Villa San Giovanni () is a port city and a municipality in the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria of Calabria, Italy. In 2010 its population was 13,747 with a decrease of 2.5% until 2016 and in 2020 an increase of 3.7% . It is an important terminal of access to Sicily and is also known for being the location of several police films. Geography It is located on the coast of Strait of Messina, facing the city of Messina across the narrow strait and its port is the main ferry terminal for Sicily. Punta Pezzo, located in the municipality of Villa, represents the point of greatest proximity between the Calabrian shore and the Sicilian side: this has made the city the ideal place for crossing the Strait. Punta Pezzo contains a notable lighthouse. There are many neighborhoods: Acciarello, Cannitello, Pezzo and Piale. History On 28 December 1908 a powerful earthquake in the Strait of Messina killed 698 people in Villa San Giovanni, almost 10% of the then population. The last decades of the sixteenth century saw the rise in the small coastal villages, such as Cannitello and Pezzo, inhabited mostly by sailors and fishermen. Further inland, at the current center of the Villa, there was a village called Fossa. Later came Piale and Acciarello. The coastal repopulation accelerated the eighteenth century progressive decline of Fiumara di Muro, until the administrative reform implemented in 1806 by Giuseppe Bonaparte definitively abolished the feudal system and the Lordship of Fiumara disappeared. On 8 January 1676 he fought a naval battle between the Dutch and the French fleet in the waters of the Strait in front of Punta Pezzo, with a victorious outcome for the French. The cannons found at Pezzo in 1902 probably date back to this battle. The plague of 1743 and the fire pit In 1743, there was an unfortunate incident involving the small village of Fossa. In March of that year, a Genoese ship loaded with wheat from Patras had brought the plague to Messina (that was the last major outbreak of plague in Western Europe). The Health Council of the city of Reggio Calabria had ordered all boats not to approach the port of Messina and instituted guard duty on the coast to enforce the ordinance. The Health Council of Messina denied the epidemic, so as not to interrupt the trade with the continent; however once the alarming news