Nicastro Inglese

Nicastro

Physical map

Nicastro is located in the northern area of ​​the Sant'Eufemia's plana and the streams pass through Canne and Piazza rivers, called "fiumare". The torrents around the area are occuped by olive grove plantations and the Lametina industrial area. The historic centre, Saint Theodore, nestled on a hill on top of which the ruins of the Norman-Swabian castle are preserved, is characteristic for its narrow streets. Nicastro is classified in the Italian Seismic Classification with level 1: high seismicity. In fact, starting from 27 October 1638, the city was razed to the ground and a fifth of the population remained killed.

The origins

The birth of Nicastro dates back to the Byzantine rule, around the 9th century. The French archeologist François Lenormant states: "it already existed in the 8th century". In 1057, the Normans conquered Nicastro under the leadership of Robert Guiscard, who was marching towards Reggio Calabria to conquer it. After Guiscardo's defeat at Reggio, the war between him and his younger brother Roger and the subsequent famine, Nicastro was the scene of one of the Calabrian revolts against the Norman conquerors in 1059: the habitants besieged the castle, killing the Norman soldiers left on guard . The revolts were subsequently quelled and after the Concordat of Melfi, in 1059, the Latinisation of the religious rite continued throughout Calabria. Nicastro was Latinized in 1094 thanks to the election of a Norman bishop.

The Castle

The foundation of the Cathedral of Nicastro was in 1100 by Guiscardo's niece: Countess Eremburga also dates back to Norman rule. After the unification of the Swabians and the Normans, with the marriage between Henry VI of Swabia and Constance of Altavilla, Nicastro, like all of southern Italy, passed to Frederick II of Swabia. The emperor greatly appreciated the hunting area in the Woods of Carrà, today part of the city of Lamezia Terme, and he was who renovated the castle of Nicastro, known today as the Norman-Swabian Castle, which in 1239 became one of the seats of the Treasury of State. In the same castle, Frederick II had his son Henry locked up after he had conspired against his father twice. Henry died in the fortress after two years of imprisonment.

Its foundation occurred at the same time as that of the Benedictine Abbey of S. Maria di Saint Euphemia. Robert Guiscard made the two buildings the symbol of his political power and economic and used them to implement the control and Latinization of the territory. The castle it continued to have a hegemonic role even under the Swabians: Frederick II took it away from it jurisdiction of the Benedictine monks, together with the oldest surrounding town, and transformed it into a castrum exemptum, i.e. in a fortification placed under the direct control of the Crown where the state revenues of the Kingdom were safeguarded. But he also equipped it as his own residence for every time he stayed in the area, where he owned a large estate in the Carrà area where he had planted valuable crops and where it is thought he practiced falcon hunting. In rooms of the castle between 1240 and 1242, he kept his rebellious son Henry (VII) locked up. With the Angevin domination, from 1231 to 1268, the fortress returned to be part of the possessions of the Abbey of Sant'Eufemia. In 1419 together with the County of Nicastro it was granted to feudal lords local, first to the Caracciolo family (1420-1607) and then to the D'Aquino family (1607-1799). Damaged by earthquake of 1638, it was used as a prison until 1783, when a new earthquake marked its definitive abandonment. The square donjon (tower) can be traced back to the first Norman phase located in the highest part of the cliff, the nearby curtain wall and a cistern. The most changes evident and substantial occurred especially in the Swabian period, when the castle was enriched with a new city walls, a hexagonal donjon and some circular towers. Furthermore, between two towers subcircular of the facade the shutter entrance was placed which led inside the castle and, in one on the south-east side, a secret passage was built that allowed escape into case of necessity. Inside, a sumptuous two-storey residential wing was built the central pillars demonstrate. During the Angevin period, Charles I carried out renovation works made evident in the use of a different masonry technique which replaces stone with brick. The construction of solid bastions, embrasures and loopholes can be traced back to the Aragonese and viceregal era Bertesche which denote a new defense system based on firearms. The numerous finds, mostly ceramic material, found in the castle during the various excavation campaigns they are preserved inside the Lametino Archaeological Museum.

Veteran's Church

The foundation of the Veterana church is linked to an ancient legend, according to which the Madonna delle Grazie appeared in a dream to a daughter of Frederick II and asked her to build one small church on the hill in front of the castle. The church stands, in fact, on a rocky spur which it dominates the entire historic center of the city from above. The group of houses that grew up next to it gave life over time in the Casalinuovo district. It is entitled to the Madonna delle Grazie, as it was originally the seat of the Confraternity of the same name, but is called Veterana because it is also the oldest church in the S. Teodoro district below. It was also partially destroyed by earthquake of 1638. Rebuilt with poor quality material, some parts collapsed structural

In 1961 it was declared unsafe and closed to worship until 1963, when new consolidation and restoration works were undertaken. Precisely on that occasion it was the eighteenth-century altar, on which a wooden altarpiece depicting the Madonna with Child between S. Stefano and S. Luca, now in the Diocesan Museum. The church is characterized by a simple facade with triangular tympanum and surmounted entrance portal from a small rectangular window. On the right side stands the hermitage, in which the Capuchin Fathers. The interior, consisting of a single classroom, was completely tampered with over the centuries; only a fragment of a fresco under an arch remains of the ancient decoration of the left wall. The church housed an oil painting of the Madonna of Constantinople between Ss. Domenica and Eligio, a work by Francesco Colelli, now in the Diocesan Museum, which reproduced a medieval fresco in the right niche of the nave no longer visible. He also kept a small one canvas with The Madonna delle Grazie with the Norman princess. Today in the church it is possible see a painting created in 1968 by Giorgio Pinna from Nicastre which reproduces the Deposition of the Colelli Cross, once on site and then stolen in 1960. The Madonna delle Grazie comes also called by the people of Lamezia Madonna "di' Cucchiarelli", from the shape (small spoons) assumed for consumption of the papal seals affixed to the Papal Bull containing the indulgences granted by Paul III in 1542 to those who visited the church on five religious holidays, and exposed for veneration of the faithful on Easter Sunday. The ancient tradition is preserved in the visit to the church in Easter day.

