of December 28, 1908, an event that devastated the entire area of the Strait, the city of Reggio and Messina, and that made many victims of villagers. Villa counted 367 deaths out of 4,325 inhabitants, 8% of the population; Acciarello, 299 of 2,125 (14% of the population); in Piece, 32 of 552 (5%). In total, 698 deaths in the town of Villa San Giovanni of a population of about 7,000 (according to the data of the census of 1901). There were then more than 500 injured. Economic losses were incalculable: the whole town was destroyed, together with the port with its new infrastructure, the station and the rail, and most of the mills, while others were severely damaged; all the churches and public buildings collapsed. The district that was the most devastated was the Immaculate Conception. There were very few buildings that resisted the earthquake. Reconstruction began the following year and definitively ended only in the early fifties, with significant changes in the urban setting of Villa. The first buildings to be rebuilt as early as 1909 were in fact the mills to enable resumption of industrial activity and provide employment in the area devastated by the earthquake. The tenements, churches and other public buildings were housed in inferior buildings, pending the completion of the new works. In the early thirties the city center was largely rebuilt, as evidenced by the Municipal Palace (Palazzo San Giovanni), the Central Elementary School, the Church of the Immaculate Conception and the many private buildings dating back to the late twenties. Subsequent buildings were influenced by fascist architecture, as evidenced, for example, by the austere geometric shapes of the building of the railway station designed by Roberto Narducci. The project of the Great Reggio Vintage photo of the historic Via Garibaldi The Grand Reggio project In 1927 the municipality of Villa San Giovanni, together with Cannitello and other municipalities in the district for a total of fourteen, was conurbated to the municipality of Reggio Calabria following the Grande Reggio project, aimed, according to the promoters, at creating a single Calabrian town area on the shore of the Strait of Messina. But the hardships for the Villese population were notable, as the centralization of the municipal offices in the capital involved additional work (then burdensome and lengthy) for the simplest administrative acts. In addition, the loss of administrative autonomy would have made the Villa identity