| higways | |
| state roads | |
| main roads | |
| railways |
Index:
The Province of Catanzaro.
The isthmus area and Squillace.
The Poro
The Serre
The Marchesato
The Catanzarese Sila or Sila Piccola
| Ente Provinciale per il Turismo | The Province of Catanzaro |
Testo di Emilia Zinzi. |
|
|
Index: |
Catanzaro |
|
View from South West |
| Catanzaro lies in the middle of the region, between the extreme southern slopes of the Sila, and the lower slopes of the Serre. It is here that the two coastlines begin their extensive but gentle inward curves, like two sickles laid close together facing outwards, where the Ionian and the Tyrrhenian Seas press into the two coasts, at this point seperated by no more than thirty kilometres; one day's walk in the time of Strabo, and these days linked by a fast modern road. |
|
Catanzaro stands high on a great towering rock at the extreme end of the
Sila on the eastern side of the isthmus. This great rock on wich the city stands has steep
sides and towers up between the two valleys of the Musofalo and the Fiumarella. Facing you is the Bay of Squillace, to the |
| side there is the isthmus that leads to the Tyrrhenian, and behind a
sequence of hills that culminate in the Sila Plateau. Situated in a position close to both sea and mountains, in the heart of an area distinguished by its mountainous masses (the Serre, the Poro and the Sila) each with their individual characteristic and separated by shallow valleys running steeply down to the coast, this ancient Byzantine stronghold together with its surrouding area, possesses all the characteristics of Calabria, both from the points of view of its natural and its man-made landscape. |
|
Thus the Province of Catanzaro bears the strong characteristics of what been called l'antichissima natura plurinsulare (Isnardi) of the region, for, as can be seen, it is a land of mountains between two seas, of high wooded areas cut by ancient valleys |
| with few rivers and many fiumare opening to the luminous vastuess of the
two coasts, sometimes with deep cuts in the coastline, sometimes with gender slopes, and
creating a landscape that as a whole is entirely distinctive. You get, from such a particular configuration, a variety and wealth of landscape constantly changing and intermingling, of views of sea or mountains or of both together; that also, naturally, carries with it a distinctive climate. And in a wide measure it has also had a great influence on the human events that have taken place there during the ages. |
|
In the widest context its regional history is summed up as a slow transmigration and of subsequent changes of life between the coast and the mountains. The history is a very long one, from the splendid story of Magna Grecia along the coasts to the tragedy of the withdrawal of life on the high lands to centuries of isolation, to material and spiritual hunger, centuries of grey torpidity broken every now and then |
| by brief restless escape or by grandiose utopian dreams. This path of history has brought the life of this area down to the contemporary epoch, with the slow reconquest of the coast, with the overcoming of those barriers that had closed it up in an existence of isole montane, with all its contradictions and restless problems, so that now an ancient land, though full of virgin energy, has now the will to open itself to modern life. This then is this area of mountains and sea, with its ever new ever changing panoramas, its ever hanging light tranforming the landscape from one hour to another, this unexpected land that is both so natural and yet so unexpected, full of memories and also both apart in time and fully alive and vibrant in this present epoch. Ever so often the physical aspects of a landscape open up some corners of the mind. A green island of uncontaminated silence, the reflections of rocks in blue waters, a valley rich with orange and lemon blossom, bring to incredulous minds a sense of a mythical and fabulous land, with its rich pastures. The realm of Italo, the legendary landing-places of the Homeric heroes, the white herds of Juno in the sacred wood of Cape Nao, the cliffs covered with those poppies Proserpine loved so much: these are the images that |
|
ancient poetry always linked to the most fascinating parts of Italia antiquissima; that are almost unreal fragments of a lost, happy epoch. The Poro plateau, the white sands and the rocky promontories on the two coasts, the hills that circle gay Vibo. This is the backcloth for those fables, that take us back to the dawn of the history of this land, to the remote Italic world, and its opening up to Greek civilization. This was the time of gods and heroes. Landscapes and memories conduct one through the heart of the land of the Bruzi, a splendid part of Magna Graecia, right in the centre of the region that the Byzantines called Calabria, and which became the extreme western bulwark of the Byzantine empire. |
| There are classic ruins, and cities and villages, towers and castles, cloisters and oratories all set in a constantly changing landscape, and the whole pervaded with the liveliest sense of history, even if sometimes the state of the ruins and semi-ruins remain a testimony to the difficult path that civilization has trod in this area. The very stones here talk of meetings with diverse races and culture, recall benefits brought by various civilizations vitalizing local energies, or of the violence of invaders and rulers, also of moments of serenity in an industrious life and long periods of suffering. Here you find all the evidence of the various stages of complex human vicissitudes, from ancient to medieval times, with evidence of the strong Byzantine penetration, together with memories of the heroic age of the Normans, who in fact built their first stronghold at Mileto in the Catanzaro area. There is evidence in the buildings or in the ruins in this province of history rigth down to the dawn of our own times with some wonderful suggestion of what was like, in the 19th century, Calabria nobiliare e popolaresca of the Bourbons. |