Cathedral of Saint Peter and Paul

The current cathedral was built from scratch by bishop Tommaso Perrone between 1640 and 1642, being the one built in 1100 by the princess was totally destroyed in the earthquake of 1638 Norman Eremburga, nephew of Robert Guiscard, perhaps on the ruins of the ancient church Byzantine of Nicastro. Due to the interventions mostly made necessary by structural damage caused by recurring natural events, the cathedral retains little of its original physiognomy seventeenth century. Between 1825 and 1854, in fact, Bishop Berlingieri completely became part of the cathedral, while between 1888 and 1902 Bishop Valensise renewed the façade. In the first decades of the 20th century, Bishop Giambro had the monumental dome rebuilt and he modified the facade by eliminating the rose window and the spectacular fan-shaped staircase. It was he who give the cathedral the neo-classical style that still distinguishes it today.

The facade main one is divided into three sectors: the central one has a gable ending and is decorated by coat of arms of Mons. Giambro. The lateral ones, however, end with a high base on which they are placed two large busts depicting pontiffs Marcellus II and Innocent IX, who had been both bishops of the diocese of Nicastro. Inside two large niches are the busts of the Saints Pietro and Paolo, owners of the structure. In the back of the building the huge dome with octagonal lantern and the seventeenth-century bell tower with a sundial on one side and a disk in stone with Roman numerals on the other. The interior, despite the various alterations, has partly the ancient seventeenth-eighteenth century layout has been maintained: Latin cross plan with deep transept and side naves interspersed with pillars supporting round arches on which the barrel covers. At the end of the left nave is the Chapel of the SS. Sacramento with polychrome marble altar, late eighteenth-century work by Neapolitan artisans. In the right nave, instead, it is the Chapel of the SS. Crucifix with baroque altar in green Calabria marble with les statues of Christ on the cross between Our Lady of Sorrows and Mary Magdalene.

According to tradition, the Crucifix would have been recovered from the ruins of the Norman cathedral. To the left of the entrance, in a deep niche, is the large marble baptismal font, with the basin characterized by swollen pods and the lid decorated with ascending friezes classicist, coming from the Norman cathedral. On the basin of the niche is a wall painting of the Trinity by Francesco Colelli di Nicastro. Little remains of the original interior furnishings and the more important objects were transferred to the Diocesan Museum. The busts are preserved in the cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in embossed silver and copper of Neapolitan manufacture, a pulpit and wooden confessionals, the presbytery seats and, finally, the baroque-style choir with organ carved and gilded chest. These are works created between the 18th and 19th centuries commissioned by the various bishops who governed the diocese.

Church of St. Mary Greater

From 1240 the convent and the church, in the Norman era governed by Basilian monks, were entrusted to Frederick II of Swabia to the friars of San Francesco d'Assisi. In 1462 the friars were removed and the two buildings were governed first by the Observant fathers and, starting from 1594, by the Reformed. All around the neighborhood of S. Francesco had been formed. Damaged by the earthquake of 1638, they were promptly rebuilt at the instigation of the Aquinas princes who had begun in those years to build their new palace nearby (the current Palazzo De Medici). The convent suffered ups and downs over the years: confiscated and transformed into the headquarters of the troops during the French occupation, it was then used as a residence for some private families and as a barracks of the gendarmerie. The Italian government ordered the suppression of the monastery in 1862 and in 1867 it granted for use to the Municipality which decided to entrust it again to the Reformed Fathers. From 1876 to 2015 it was the seat of the local prison. Of the original architectural configuration only the cloister and the seventeenth-century decorations of the former refectory remain.

As for the church, in 1877 it was destined to welcome the parish priest of S. Maria Maggiore di Terravecchia, made unusable by the continuous floods of the Piazza torrent, with the church of San Francesco took on the new name as a parish. Preceded by a large staircase, the church has a late Baroque facade on which a sixteenth-century portal stands out in stone surmounted by a large rectangular window and elegant stucco decorations, a creation in the second half of the eighteenth century by local workers close to the plasterer Pietro Joele di Fiumefreddo Bruzio. The interior, also of exquisite baroque taste, is made up of a large central nave covered by barrel vaults with final apse surmounted by a round dome. On the right side, three arches lead to the nave of the crucifix, so called for the crucifix in wood that dominates the refined polychrome marble altar. A rich decorative stucco apparatus affects both the presbytery and the vault of the central nave, on which two canvases depicting respectively the Immaculate Conception and the Ecstasy of Saint Francis. The two paintings, created in the nineteenth century by Domenico Salvatore Palmieri, they concealed the pre-existing frescoes by Francesco Colelli. Of the original cycle, only the panel with the Vision of St. Anthony placed on the top is visible today vault near the entrance. The Sorrowful Trinity of Inspiration is also by the same author pretiana of the presbytery (now preserved in the Diocesan Museum and replaced by a reproduction) and the Sacred conversation depicted in the cone of the first altar on the left wall, as well as the two frescoes present on the pillars of the Crucifix wing representing St. Clare of Assisi and St. Margaret of Cortona. Of fine workmanship is the high altar in polychrome marble, on which the coat of arms of the Franciscan Order stands out surmounted by a cross. They deserve to be finally, some papier-mâché simulacra are mentioned, such as the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption; and various wooden statues from different eras, including S. Anna, S. Rita and the Madonna del Carmine.

The arrival of the French

After the fall of the Swabians, Nicastro was conquered by the Angevins, under Charles I of Anjou. In this period the city lost part of its splendor and brigandage by the French spread. The consequence of the raids and looting was the emigration of many Calabrians and Nicastresi to Sicily and Puglia. In 1444 the Albanians settled in Calabria, and were well received by the Aragonese. The Albanians settled in many parts of Calabria and near Nicastro they founded Zangarona which will become part of the municipality of Nicastro and after 1968 of the municipality of Lamezia Terme.

The arrival of Tommaso Campanella

In 1598, during the month of July, the Italian philosopher, theologian, poet and Sunday friar, Tommaso Campanella, embarked towards Calabria. He trained for three years in the Convent of the Annunziata in Nicastro. In this library section there is Tommaso's dream Campanella, pinned by hand between the pages of Pauline texts.

