The first setting up of the market could date back to the Angevin era. A 1299 document, in the Aragonese era, reports the name macellum Porte Patitellorum. The Bocceria Grande or macellum magnum, in today’s Piazza Caracciolo, in the XIV century was the largest market for the slaughter and sale of meat: when in the XV century the meat market was moved to the today’s district of Monte di Pietà, Vucciria became a large fruit and vegetable market. It was called Bocceria Vecchia, to distinguish itself from the Nuova, dedicated to slaughterhouses, and it joined the Garraffello, the logia mercatorum, seat of the Genoese, Pisan and Catalan merchants. The district of Porta Patitelli assumed the current configuration of square of grascia, with all foodstuffs. In 1783 the viceroy Caracciolo, to whom the Vucciria square was headed, enriched the market with arcades and masonry shops. Today the market has been reduced, favoring the mainly evening and night activities of pubs and clubs, also historic, as the Taverna Azzurra, and of street food sellers.

The Market of Capo is at the top of the old Arab quarter of Schiavoni (Harat-as-Saqalibah). According to Ibn Hawqal it was one of the five districts that made up the village (rabat) outside the walls. As early as in 1184 Ibn Giubair refers to Capo as a neighborhood populated by Muslims dedicated to trade. In the XV century the market expanded to include also the slaughterhouses of Via Candelai and Discesa dei Giovenchi after the fruit and vegetable conversion of Vucciria. The new commercial expansion included Vicolo dei Giovenchi and Discesa delle Capre where the animals led to the slaughterhouse passed; Vicolo dei Sanguinazzai so named after producers of sausages made of animal blood; Piazzetta, Vicolo and Cortile dei Caldomai, so named after the presence of the sellers of cooked animal innards, the quarumari. In this square the Confraternita dei Macellai (Brotherhood of Butchers) built in 1589 its church dedicated to the Madonna delle Grazie. Finally, Vicolo delle Chianche was intended for butchers’s shops with the tree stump (chianca) on which the meat was sliced. It is still today an active and populated market.

The market of Ballarò, as evidenced by the Arab merchant Ibn Hawqal, was born in the X century in the area bordered by the mosque of Ibn Siqlab and the Quartiere Nuovo. Its name, according to Hawqal, derives from an agricultural village near Baida, Bahara, from which the merchandise came. Another hypothesis refers the name to the Arab term Segel-ballareth, seat of the fair. If a late XIII century archive document reports a macellum Ballaronis, another, dated 1327, mentions the platea pubblica de Ballarò, a market with all foodstuffs. The current appearance is almost the same as that of the original, and Ballarò remains the largest and liveliest popular market in Palermo.