Metropolitan City of Messina Metropolitan City of Messina The Metropolitan City of Messina () is a metropolitan city in Sicily, Italy. Its capital is the city of Messina. It replaced the Province of Messina and comprises the city of Messina and other 107 municipalities ("comuni"). According to Eurostat the FUA of the metropolitan area of Messina had in 2014 277,584 inhabitants. It was first created by the reform of local authorities (Law 142/1990) and then established by the regional law 15 August 2015. The metropolitan city borders with the Metropolitan City of Palermo (the former Province of Palermo), the Metropolitan City of Catania (the
Sicily was the first part of Italy to be taken by general Belisarius, who was commissioned by Eastern Emperor Justinian I as part of an ambitious attempt to restore the whole Roman Empire, thereby uniting the Eastern and the Western halves. Sicily was used as a base for the Byzantines to conquer the rest of Italy, with Naples, Rome, Milan, and the Ostrogoth capital Ravenna falling within five years. However, new Ostrogoth king Totila drove down the Italian peninsula, plundering and conquering Sicily in 550. Totila, in turn, was defeated and killed in the Battle of Taginae by Byzantine general Narses