Church of St. Theodore

The church of S. Teodoro is located in the neighborhood of the same name in the heart of the historic center of Nicastro. Not the date of foundation is known, but it is attested in documents starting from 1511. Destroyed by earthquake of 1638, the church was promptly rebuilt immediately afterwards, thanks to the diligent help of the inhabitants of the neighborhood. The earthquake of 1783 inflicted further damage on it, but even on that occasion yes proceeded with new renovation works. The building, in fact, was rebuilt at the expense of the Cassa Sacra designed by the royal engineer Claudio Rocchi and was finished in 1792 with the internal plastic decoration. The church has a simple facade with a triangular tympanum and portal surmounted by a rectangular aedicula. The interior is characterized by a central nave covered by barrel vault and connected to the presbytery via a large round arch supported by columns ionic. Two lateral wings were subsequently added to the central body, within which they are located three marble altars made in 1840 and dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows were placed, in S. Francesco di Paola and to the Heart of Jesus. The vault and presbytery were decorated during the eighteenth century with rosettes and neoclassical-inspired ornamental stucco motifs. They can be traced back to the same era also the wooden statue of St. Theodore of Neapolitan manufacture, the canvas with Our Lady of Sorrows and St. Ildefonso, the monumental organ and a small door of the tabernacle with Putti holding the Cross and the sacred Pelican. The high altar is of excellent workmanship and is in perfect baroque style. On the right side of the building stands the bell tower, built with materials from the ruins of the nearby Norman-Swabian castle. The element that has distinguished it since then is the large one Italian-style watch, in perfect working order, if wound and updated regularly.

Church of St. Antony

The church of St. Mary of angels, better known by the Lametini people by the name of St. Antony, was built starting from 1545 on a pre-existing church of the same name by the Capuchin Fathers called to Nicastro by Count Ferdinando Caracciolo who had temporarily hosted them in the building adjacent to the Veterana church. Formerly composed of a single nave, it was damaged by earthquake of 1638, rebuilt and enlarged at the end of the 19th century with the construction of a second one hall, in which the chapel dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua, declared protector, was located of the city in 1746 by virtue of the very strong popular devotion that has characterized it for centuries the cult. The building was built following the rules of the order which provided for simplicity in structure and poverty in the furnishings. The external façade, subject to subsequent renovations, has lost the original austerity and simplicity. The front is divided into three sectors by pairs of tidy pilasters different and is geometrically marked by the portals and windows that surmount them. The sector the central one dates back to before 1760, while the lateral wings were added later.

The church it houses works of great artistic value, such as the monumental wooden ciborium placed on the altar major, created in 1742 by the Capuchin friars Ludovico da Pernocari and Father Francesco da Chiaravalle. Also on the main altar is the canvas of the Madonna and Child with St. Francis of Assisi and Innocent III painted in 1754 by Fedele da San Biagio, Sicilian Capuchin, painter of the circle of Sebastiano Conca. On the right side of the presbytery there is a fresco which reproduces the Miracle of S. Antonio commissioned in 1703 by Lupo D'Ippolito, nobleman and mayor of Nicastro. Also noteworthy are the Baroque-style wooden altars dating back to the early 18th century and a large painting of the Immaculate Conception by Andrea Cefaly, located on the entrance portal of the side nave. In the In the Chapel of St. Anthony there is a canvas depicting the Saint and stories of his life, called also Quadro Divino, which is believed to have been painted in 1644 by the Roman painter Giacomo Stefanoni.

On the ceiling of the same room in 1909 four mural paintings were created by the painter Allegro Litterio of Reggio Calabria. The chapel also houses the seventeenth-century statue of the Saint of Neapolitan manufacture which is annually carried in procession through the streets of the town. The adjacent convent and coeval with the church was seriously damaged by the earthquake of 1638 and then rebuilt. Suppressed for the first time in 1809 by the French government and then in 1862 by the Unitary State, in 1867 the monastery with the adjacent church was assigned to the Municipality of Nicastro, which allow the friars to continue to live there. Of the ancient structure only the cloister and the general layout of the floor plan. The interior has been extensively remodeled to accommodate the Civil Hospital. The convent was equipped with a large book collection of approximately 1652 volumes, which merged into the Municipal Library at the end of the 19th century.

Palace of the nuns

The Palace, originally owned by the Fagà family, then passed on to the Nicotera Severisio family, yes find on via Garibaldi "the main street [...] very beautiful, lined with trees and adorned with graceful buildings" as the writer Dominique Vivant Denon defined it, who visited Nicastro in 1778 and he published these notes in Voyage Pittoresque ou Description des Royaumes de Naples et de Sicile by the abbot of Saint Non (1781). The entire street preserves buildings built starting from 16th century by local notables, although most were extensively remodeled in the following centuries to repair the damage caused by the recurring floods of the Canne torrent. The palace Nicotera Severisio is a seventeenth-century building, whose shapes however reveal the various ones cultural and artistic influences that have affected the area over the centuries. On the ground floor and above in the foreground, in fact, one can recognize the stylistic characteristics of the late medieval period, while in the second, built later, classical forms are evident. The facade main has an orderly and rigorous appearance; the only decorations present are pilasters at the first floor, whose lines continue to the second floor also characterized by a series of quadratures probably made in the first half of the eighteenth century. Various openings punctuate the whole structure causing it to lose the chromatic monotony given to it by the original masonry gray granite stone.

Two slightly projecting stringcourses divide the front into three levels and help to underline the strongly symmetrical and horizontal character of the whole structure. In the center stands a simple portal with smooth ashlars which reveal it to be prior to the phase of facade decoration. The recent restoration has kept the composite façade intact. The palace is commonly called "palazzo delle Monachelle" because between the end of the 19th and the first mid-20th century it hosted a female orphanage run by the Congregation of nuns of the Order of the Daughters of Charity of the Precious Blood. an opening with a revolving grate in the which poor mothers left their children behind. The institute also performed the function of boarding school where girls from good families followed courses to learn the art of embroidery. To the the Magistrates Court was housed on the second floor for some time, then moved to the Palace in 1903 Mancini, located in today's Piazza Ardito, and in 1932 in Palazzo Nicotera Severisio in the square Tommaso Campanella, now home to the municipal library.

Church and convent of St. Dominick

Already entitled to the Annunziata, the church was granted in 1506 by the feudal lord of Nicastro Marcantonio Caracciolo to the Dominican Fathers with the commitment that they would transform the adjacent convent into a convent small Pilgrims' Hospital. The church, completed in 1521 and damaged by the earthquake of 1638, was subjected to continuous restoration interventions and finished in 1781 by the d'Aquino family, new lords of the city, who named it after S. Domenico di Guzmán. After the suppression of convent, the church was entrusted in 1870 to the Confraternity of the SS. Rosary. In 1967 it was elevated to parish and granted to the Minimi Fathers. It has a late Baroque façade with a false portico built in 1838 by Mastro Gregorio Segreto. The coat of arms of the Aquinas on the central arch is surmounted by a fresco with the Madonna del Rosario, attributed by some to Raffaele Palmieri, from others to the better known Antonio Palmieri. The interior has a single nave with a barrel roof and presbytery surmounted by a dome; three altars equipped with altarpieces follow one another along the sides (on the left: Madonna del Carmine between S. Teresa d'Avila and S. Giacinto, the Vision of St. Thomas and the Madonna of the Rosary; to right: Martyrdom of St. Peter of Verona, St. Vincent Ferrer and Infant Christ among Popes Dominicans).