|
Thus, to sum up, a visit to this landscape, to the towns and village of this part of Italy, becomes a way of discovering the tough road civilization here has trod and to get to know particularly the intensity of the vicissitudes experienced in this region. You discover, too, how these vicissitudes have modified the face of the province of Catanzaro, its present reality and its awareness of its great patrimony, its ancient traditions and customs, all related to its archeological, historical artistic and linguistic heritage. |
| The sum of all these values may be rarely startling in the spectacular sense, but they always remain of scientific interest, and they always remain full of fascination and extremely evocative. It should be added that while the scholar can here discover so much of the form and contents of the past, everyone who comes here with his affections will find: he is able to penetrate into the spirit of the place and thus understand more profoundly the vitality of its problems. Standing high on the end of a rocky spur, which is linked to the slopes of the Sila by a slender isthmus, Catanzaro still offers the traveller, arriving from the plain below, the memory of a Byzantine fortress, standing guard over the roads of the two seas, and which ten centuries ago offered refuge to the coastal populations fleeing from the Arabs or from malaria, and which was later to become the centre of an extensive Norman country. This city on its windy rock, looking out over the sea, still in fact preserves in its original nucleus, that heroic character that so took the fancy of foreign travellers in the 18th and 19th centuries, a fantasy that emerges in such a romantic and picturesque manner from the travel books of that era. In such a 'position, with its wide variety of panoramic views situated close to both the sea and the mountains, it is easy to guess that the summers are not too hot, nor winters too cold. This is a tourist centre for those wanting to explore both the province and the region and it is linked to the Road of the Two Seas and with the Sun Motorway, as well, of course, with the main north to south arterial roads, by a daring bridge built by the architect Morandi. This bridge is situated at the junction of the old centre of the city and the new northern district, at the point where at one time the castle of Roberto il Guiscardo and the Montanara Gate closed the gate to an inaccessible fortress. Warrior fortress, a religious centre and an exciting place for handicraft activities, Catanzaro has several times suffered from earthquakes and now only boasts one medieval building: the little church of Sant'Omobono, Romanesque with an oriental flavouring that became a centre deeply rooted in Byzantinism. This is linked again to the name of a lively and populous quarter: La <<Grecia >>, which was, perhaps, the first nucleus of the city and the district of the oriental weavers, who brought there the art of working with silk, and which was destined to become a determining factor in both the economic and social life of the city. The silk industry also recalls the ghetto, where the jews had gathered and became involved in the trade that, particularly during the Aragonese and in the first period of Spanish domination, spread throughout Europe damasks, fabrics and brocades that had come from the artisan quarters of Catanzaro. |
|
These quarters flourished on the outskirts of the industrious little town, around the main Churches. You still find in existence some names and indeed some traces of the old city fabrics in some on the picturesque quarters: la Filanda, il Pianicello, il Paesello, lo Zingarello. But old Catanzaro, circumscribed by its communications system, still retains (with the exception of some recent alterations, such as the Piazza Prefettura) |
| substantially the urban aspect it possessed after 1870, when re-planning took place in order to make the city adequate as anadministrative and judicial and study centre recognized by the newly unified nation. To that period also belong other public works including the opening up of the great terrace known as the Balconata di Bellavista, the Provincial Museum (with its collections of prehistoric objects, its numismatic collection, paintings from the 16th to 19th centuries, and some old documents on the silk art). There is also the Corso Mazzini (and its Fazzari and former Montoro palaces, the latter now being the headquarters of the Chamber of Commerce) which cuts the town in two in its length, from Piazza Roma to fuori le porte (outside the gates), nowadays known as Piazza Matteotti. The major churches are to be found in this area, and they are mostly 17th and 18th rebuilding of the old original monastic buildings (L'Immacolata, il Rosario, il Monte dei Morti, S. Giovanni -- paintings, sculptures and decorations of the period 16th-18th centuries. Fuori le porte on a rock covered with broom, there is Renaissance Church of Santa Maria dell'Osservanza, with its monastery attached which had a lovely Gotich cloister (date 16th century, and now the military hospital). |
|
An interesting aspect of the religious is to beand social life of the city found in the 17th century oratories of the Rosario and the Carmine that with the interiors rich with wood engravings frescoes, stucchi and, at one time, also with silk work, offer evidence of the ability of the local craftsmen. The present city has been extended beyond the original boundaries to the south and particularly above the |
| historic centre. This expansion has been taking place ever since the end
of the 19th century and the pace has increased rapidly during the past ten years. New
factory areas and new municipal buildings are being planned and there is every reason to
believe that Catanzaro is now becoming an important city with wide-ranging powers and
skills. Emilia Zinzi - Translation by care of E.N.I.T. Back to Index |
Catanzaro. Provincial Museum. Wood Crucifix
(Sixteenth century). 
