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
powerful earthquake in the Strait of Messina
1908 Messina earthquake
Villa San Giovanni