“The goldsmith and silversmith art in Messina was already practiced in the thirteenth century, when there operated Malamorte Perrone,” Aurifaber “beloved of Frederick II of Swabia, which was added in the following century, under Frederick III of Aragona, the production of Messina’s John of Saliceto.

In the second half of the ‘400, more than 100 goldsmiths and silversmiths were active in the city and in the’ 500 were distinguished, for the refinement of their works, Cesare Del Giudice and Luca Resaliba, grandson of Antonello da Messina.

But it is in the ‘600 that Messina lives the moment of maximum splendor with around 600 silversmiths and 280 shops, many concentrated in the ancient “Strada degli Argentieri”. And ‘the age of the family Juvarra with the father Peter (1609? -1705) and sons, Francesco, Sebastiano Eutichio, Francesco Natale and the great architect Filippo. But also of the D’Angelo, Donia, Frassica, Martinez, Rizzo, D’Angioia, Bruno, Dominic

Go out of their shops splendid masterpieces of silverware and jewelery: ciboria, reliquaries, monstrance, chalices, censers, buckets, crosses, statuettes, chandeliers, censers, dishes, all rigorously marked with the emblem of Messina, a sort of “QC “of the past the use of which is documented, for the first time, in 1393.

A tradition, therefore, the gold and silver craftsmanship, distinctive of Messina, which will continue until the nineteenth century and today has forwarded within Francesco Cosio , one of the artists more skilled, more refined and more equipped with creative ability and inventiveness. “