There are numerous Baroque roçaille stuccoes created starting from 1771 by Pietro Joele di Fiumefreddo Bruzio, author among other things, together with Giovanni and Antonino Frangipane, of the renovation works of the entire structure. On the vault within the boxes are the depictions of St. Raymond of Penafort, of the Annunciation, the meeting between Sts. Dominic and Francis of Assisi and the Vision of St. Catherine of Siena. Author of the entire pictorial cycle, dedicated to the Defense of the Faith, is Francesco Colelli from Nicastre, to whom the decoration of the choir with the Madonna patron of the Dominican Order, the images of St. Gregory the Great, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Jerome and those of the Four Evangelists in plumes of the dome, and of the Eternal Father in the recess of the cap. The canvas with San is also his Domenico and the trial of fire on the main altar in polychrome marble, created in 1827 by Domenico Segreti of Fiumefreddo Bruzio, still in Baroque style; the two large mural paintings ai sides, depicting the Assumption of the Virgin and the Transfiguration of Jesus, had been executed in 19th century respectively by the locals Domenico Salvatore Palmieri and Giuseppe Palmieri. The crypt, intended for the burial of the friars, it was also used as the burial place of the Caracciolo family, whose coat of arms stands out on the ceiling. Of particular interest is a sixteenth-century fresco on the back wall: a Christ Steps, ancient iconography referring to the Resurrection and the Eucharist, placed side by side in the two lateral sectors with two soldiers, perhaps added in a more advanced period.

On the left side of the church stands the Dominican convent, also built between 1506 and 1521 thanks to the munificence of the Caracciolos. Between 1586 and 1588 it hosted the very young Tommaso Campanella who in conspicuous Library of the Dominicans deepens his studies of theology and philosophy. He returned there in 1598, when he was involved together with his friend Prior Dionisio Ponzio in a conspiracy against the Spanish rule, fiercely repressed. The violent earthquake of 1638 inflicted considerable damage also to the convent which was rebuilt at the instigation of the princes of Aquinas. Suppressed in 1784 and 1808, the convent was confiscated by the Italian State in 1862 and then donated to the Municipality of Nicastro, who assigned it to various public uses: it was the seat of the Gymnasium-Boarding School, of the military district, of the Municipal Library of the Liceo Ginnasio Francesco Fiorentino. Recently restored, it is has become the main center of the city's cultural activities and houses the Museum on the first floor archaeological. In one room, two dated frescoes by Giorgio Pinna have been partially recovered 1912 and 1934.

Archeological Museum of Lamezia

Archaeological Museum of Lamezia is located on the first floor of the Monumental Complex of San Domenico in the ancient convent of the Dominican Fathers. The Museum, which houses numerous finds found in various sites in the Lamezia plain, is organized into three sections. The visit route begins with the prehistoric section represented above all by materials (hoppers and lithic industry) recovered in the Paleolithic station of Casella di Maida, identified by Dario Leone. A series of obsidian tools (lava stone from the Aeolian islands) and various fragments of containers clay belong, however, to the Neolithic. The section ends with an archeology proposal experimental which proposes hypotheses of technologies, tools and creation of vases for the Neolithic. The first room of the classical section, with the exception of some grave goods found in the Germaneto locality, near the current Regional Citadel, introduces Terina, the Greek colony founded between the end of the 6th and the beginning of the 5th century BC. by the Crotonians. The three treasures are displayed here monetary documents that summarize the history of political and economic relations that have affected the flat lametina.

In particular, the first is a hoard of incuse coins recovered in the locality Polveracchio di Acquafredda, important because it is the oldest treasure found in Magna Graecia and because it indicates that at the end of the 6th century. B.C. the plain was under the influence of Sibari and that this he had commercial relations with indigenous communities, as evidenced by the presence of a loaf of bread of silver included in the nest egg. The second, found in the Serrone area, opens a new one political perspective for the plain territory at the beginning of the 5th century. B.C. Now it's Crotone who has it the hegemony on the plain where he founded the city of Terina, widely represented in the coins of the third nest egg recovered in Sant'Eufemia Vetere in the Bosco Amatello area. In this room Two important bronze epigraphic documents relating to the city of Terina are also presented: one dating back to the first decades of the 5th century. o.C confirms Terina's affiliation to Crotone, mentioning a magistrate office present in the mother city, the other from the 4th century. BC, a testament, offers a cross-section of Terine society. It comes from one of the necropolises of the city of Terina, located in the territory of Gizzeria, a splendid hydria (water container) with figures red with wedding toilet scenes, dating back to between 380 and 370 BC.

In the second room they are objects from the territory (chora) and from the areas around Sant'Eufemia Vetere are on display. Yes deals in particular with commonly used objects attesting to the different male and female activities that they were carried out inside the house (oikos). Among the materials from the Greek period, two tombs stand out, one in stone and the other in bricks, referable to a necropolis identified in San Sidero in the area of Sant'Eufemia Vetere. Also noteworthy is a bronze nail with inscription recovered from Chief Suvero. The section, which does not fail to report on the treasure of Sant'Eufemia found in 1865 and now exhibited at the British Museum, concludes with some Roman finds from various sites in the area

The medieval section presents three important monuments of Lamezzo: the Church of Ss. Quaranta di Caronte, the Benedictine Abbey of Sant'Eufemia and the castle Norman-Swabian of Nicastro. They come from the first, of which two construction phases are attested a glass bottle from the 6th-7th century, a reliquary cross from the 9th century, objects found in one early medieval burial and some coins from the Angevin period. They come from the Benedictine Abbey some architectural elements in marble and stone, fragments of painted plaster (14th-17th century) e parts of the flooring that belong to the beautiful mosaic found in the presbytery area. The long history of the castle of Nicastro, which goes from the Norman phase to the vicereignal one, finally, can be grasped through the objects and architectural elements that attest to the moments of greater splendor of the monument.

Nicastro in the Kingdoms

The city, like all of Calabria, passed into the hands of the Austrians during the War of the Spanish Succession, which began with the death of Charles II of Spain and ended with the treaties of Utrecht which officially gave Calabria to the Habsburgs. After the War of the Polish Succession, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, of which Calabria was also part, passed into the hands of the Bourbons and so did Nicastro.

