The first stop to start your adventurous tour to discover Gratteri from its origins is to find you in the Main Square in front of the Mother Church, where it is now located in a small house, a stone shell that would probably contain the most ancestral history of the ancient village “of the craters“.
According to the ancient descriptions, Gratteri would take its name from some craters of limestone rocks present in its territory as that of the Grattàra Cave. These are jumps and cliffs strongly marked by phenomena of karstic origin that have given rise to both epigee forms (polje, doline, swallows) and hypogeous (abisso Ciacca, pozzo Puraccia, grotta dei Panni, grotta Cula, grotta Fonda, grotta Stefàna, grotta Grattàra), relevant from a geological and speleological point of view.
In fact, the source of the square, called the Nymph, could be linked by similarity and meaning to that of the Grattàra Cave, formed in the millennia by perennial dripping of waters considered purgative and restorative and from which probably the country would take its name: “oppidum a Cratere ob perennem stillantem aquam celebri dictum” (R. Pirri, op. cit., Vol.II, p. 829, Palermo 1644).
The Grattàra Cave is an integral part of the history and folklore of the place, because it is the seat of the Befana (“a Vecchia Strina”), protagonist of an ancient fairy tale. As the legend goes, in fact, in that fairy-tale cave, there would be a single, stubborn woman who kept the cave, which on the last night of the year, evanescent and invisible, came down from the chimneys in the houses of the gratteresi to fill the socks with gifts for the little ones.
This ancient story would be of significant anthropological interest because it would be linked to the ritual exchange of gifts, masks and rites during the winter period to refound the cycle of the year and with it the life of the community.
The legendary presence of a female entity, guardian of a cave, and a source of regenerative water, would in fact refer to the symbolic horizon of a millenary myth that could be linked to a primordial place of indigenous worship of According to ancient peoples, they were represented by Nymphs that embodied the spirit of the place: the “Genius Loci”.
Around that fountain we will tell you a popular story, that of a virgin of the place who was allowed to die for being depicted naked in the stone. It is said that this fountain was once surmounted by a Nymph, a statue of a completely naked woman who made water gush from her breasts.
Then, crossing the village, we will head towards the Park of the Grattàra Cave, at the origins of the name Gratteri.
It is accessed from the plateau of San Nicola for a winding path, but quite practicable that winds in a serpentine in the middle of a lush pine forest, to the small massif called “lazzu di vuoi” (bed of oxen) and there, for a small flat stretch, you arrive at the Grattàra Cave located about 300 m from the village of Gratteri, whose name has probably contributed to give the name to the town.
In this regard, the historian Passafiume in sec. XVII wrote “… that there is a stone crater, placed in the centre of the cave shaped with splendid natural art; this boulder has in its inner part a basin of sixteen feet high and ten wide, whose summit is empty as a crater formed by the perennial silkworm of the waters” “… che c’è un cratere di pietra, posto al centro della grotta foggiata con splendida arte naturale; questo masso ha nella parte interna una conca di sedici piedi di altezza e dieci di larghezza, la cui sommità è vuota come un cratere formato dallo stillicidio perenne delle acque” (Passafiume B., op. cit., 1645).
The access to the fountain is made by a small natural staircase built by man’s feet over millennia. In the crevices of its external cornicioni, however inaccessible, where grow wild elk and pistachio, nesting thousands of swallows, which with their garrulous towards, make more delicious the sojourn of him who visits the other in spring.
Climbing even higher, we will arrive at the extreme slopes of the Pizzo di Pilo, at over 1000 meters altitude, from where you can embrace a landscape with an indescribable panorama.
For more details on the excursion and the route map, please visit the following link: eventi.visitgratteri.com