Legend has it that around the year 1100, during the Arab domination of Sicily, a young woman from Palermo fell in love with an Arab who was in the city during a trip and was reciprocated. Their love story continued until the man decided to confess to her that he already had a wife and children in the East and that he would soon have to leave again to return to them. Blinded by anger and jealousy, the girl killed the man, cutting off his head and using it as a vase to plant basil. Legend tells a very curious detail, it seems that in that "vase" the basil grew extremely luxuriant and that the neighbors were very intrigued by the young woman's fortune, so much so that they soon began to have the artisans produce head-shaped vases of blackberry, to be used on balconies for ornamental plants.