Francesco Colelli

He was an illustrious painter from Nicastra of the 17th century and unfortunately there is vague information about him. He was the author of numerous works of great interest and artistic value and of frescoes preserved in some parishes of Nicastro. Noteworthy is a Deposition of the Cross in the Church of the Veterana, inventoried by the Intendency of Monuments and Fine Arts of Cosenza, stolen by unknown thieves during the night of 27 February 1960. An altarpiece representing the Supper of the Lord, dated 1762 and located inside the Cathedral.

Church of St. Catherine fromAlessandria

The date of foundation of the church of Santa Caterina di Alessandria is probably unknown built on the previous Oratory of Santa Caterina delle Grotte. The building was the headquarters of the Confraternity of the Immaculate and was enlarged at the end of the 16th century with the addition of two chapels lateral. Considerably damaged by the earthquake of 1638, the church was subjected to reconstruction and restoration until the mid-18th century, when, under the direction of Antonino Frangipane, they were build the vault and the internal dome. In 1809 during the French rule it was used as barracks for the troops. The Bourbons later returned it to the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception he restored it and reopened it for worship. The façade, in neoclassical style, was renovated early on of the nineteenth century at the same time as the construction of the right bell tower which was built for balance the existing left one.

The interior consists of a single nave with a presbytery rectilinear termination, near which there are two apsidal chapels. Everything is embellished from a rich decorative stucco apparatus probably created starting from 1766 by Pietro Joele from Fiumefreddo Bruzio, also active in the church of San Domenico in Nicastro. They complete the decoration of the hall is a series of paintings by Francesco Colelli dating back to the second half of XVIII century which depict on the vault, starting from the counter-façade towards the altar, La Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, The Immaculate Conception and The Presentation of Mary in the Temple. In the The images of St. Mark and St. Matthew are placed on the plumes of the dome. Valuable local manufacture are the wooden statues of Saint Catherine of Alexandria from the 19th century and the two of the Immaculate Conception, from the 17th and 19th centuries respectively.

Church of St. Nick and Lucy

The church of S. Lucia is located at the end of via Garibaldi, in the district of the same name in the historic centre of Nicastro. The date of foundation of the building is not known. The oldest parish registers they date back to the end of the 1600s, but the documentation almost precedes the earthquake of 1638 nothing has been preserved in the entire city. It is believed that it was among the oldest in Nicastro, elevated to parish during the 14th century together with the churches of S. Teodoro and that of S. Maria Maggiore. Around 1590 it benefited from reconstruction by Bishop Bontadosio. Damaged by the earthquake of 1783, its reconstruction was carried out by the engineer Claudio Rocchi, active in the same period in the nearby church of San Teodoro. It appears from a document dated 1784 originally named after two saints, S. Nicolò de Caccuri and S. Lucia, but S. was also venerated. Maria del Soccorso. In 1838 Bishop Nicola Berlingeri promoted its expansion. The church it has a simple and linear facade punctuated vertically by a series of pilasters. The only one a prominent element is the portal framed by two columns resting on a pedestal, and surmounted by a roundel with an iron cross in the centre. On the left side a small one stands tall Bell tower. The interior has a single nave connected to the presbytery by a triumphal arch without decorative elements. Worthy of note is the polychrome marble altar on which an aedicule is placed supported by columns with Corinthian capitals which enclose an eighteenth-century wooden statue of St. Lucia. In the 1960s, the church of S. Lucia was affected by restoration works and modernization, during which it was partly stripped of its original liturgical furnishings. Part of the ancient religious equipment were a precious pyx from 1725 and a nineteenth-century one Neapolitan-made silver chalice, now kept in the Diocesan Museum.

1700 was a disastrous century

The 18th century was a century marked by natural disasters. December 10th In 1782 there was a flood of the Torrente Piazza which swept away entire buildings in the neighborhoods. The next disaster occurred a few months later, in 1783 with two series of tremors: one between 5 and 7 February and a second on 28 March. These hit Calabria Ulteriore and Sicily; Nicastro was one of the population centers with the least number of victims but had a lot of damage to buildings. These further earthquakes in the period of the Enlightenment did of Calabria, previously ignored, a destination for many geologists and seismologists who came to study the phenomena.

Nicastro destroyed by the earthquak of 1783

Church of St. Agazio

The church of S. Agazio al Timpone is located in the district of the same name in the historic center of Nicastro, delimited by the Canne and Niola streams, which is accessed from via Garibaldi through an arch called "screen". The building was built at the beginning of the 18th century on commission and for devotion of D. Antonio Vicino, who, after his death, left ownership to Mons. Angeletti. Until 1838 it was a branch of the Cathedral, and then passed to the parish of S. Nicola and S. Lucia. Many times remodeled over the centuries, it has a simple façade marked by four pilaster strips Ionic order with a trefoil-shaped rosette-shaped opening in the centre, on the entrance door. In opposite the main front stands the bell tower, which can only be seen laterally and from the hills of the northern side of the city. The interior has a single nave with presbytery covered by a lowered cross vault, in the center of which within a frame quadrilobed there is a painting depicting the Assumption of the Virgin. They are valuable manufacturing the altar in late eighteenth-century stucco and a nineteenth-century altarpiece with Madonna and Child between Saints Agazio and Antonio. The recent restoration intervention that affected the roofing, the internal flooring and the external facades, he intentionally left exposed all phases of construction and transformation.

Nicotera Palace

The Palace is located in Piazzetta Tommaso Campanella, in a corner position with respect to the square Mercato Vecchio, a place dedicated to commercial activity and headquarters since medieval times originally from the ponderaria canteens now kept in the Archaeological Museum. The building was built towards the middle of the 18th century by Domenico Nicotera of the Nicotera Sasso di Martirano branch and was then inherited around 1850 by the Nicotera Severisio family. Used as a court in the course of the 20th century, was bequeathed to the Capuchin Fathers, from whom it was purchased in the 1990s from the Municipality of Lamezia Terme. This palace also constitutes an important testimony of eighteenth-nineteenth century Calabrian courtly architecture and at the same time reflects the taste of the most families notable figures of the city who, starting from the second half of the eighteenth century, following the example of building renovation underway in the large Italian centers, new and elegant buildings were built homes intended to show the prestige and refinement of one's lineage. The building develops on three levels and has a massive and compact structure, ennobled by delicate decorative elements, work of skilled and refined workers. The main facade is characterized by the monumental stone portal with ashlars and stylized rosettes, on which the coat of arms of the Nicotera family stands out Stone. Above is a large balcony with a wrought iron railing supported by precious ornaments.

