio, Bova Domenico, Gerace Luigi and Rossetti Francesco.
Not present: Baudille Giuseppe, Iellamo Francesco, Cartolano Giuseppe, Lombardo Giuseppe.
… The President communicates the following question from the Ecc. Casa Carafa aimed at obtaining the elimination of any possible de facto use of the well existing in the Misostraco or Celano property for the population, which is useless and dangerous.
The President notes that with a record dated December 22, 1811, of the Agent Ripartitore Candida with which some properties were divided between the Ecc. Casa Carafa and the Municipality of Roccella Ionica, it was ordered that the Municipality continue to use the water for drinking for domestic use, in the siena existing in the Misostraco property, remembering that at that time there was no public well in the Marina district and therefore the few citizens who lived near the Misostraco property used the aforementioned water due to the traditional leniency of the Casa Carafa. He also recalls that during the painful contingency of the cholera epidemic that developed in this Municipality in 1887, the use of said water was expressly forbidden because it was harmful to public health…
… On the other hand, it is necessary for Via Vittorio Emanuele, which starts from Piazza San Vittorio and leads to the old City, to be reduced to a sufficient and equal width in the stretch where the building called Fondaco narrows it for a length of meters… and for a width of meters… so that it is reduced in that stretch to at least the width of the upper and lower stretch, and two vehicles can pass through it simultaneously without inconvenience and danger to persons…
Given this state of affairs, the administration seemed to have to accept the proposal of the Casa Carafa and negotiations were initiated to establish the price or consideration to be paid to the Municipality for this transfer of rights, long abandoned, and to put the Administration in a position to provide for the widening of Via Vittorio Emanuele without budgetary burden.
The conditions agreed upon are:
1) The Casa Carafa undertakes to allow the Municipality of Roccella Jonica to demolish the building called Fondaco, which is built in such a way as to prevent the continuity of Via Vittorio Emanuele, which is therefore narrowed to the point where passage for only one vehicle is not available, while this street is very busy because it originates in Piazza San Vittorio.
2) All the material obtained will go entirely to the Municipality.
3) The Casa Carafa, wishing to rebuild said building, must align it straight with the other buildings already of Capo Squadra Durante upstream, and to the sea with that owned by Mr. Gentile Nicola.
4) In consideration of these obligations assumed by the Casa Carafa, the Municipality expressly declares that it has no right to the Celano well existing on the Misostraco property…
… Considering that the Municipality has always studied how to free Via Vittorio Emanuele from the obstruction caused by the building called Fondaco and that it could never carry out such a joint aspiration due to the restricted conditions of the budget.
Considering that in the transaction in question, the Municipality has nothing to lose and everything to gain.
While expressing their gratitude to the Ecc. Casa Carafa for the transfer made.
By unanimous vote, it was resolved to accept the aforementioned transaction and to charge the Mayor with carrying out the procedure in contractual form”.
Consulting the Cadastral Map of Roccella dated 1875, the construction of the Fondaco, reported with number 1874, was finally located precisely, confirmed by documents in the State Archive of Reggio Calabria, and the perimeter was delimited with the placement of stepping stones to not forget this important page of Roccella’s history.