The Almagià building

The facility was provided with three furnaces and eight furnace chambers, and it produced thousands of tons of sulphur ingots for the manifacture of matches, sulphuric acid, and powder for pharmaceutical use. Initially supplied with sulphur from the mines of Romagna and Marche, this was eventually replaced with Sicilian and Calabrian sulphur. The refinery was provided a twelve horses engine and only required thirty workers.

As both the production and the request increased, the factory was improved with a management building and large warehouses.

The refinery was active from November to June thanks to its three furnaces with eight furnace chambers, able to produce several tons of refined sulphur, destined to agricultural use and sold both on the national and international market.

By the end of the Belle Époque, the whole national production faced a crisis, because of the new and unsustainable american competition. The Almagià, however, not only did not cease its production, but it also increased it because of the sanctions on foreign importations imposed by the fascist regime. However, the refinery was severely damaged by the Allied bombings during World War II.

The developement of the chemical industry and the diffusion of the exchanges with the european market caused economic difficulties for the refinery, which was forced to reconvert several production lines to the production of pesticides and DDT.

The prohibition of this insecticide, however, signed the decline of the facility, which eventually closed in 1983, almost one century from its foundation.

A vast apartment complex was built around the area of the old factory. Purchased and restored by the city of Ravenna, the Almagià is now a creative and multidisciplinary hub thanks to the support of the municipality and the efforts of many local associations.