Through the portal you enter the entrance hall covered by a frescoed vault which in turn it leads to an internal courtyard which at the beginning of the 20th century bordered the garden of the former convent of the Dominicans. A beautiful marble staircase, entirely covered in coffered stucco on the ceiling and large gray stone slabs on the walls, leads to the main floor, which has in part maintained the original distribution of the internal environments. The first living room has a ceiling entirely covered by a large painting on paper dating back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the wake of large frescoed vaults in the most important contemporary Italian palaces, the unknown author (of which the recent restoration did not trace the signature), depicted Aurora on the chariot and a complex allegory which alludes to the main inventions of the century and praises progress and the advent of the times modern. The traces of the frescoes that decorated other rooms on the main floor refer to the "Cortale school" by Andrea Cefaly, which included several students in the Lamezia area.

House of ancient book

Inside Palace Nicotera there is now also the House of the Ancient Book, the historical section of the Municipal Library. The main nucleus of the book collection is preserved there nineteenth-century documentary, coming from the Capuchin and Dominican convents of Nicastro. In particular, the texts with annotations a come from the well-stocked library of the latter margin affixed in his own hand by Tommaso Campanella, who stayed there at the end of the 16th century century and I cultivate the studies of Aristotelian logic. The structure houses some manuscript works which span a very long time span, from the 16th to the 19th century, fragments of codes Greek (probably 11th century) and Latin (14th-15th century) manuscripts and a number of important archival evidence. Furthermore, there are over 2,500 books printed from the sixteenth century onwards from the famous presses of Manuzio, Giunta, Gioito, Froben and Plantin in the various Italian centers (Venice, Rome, Naples) and European (Lyon, Antwerp, Paris) where the typographic art flourished. The ancient background is mainly consisting of works of theology, philosophy, patrology, ecclesiastical history and exegesis, together with collections of homilies, lives of the saints, sacred texts and papal bulls.

D'Ippolito Palace

The building of great value is located in the S. Francesco district almost opposite the main one access steps to the current parish church of S. Maria Maggiore. It is the result of the merger of previous structures which took place after 1763. Notarial instruments of that year attest that Felice d'Ippolito, heir to a considerable estate, had to renovate the house entrusted the design work to Antonino Frangipane, a member of the well-known family of masters plasterers and "architects" of Pizzo, but the decorative originality put into play has led to the hypothesis of collaboration of the plasterer Pietro Joele from Fiumefreddo, as both were active in Nicastro at that time in the nearby churches of S. Domenico and S. Caterina d'Alessandria. There construction of the palace establishes the prestige of the d'Ippolito family which since the beginning of Eighteenth century with Lupo d'Ippolito, mayor of the city's nobles, it had gradually consolidated through prestigious marriages and important court positions and roles that were rewarded with the title of Marquis. The building emerges and stands out within the urban context in which it is inserted its monumental volumetric layout and for the refined and elegant stucco decoration that hits the main front. The scenic façade facing east, which is the main one fifth of the street, divided in two by a stringcourse, has a lower level huge and sumptuous stone portal with the family coat of arms in the center and pilasters with capitals Corinthian on the sides. The main floor, however, is rhythmically punctuated by a series of openings framed by precious period stuccoes rococo.

Vincenzo d'Ippolito

A crowning marble festoon runs along the external perimeter of the building made up of delicate phytomorphic decorations that enhance the shell-shaped leaves placed on the balconies with goose-breast wrought iron railing. From the central entrance hall you enter, on the left, the staircase that leads to the main floor and the garden, which is entered through an ornamental arch. The internal environments, although renovated in the nineteenth century, they keep their ancient splendor partly intact, while the hall and the adjoining noble chapel retain the furnishings, the original pictorial decoration and the flooring particular value in Giustiniani-manufactured majolica with an ocher background and black designs. Of the ancient eighteenth-century pictorial decoration, a fresco with the coat of arms remains today on the ceiling of the atrium heraldic icon of the d'Ippolito family and two putti in an oval of the internal arch. It is almost certainly the author painter Francesco Colelli from Nicastre, a friend of the family. To him, in fact, in 1761 the d'Ippolito they had commissioned the painting of the Last Supper for the Chapel of the SS. Sacramento in the City cathedral, now lost.

Church of St. Mary of Thorns

The small church of S. Mary of Thorns, also called S. Maria la Bella, is located in the most part high of the neighborhood which took the name of Bella from it, built in the back of the canteen bishop to give asylum to the displaced from the ancient town of Terravecchia, swept away by the flood of the Piazza torrent in 1782. The building, despite having been extensively remodeled over the centuries, retains its original appearance original medieval layout. According to a very ancient tradition, it originated from the fortuitous discovery of a fresco of the Virgin and Child on the internal wall of a ruin hidden under a thicket bush: to the farmer protagonist of the casual discovery the Madonna herself would have expressed the desire that an oratory would be built around his image. For the great devotion still today alive towards this miraculous Madonna, in 1994 the Church of the Thorn was elevated to the rank of Marian sanctuary. The valuable fresco of the Madonna and Child enthroned, the work of an unknown artist southern artist of the 14th century, is still preserved there. The painting that has been enlarged along the edges in Baroque age, and recently restored, represents an important testimony of culture Calabrian art from the 14th century. Considered Byzantine due to some iconographic features, it is actually of clear Western tradition.

Sericolture

Economy of Nicastro

Until the 18th century, sericulture in Nicastro and its surroundings was a very widespread and prosperous activity, so much so that five thousand pounds of raw silk were produced every year. According to the testimony of the Enlightenment historian Giuseppe Itaria Galanti, at the end of the 18th century, Nicastro was still an active silk center where the cultivation of mulberry trees for the breeding of silkworms was practiced, however production was in decline.

