Tuna fishing at Vendicari has been documented since antiquity, and this continuity of use is evidenced by the remains of the Hellenistic-period plant and the tanks for the production of garum, the liquid sauce made from entrails and salted fish that was highly prized by the ancient Romans.
The Tonnara di Vendicari, also improperly called Bafutu, that is, formerly of Cape Bojuto, was a return tuna fishery, that is, where fishing took place after the tuna had spawned.
It is historically attested from 1655, when King Philip IV of Austria sold it to Simone Calascibetta, a judge of the royal court of Palermo, who became Baron with the purchase of the tonnare. The sale also involved three other tuna fisheries on the Syracuse coast, Marzamemi, Fiume di Noto and Santa Panagia.
From the second half of the 1600s, tuna fisheries in eastern Sicily were given in gabella to the Nicolaci family of the Princes of Villadorata. The Nicolaci family practiced fishing at Vendicari until the mid 1800s, due to increases in customs duties, competition from fishing in Iberian countries, and a decline in the catch.
In the early 1900s the tuna pass had a revival and the tuna trap activity gained new vigor. The Nicolaci family, having neglected the activity of the Vendicari tuna fishery in favor of the more productive Marzamemi tuna fishery, saw its right prescribed with the consequent extinction of the same.
In 1914 the Tonnara di Vendicari was given in a 30-year concession to the nobleman Antonino Modica di San Giovanni Munafò, former owner of the salt pans and tuna houses of Vendicari. In the wake of what was happening in other Sicilian tuna fisheries, an example being that of the Florios in Favignana, he initiated a process of innovation with a more industrial conception of tuna marketing, to keep up with the economic ferment that accompanied the “Belle Epoque” in the first half of the 20th century.
Starting with the reclamation of the malaria-infested area, in 1920 he invested large sums in the construction of a vast and modern factory for processing tuna in oil, dominated by the majestic chimney. The new plant was equipped with the most modern equipment for cooking and canning the catch, which enabled the marketing of a high quality product, as evidenced by the awards won, gold medals won in 1926 at the General International Exposition in Paris, France,Fermo and Porto San Giorgio, Marche. He also improved the living conditions of the Tonnara workers by building new housing and warehouses and even a school . Even this new and flourishing season of the Tonnara was not without its difficulties mainly due to major cyclical variations in the quantity of the catch. In addition, the two World Wars caused, damage to the structures in the first, and looting during the Allied landings in the second; events that fatally led to the final closure of the Vendicari Tonnara in 1944.
Fortunately, several administrative materials, photographs, other memorabilia and some of the factory’s equipment were brought in 1944 to Villa Casale Modica in San Giovanni where today the Heirs of Antonino Modica keep the farm more active than ever and have set up the “Historical Museum of the Tonnara of Vendicari” rare testimony that has come down to our days with memories in living memory.