he numbers increased, and June 10, 1846, when I visited the island, the number of population was 85 people including the authorities.
To promote agriculture, the Royal Government provides these early settlers with some farming implements and food, but some of them still live in caves and other wooden houses. " (See Pietro Calcara, “Descrizione dell'Isola di Linosa” ["Description of the Isle of Linosa"], Palermo, 1851: 29-30). The contemporary studies also confirm some Calcara’s observations. F. Maurici, for example, stresses that "the smaller islands of Sicily were nearly all inhabited or at least seen in the Roman times, and with regard to the Middle Ages (twelfth century) Al Idrisi (1099-1165) mentioned among the islands Linosa, also called in Arabic ‘Namusah’”(See F. Maurici, “Le isole minori della Sicilia in età Bizantina” [“The small islands of Sicily in the Byzantine period”], in “Interconnections in the Central Mediterranaen”, edited by B. Bonanno-P. Militello, Palermo, 2008: 69-71)
