Tonnara-Museum

Set up by the Tonosolemare Milazzo Association, it is housed inside the splendid Milazzo Castle, in the building of the Benedictine Monastery that overlooks the stupendous panorama of the Milazzo Tuna and the Aeolian Islands, and was created to ensure the historical memory of tuna fishing that no longer exists.

In fact, this small treasure chest preserves the memory of the activity of the Tonnaroti in the seven Tonnare (tuna fishing grounds) of the Milazzo peninsula, who used the fishing systems and preserved the centuries-old seafaring traditions of the ancient Mediterranean populations, benefiting from the cyclical return of fish to their places of origin to derive work and food for their people.

The museum is divided into two parts, one dedicated to fishing and one to processing. The narration to visitors is made rich and comprehensible with the help of a virtual reconstruction on video, historical footage of the last years of activity and period photos, all supported by miniature realisations of the tuna nets at sea, two of those active in Milazzo in the past, of undoubted historical and artistic value.

Finally, making the museum offer unique, as it is not replicable in terms of content, is a large exhibition of original tools and equipment recovered during the period of the closure of the tuna processing factory at Tono di Milazzo in the mid-1960s.