Taormina
Pebble tombolo island, nature reserve, Lady Trevelyan's gardens, cove snorkeling.
Photograph · Isola Bella
At a glance
Names, makers, dates, and context before the story opens up.
| What it is | Nature |
|---|---|
| Where | Taormina, Sicily |
| Known for | Pebble tombolo island, nature reserve, Lady Trevelyan's gardens, cove snorkeling |
The story
A pebble causeway appears and disappears with the tide between Taormina's beach and its tiny wooded island. Once an English noblewoman's garden, Isola Bella is now a nature reserve ringed by the coast's clearest water.
Each statement below is linked to the record or institution that supports it.
Isola Bella is a small island in the Bay of Taormina, between Capo Sant'Andrea and Capo Taormina. It is a component of the Riserva Naturale Orientata Isola Bella, a protected-area system that also includes Capo Sant'Andrea and Capo Taormina.1
The reserve is an oriented nature reserve established by D.A. 619 of 4 November 1998. The regional record says Isola Bella had already been declared, in 1984, a historical-artistic monument of particular merit; it was included among Sites of Community Interest in 2005. These are protection designations, not an individual UNESCO inscription.1
The regional protected-area record lists the University of Catania as the reserve's managing body. The regional archaeological park separately identifies the Museo naturalistico di Isolabella and Villa Caronia within its managed heritage system. Reserve management and museum operation are related but must not be conflated.1,2,3
The regional record describes the reserve as a coastal ecological corridor in an intensely urbanized Taormina setting. It identifies terrestrial flora and fauna, marine birdlife, rocky-bottom fish habitats, Posidonia oceanica meadows and submerged caves as parts of the wider reserve context.1
The regional park history records a sequence of private ownership: the island was donated to the mayor Pancrazio Cirpioti in 1806, bought by Florence Trevelyan in 1890, then acquired by the Bosurgi brothers in 1954. The Sicilian cultural authority acquired it in 1990 after auction attempts. This is ownership history, not a claim that the island retains a single-owner private-villa identity today.2
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