which had so many young people educated in the difficult art of sailing. Between 1823 and 1825 the National Road (present-day State Route 18) was opened, while in 1830 the Fontana Vecchia was completed, the primary source of water in masonry placed at the service of the town, which today remains the oldest building existing in the city. On August 31, 1847, there was an attempt to bike renaissance in Villa Campo Calabro, Rosalì and Calanna. The initiative, fueled mainly by the Carbonari Villesi, which also participated in the young Rocco Larussa, who later became famous sculptor, failed due to the timely intervention of Intendant of Reggio, General Rocco Zerbi. On September 4, Reggio reinforcements were sent from the batteries to Pezzo, the attempted revolt was put down and the revolutionaries arrested. A Piece Villa and many were the Carbonari and many attempts were made to revolutionary insurrections in those years, as in all of Italy. All were harshly repressed by the Bourbons and there were several arrests and sentencing to life imprisonment, even against Rocco Larussa, together with his brothers Joseph and Ignatius. The heights between Piale and Cannitello were the scene of the clash between the troops of Garibaldi and the Bourbon generals Melendez and Briganti 23 August 1860 in those same days he landed on the beach in Santa Trada Porticello and a contingent of 200 partisans. After the Unification of Italy, the area, a strategic spot for the defense of the Straits, became a focal point in the national system of coastal defense with the construction of the Fort Beleño of Piale in 1888 or so, to make way for what was demolished Tower of Piraino, with the adjoining fort Murat. This happened after the project of fortifications of the Italian Government for the defense of the national territory, which began in the seventies and eighties of the nineteenth century. The Spinning Mills and Industrial Development Between the end of the eighteenth and the first half of the twentieth century Villa San Giovanni was particularly famous for the breeding of silkworms and its mills, of which now only a few ruins remain of the 56 that operated in ancient times. They constituted an important source of employment and livelihood for the population. The silk textile business was started in the last fifteen years of the eighteenth century through the work of Rocco Antonio Caracciolo, who already