Giuseppe Maria Galanti

The Battle of Maida

In 1806 Calabria was invaded by the French and like many other municipalities, Nicastro was also the victim of looting by the invaders. The English, allies of the Bourbons, pushed the population to rise up against the French troops. The fate of Nicastro, which was a strategic point and capital of its district, was decided

in the battle of Maida which saw the English victorious but not totally since the French were still present in Calabria. After the battle the Calabrian brigands continued to fight against the French even outside the plain. The plain of Sant'Eufemia was devastated both by brigandage and by the attempt of French troops to counter it. Entire families were wiped out and even just a suspicion of sympathy towards the enemy triggered killings of soldiers and civilians

Pietro Ardito

He was born in Nicastro in 1833, a priest and man of letters from Nicastro. He completed his high school studies at the Seminary of Nicastro, where he remained as a teacher from 1854 to 1860). He then moved to Spoleto, a city where he remained for about twenty years to teach, first at the Technical Institute and then at the Gymnasium, Italian and History. In Spoleto he found Francesco Fiorentino, from Sambiase, who had been teaching philosophy in the high school since 1860. He returned definitively to Nicastro in 1882 and remained there as a teacher of literature and director of the local gymnasium. In 1883, mainly for family reasons, he renounced the chair of Italian Literature at the University of Naples. Moria Nicastro in 1889. His publication, Gleanings historical on the city of Nicastro, 1889, is fundamental in some respects.

Regrowth

The end of the 19th century was a time of great works including the construction of the two railway stations of Nicastro and Sant'Eufemia, the reforestation near the Torrente Piazza to combat floods and the construction of the aqueduct.

Niccoli Palace

Palazzo Niccoli took on its current form at the end of the 19th century, when the previous structure was renovated. Consisting of three levels plus a small raised body in the centre, it is divided into three parts rigorous and symmetrical manner from the openings on the main front, which, in turn, is characterized by the graffiti pictorial decoration that covers the main floor. Here the three balconies, one of which with a balustrade made up of small columns, are surmounted by triangular pediments and they are framed by four dancing female figures, in turn inserted into decorative elements a grotesque, natural and fantastic motifs. Particularly interesting is the figure drawn on the side left of the central balcony, which, since it has a cornucopia in its hand from which they emerge flowers, is probably the personification of Fortune. Completely stripped of tinsel The two lower levels are ornamental. The only prominent element is the large central portal with intended as a keystone.

Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Maria

The church, also known as S. Maria delle Grazie, stands in the central square of the Bella district, around which the entire town is arranged, with a typical layout orthogonal from the end of the 18th century. The works were started in 1835, but the single nave church was opened for worship in 1852 and elevated to parish in 1857. In 1867 work began on the construction of the side aisles, bell tower and sacristy. The building presents a façade divided into three orders and enlivened by two niches and a series of pilasters. Crown the entire surface a large gable with lateral volutes that connect it to the lower level. The interior, with a semicircular apse, is divided into three naves separated by round arches. Along the Central vault they are placed, within polylobed frames, three wall paintings which, starting from from the counterfaçade towards the apse, they represent the Annunciation, the Visitation and the Apparition of the Virgin. The latter painting, dated 1892, recalls and illustrates the popular tradition of the casual discovery of the image of the Madonna della Spina, venerated in the other and more ancient church of the place. On the apse, however, there is a statue wooden statue of the Madonna delle Grazie which every year on 8 September is carried in procession for the neighborhood streets.

The emigration of 1900

In the 19th century, a strong season of emigration, as a response to a strong crisis, made the Nicastre area the first district in the province of Catanzaro in terms of the number of immigrants towards Northern Italy. Another strong wave of emigration occurred in Nicastro after the Second World War, when both the peasant uprisings and the land occupations failed. On 4 January 1968 Nicastro joined the municipalities of Sambiase and Sant'Eufemia Lamezia to form the municipality of Lamezia Terme.

Antonio Marasco

He was born in Nicastro on 11 May 1896, his ideas of dynamism that the futurist current carried within itself and of which he will be one of the most intelligent and refined interpreters did not correspond with. In 1906, following his family, he left Nicastro to move to Florence, a city traditionally rich in cultural ferment, where he had the opportunity to focus his artistic nature. In Florence he had the opportunity to meet Papini, Soffici and the intellectuals who revolved around the magazine <Lacerba>. In 1914 he met Marinetti and with him undertook a journey to Moscow and Petersburg where he came into contact with some of the greatest Russian poets and intellectuals of the time: Mayakovsky, Yesenin, Tatlin, Burliuk and Puni. He participated in important exhibitions in San Francisco and New York, in Germany and Switzerland, coming into contact with the liveliest currents of European culture. He has participated in important exhibitions: Quadrennial, Venice Biennale, Zurich and Munich. He organized prestigious solo shows at the Art Gallery of Yale University in 1950 and at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome in 1959. He continued to paint despite being blind and died in Florence on 8 April 1975.

Sacchi Palace

Palazzo Sacchi, perhaps originally belonging to the d'Ippolito family, once included an entire isolated and overlooked the churchyard of the church of S. Giovanni della Coltura (later transformed into hotel, currently renovated). From the original building phase today only the stone portal remains leads to the entrance hall and the central staircase, decorated in stucco with a barrel roof on the stairs and cap on the first landing, from where access to the apartments continues up two stairs. Soars instead in Piazza San Giovanni the turret loggia, with a great visual impact, which formed the corner of connection with the church and embellished the architecture of the building from the first installation eighteenth century. The complex stucco decoration on the main arch seems to illustrate with objects and trophies the theme of triumphal love. Various decorative motifs are also represented on the side openings. This last floor is crowned by mixed-line cornices jutting out in correspondence of the pilasters, here underlined by large masks acting as drips. The realization the stucco work was probably done by Antonio Frangipane, active in the decorations of the adjacent building church of San Giovanni. Stuccos of similar workmanship also embellish, as elements survivors, balconies and windows on the second floor of the other building that bordered the square, it also probably belonged to the d'Ippolito family.

Diocesan Museum

The diocesan museum, created on the initiative of bishop Vincenzo Rimedio and curated by the architect Natale Proto was inaugurated in 1998 and was expanded and rearranged in 2004 and 2006. It is located on the first floor of the Palazzo del Seminario Escovile, reopened in 1823 by Mons. Gabriele Papa in the premises of the seventeenth-century Convent of the Poor Clares, renovated several times over the course weather. Of the original structure only the cloister and the eighteenth-century arched portal remain triumph, of Roglianese workmanship, contemporary with the two smaller side portals of the nearby Cathedral. The Museum houses works that come from the ancient dioceses of Nicastro and Martirano, and yes stands out within the panorama of Calabrian diocesan museums for the artistic value of the objects collected in it. The exhibition is divided into ten sections and displays a series of works and artefacts, mostly relating to sacred vestments and liturgical objects in silver, made by masters southern and local starting from the 15th century.

