Intangible Heritage of Aci Trezza: Historical Reconstruction of the Rodolico Shipyard and Its Living Human Treasure

In the seaside village of Aci Trezza, in Sicily, the Rodolico family's shipyard has been building boats since at least 1808. They use the "mezzo garbo" construction technique passed down orally. In 1960 the golden age for the shipyard began, Salvatore Martino, assisted by his sons and over thirty workers. He began building large wooden boats by applying a modification of his own invention to insert a third engine on the hull, applying a modification in the hull of his invention to insert a third engine on board. The Salvatore Martino represents the old tradition, with his own naivety he manages to relaunch the economy of the village. In 2018 he was recognized as a Living Human Treasure. Among the construction techniques of the shipyard, the use of the “Jupiter's dart” (an ancient Phoenician carpentry technique) also stands out. The importance of his work, and of his ancestors, was recognized by the inclusion in 2014 of their “trezzote wooden boats” in the REIS. The decorations present in the wooden boats, characteristic of the traditional Sicilian naval carpentry. The motivations that push to decorate the hulls are to be found in superstitions, which lead to elevate the boat to the status of a living being. The study examines literary works, paintings, engravings, videos, interviews, archive documents: to trace a continuity over time in support of the oral transmission of the wooden boat-building technique typical of Trezza. We are dealing with an intangible cultural heritage.