Sulfur mining in Sicily

After the peace and Conservative Order of 1815 various French companies also began their activities in the area due to the development of production and demand for sulfuric acid, which had a further propelling effect on Sicilian ore mining.

[4] Various contingent reasons, including overproduction, meant that from 1830 onward the sulfur industry had ups and downs with rather sustained price fluctuations also due to competition from pyrites mined and processed locally in Central Italy, whose transportation cost was lower.

However, this choice did not lead to the hoped-for results, as market prices rose excessively, the industrial initiatives were not followed up, and there was stiff opposition from Great Britain, which even threatened to seize Sicilian ships, so in 1846 the agreements to that effect were revoked.

Also reviving the demand for sulfur was the serious spread of a plant disease, powdery mildew; a parasitic fungus of the vine affected vineyards throughout Europe, devastating them.

This fact led the city to assume a preeminent role in the industry,[12] because it lowered to almost half the unit price of transportation, which until that time had been accomplished by means of carramatti, a kind of cargo wagons pulled by sturdy draft horses.

[15] The industry had entered a crisis in the 1890s and the Anglo-Sicilian company had shifted trade to the Port of Licata and Porto Empedocle where costs were lower, causing serious repercussions on the Catanese economy.

[5] The subsequent resumption of American industrial production again raked all markets burning the competition with low prices, despite Italian protectionism at both the central and regional government levels (which in 1962 had created the Ente Minerario Siciliano for the purpose).

[17] Beginning in 1975 various laws produced the gradual closure of the Musala, Zimbalio, Gaspa La Torre, Baccarato, Giangagliano, Floristella, Grottacalda, and Giumentaro mines to name the largest; today none remain in operation.

[20] The mining methods, however, always remained antiquated; this fact combined with the extreme exploitation of the miners' labor were often the cause of terrible accidents[20] throughout the working period to the present day.

Combined with the antiquated and rudimentary methods maintained by both foreign and Sicilian companies to avoid costly investments in infrastructure, it resulted in very frequent serious accidents with enormous human losses.

Some of the most severe known events are: Sulfur was transported until almost the end of the 19th century by animal-drawn wagons to the embarkation landings located mostly on the Mediterranean coast of Sicily between Licata and Porto Empedocle.

It was not until 1902, following the conclusions of a special Royal Commission and a law passed later that year, that the mode of construction and financing of Sicily's inland lines was defined, but these could only be built economically and with a narrow gauge.

However, the construction of the actual railroad network did not begin until after the state had redeemed the Rete Sicula,[27] and so after 1906 were built: Having been for more than two centuries one of the roughest but most widespread activities in Sicily has made the sulfur mine one of the subjects most touched upon by poets, writers, novelists and storytellers.

Try, try to go down the crags of those stairs, – writes a citizen of Regalpetra, – visit those immense voids, that maze of comings and goings, muddy, exuberant with pestiferous exhalations, lit gloomily by the sooty flames of oil candles: sultry, oppressive heat, curses, a rumbling of pickaxe blows, reproduced by the echoes, everywhere naked men, dripping with sweat, men breathing laboriously, weary young men, dragging themselves with difficulty up the lurid stairs, young boys, almost children, to whom would be more suited the toys, the kisses, the tender maternal caresses, lending their slender bodies to the thankless labor to then increase the number of the deformed wretches.

The dead man's paycheck was taken away, because, to die, he had not finished his day; and the five hundred miners were taken away an hour's pay, that in which they had suspended their work to free him from the boulder and bring him, from the bottom of the sulphur-bearing pit, into the light.

The ancient sense of justice was touched, the centuries-old despair found, in that fact, a visible symbol, and the strike began.On September 13, 1895, the premiere of the play "La Zolfara" by Giuseppe Giusti Sinopoli was held in Catania.

The park also includes the Grottacalda sulfur mine and the fine palace of the Baron of Floristella, Agostino Pennisi, an entrepreneur who made his home there with his family.

With two decrees of 1994 and 1996, the Sicilian Regional Department of Cultural and Environmental Heritage sanctioned the ethno-anthropological interest of the disused sulfur mines of Lercara Friddi.

The agglomeration of refining and milling plants and smokestacks occupied an area equal to the entire historic center, testifying to the importance of the sulfur sector to the Catania economy at the time.

3067 was presented on the initiative of deputies Lomaglio, Aurisicchio, Buffo, Burgio, Burtone, Cacciari, Crisafulli, Daro, Di Salvo, Dioguardi, Fumagalli, Maderloni, Orlando, Rotondo, Samperi, Spini, Trupia, and Zanotti for the Establishment of the National Geominerary Park of the Sulfur Mines of Sicily;[29] the decree lapsed with the end of the legislature in 2008.