Among the various materials, one is worth mentioning in terms of importance precious casket in wood and painted ivory, of Arab-Sicilian workmanship (12th century); two reliquary arms in wood, copper and brass of Santo Stefano and San Giovanni, coming from the ancient abbey of Sant'Eufemia, products from a southern workshop (15th century); a chest made of wood and mother of pearl, coming from the Cathedral of Martirano, work of a southern workshop (17th century); a necklace a vague aurei (ex-voto to the Madonna of the Rosary), gift of the Confraternity of the SS. Rosary of Nicastro, and the silver Monstrance of St. Thomas, the work of Filippo Ajello, a chiseller active in Naples between 1758 and 1831. Also noteworthy are the polychrome wooden sculptures dating back to the 16th century of southern manufacture, the sixteenth-century statuary group of the Annunciation coming from the Church of S. Domenico, and the marble statue of the Madonna with Child called Madonna delle Grazie, originally located in the ancient Convent of the Poor Clares of Nicastro and attributed to Domenico Gagini (Bissone 1420/25 - Palermo 1492). Finally, there is no shortage of certifications of the Rogliano school which, starting from the 16th century, gave rise to high-quality local production artistic value documented in various sites in Calabria. The museum also holds a number of paintings by local painters, such as a sorrowful Trinity and an oil painting with St. Mark's Francesco Colelli from Nicastre, coming from the parish church of S. Maria Maggiore, to which also belonging to Cesare Costanzo's S. Matteo (doc. mid-18th century), a Portrait of Mons. Nicola Berlingieri dated 1854 and the Madonna and Child altarpiece by Eduardo Fiore, gift of the Saladini family of Bella. Finally, important are a canvas attributed to Mattia Preti (Taverna 1613 La Valletta 1699) depicting St. Francis of Assisi; a seventeenth-century Assumption painted in the manner of Carlo Maratti (Camerino 1625 Rome 1713) and, for the effective representation of the city, an oil on canvas with San Vincenzo and the city of Nicastro by an unknown author.

Gastronomy

The city of Nicastro does not have a tradition very rich gastronomic cuisine, but there are many ways of use of foods, such as crispelle, typically elongated or round with anchovies inside or the sweet version with sugar and honey; the pignolata; the bucconotti; the susumelle; the mastazzola; the cuzzupe; sausages with turnips; fried cod with potatoes, peppers and olives, dishes generally used during the holiday periods. Or it is customary to do it on Sunday the meat chops, or the sauce with the pieces of meat (said mozzarella-anchovy). Cuzzupe typically made in Easter period, it was customary to place eggs on top a cross of pasta, to males, according to a hierarchy to head of the family put more eggs. Eggs symbolize the fertility of man. Other traditions are those of preserves, such as sauce, dried tomatoes, crushed olives, giardiniera, pickled onions. Or in the month of February the pig is usually killed, processing the meat produces infinite products to consume everything, such as suzo made to use all the meat waste. Thanks to the large plain, the olive groves and vineyards have always been used for the production of oil and wine. In particular the Statti family for wine

The Statti estate

We can state with certainty that a Statti progenitor arrived in Calabria around the first half of the 15th century as can be seen from an illuminated family tree owned by the Statti family. With the defeat of Robert of Anjou by Alfonso I of Aragon, we are in 1446, the latter uniting the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily under his dominion. King Alfonso had to face several revolts. To help the King, the leader Demetrio Reres, belonging to the family of Giorgio Castriota Scanderberg, arrived in Calabria with numerous troops and among these also the soldiers Demetrio, Tommaso and Teodoro Stath, surname which was later Italianized into Statti . the Statti family who during the century. XVII took up permanent residence in the city of Nicastro and began a series of marital alliances with the families of the city's noble class. We are in the second half of the 18th century in the city the Statti family was made up of Giuseppe, who retired to Gizzeria after having committed a murder, Domenico, graduated in law in Naples in 1730, Gennaro, married to Porzia Fiore, Francesco, Dominican friar, Anna , married to Nicola Discosi, Orsola, married to Vincenzo Veraldi. It is the skilled Domenico Statti who weaves a dense network of power alliances, even becoming General Agent of Princess Aquino, who resided in Naples. From the same it received the Lenti olive grove, still owned by the family today and where the current agricultural estate and vineyard is developed.

Statti Palace

The palace is located at the foot of the S. Teodoro district, the oldest residential area perched around the Castle Hill, overlooks Largo Damiano Statti and dominates Via Garibaldi and the entire street from above Nicastro. It constitutes one of the best examples of late-Baroque architecture in Calabria and stands out in the drawings of foreign travelers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Built around the mid-eighteenth century pre-existing structures, spread over three levels plus a small attic. The building, with the rich apparatus decorative on the facade, it stands out in the simple building fabric in which it is inserted. The surface of the The front, in fact, is characterized by an alternating sequence of rhythmic concave and convex spans by thin pilasters which give it a dynamic view. Along the external perimeter it runs, instead, a thick band finely decorated with stuccos that propose stylized shapes of fans and shells, also present along the sides of the small balconies and slightly on the corners beveled edges of the building. The decorative solutions adopted refer to workers of origin or at least of Neapolitan training, active in Calabria, and in Nicastro, at that time. It stands out in the center a monumental portal in granite stone, probably made by master stonemasons of Rogliano, characterized by soft and elaborate lateral garnishes. You can access it from the portal to the entrance hall and a small central courtyard with fountain, overlooked by the apartments with a elevation of three arches per floor. The noble rooms are located on the second floor, with rooms reception and reception hall. At the rear is the garden, whose surrounding wall it takes up the alternating motif of concave and convex spans of the main façade.

The new municipality

Senator

Nicastro is one of the municipal districts of the city of Lamezia Terme. It was an autonomous municipality until 1968, the year of unification with Sambiase and Sant'Eufemia Lamezia for the birth of the new municipality, of which it is the most populous district. In 1962, Arturo Perugini, who had been elected mayor of Nicastro less than a year ago, resigned as mayor to run for the Senate in order to have a stronger chance for the proposal to found a new municipality to be successful. Perugini was elected on 28 April 1963 with a landslide victory (31,000 votes), supported by a faithful electorate made up of the Christian Democrats and the Church of Nicastre. On 30 October the newly elected senator of the same year presented the bill for the creation of the city of Lamezia. To have even more strength and above all to prevent the bill from getting stuck among the many proposals lying in parliamentary commissions, a bill very similar to Perugini's was presented to the Chamber, on the proposal of the Democrat Salvatore Foderaro. In the territory of the former municipality there are the episcopal curia of the diocese of Lamezia, the hospital, the court and various administrative offices.

Arturo Perugini

The End

Andrea CalidonnaAlida Ventura