{"id":2017,"date":"2026-01-29T17:29:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T17:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/villaggiorobinson.com\/history-of-calabria-in-brief\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T15:03:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T15:03:06","slug":"history-of-calabria-in-brief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/villaggiorobinson.com\/en\/history-of-calabria-in-brief\/","title":{"rendered":"History of Calabria in brief"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Calabria<\/strong>, a land of extraordinary beauty and complexity, represents an authentic crossroads of Mediterranean cultures<\/strong> that have stratified over the millennia. This southern strip of the Italian peninsula has experienced a fascinating historical journey, characterized by the alternation of numerous peoples and dominations<\/strong> that have left indelible marks on the cultural, artistic and social heritage of the region.<\/p>\n\n

Its strategic geographical position, stretching out into the heart of the Mediterranean, has determined its destiny as a land of conquest but also of exchange and encounter, transforming it into a cultural mosaic of inestimable value that today we can rediscover through the archaeological evidence, monuments and traditions that still survive.<\/p>\n\n

Origins and prehistory<\/h2>\n\n

The historical roots of Calabria<\/strong> sink deeply into time, with evidence of human presence dating back to the Paleolithic<\/strong>, as evidenced by the significant finds in the Scalea Caves<\/strong> (Torre Talao) and the fascinating graffiti of the Bos primigenius<\/strong> in Papasidero, which represent the first artistic and cultural expressions in this land.<\/p>\n\n

During the Neolithic<\/strong>, the territory saw the development of more dispersed settlements but concentrated mainly in the eastern part of the region, demonstrating how already at that time prehistoric communities had understood the agricultural and strategic potential of those areas, developing the first forms of social organization and exploitation of natural resources.<\/p>\n\n

With the advent of the Metal Age<\/strong>, new populations migrated to Calabria bringing with them advanced technologies and knowledge, as evidenced by the remarkable complex of Torre Galli<\/strong> near Vibo, one of the most important settlements in the area dating back to the late Bronze Age, which reveals the existence of organized communities with an articulated social structure and a remarkable ability in metalworking and the production of artifacts.<\/p>\n\n

Magna Graecia: the golden age<\/h2>\n\n

The period of greatest splendor in Calabrian history undoubtedly coincides with the era of Magna Graecia<\/strong>, when Greek colonists<\/strong> landed en masse on the coasts and founded a system of city-states<\/strong> that quickly flourished to become centers of extraordinary wealth and power. Reggio Calabria<\/strong> was the first Greek colony founded by the Ionians from the Sicilian coast, followed by other important foundations such as Sybaris, Crotone and Locri<\/strong>, all built in a relatively short period between 744 BC and 670 BC, thus creating a network of urban centers that radically transformed the cultural and social landscape of the region.<\/p>\n\n

It is particularly significant to note that it was precisely at this time, in the eighth century BC<\/strong>, that the Greeks designated this tip of the peninsula with the name of “Italy<\/strong>“, a term that originally referred only to the Itali, the inhabitants of the southern part of Calabria, and which subsequently, with the Roman unification, progressively extended northwards until it included, at the time of Augustus in 42 BC, the entire Italian peninsula, thus marking the historical origin of the name of our nation.<\/p>\n\n

The influence of Greek civilization in Calabria was so deep and pervasive that it left priceless traces<\/strong> that we can still admire today in the archaeological heritage<\/strong>, cultural traditions<\/strong> and even in some linguistic aspects, testifying how this period represented an authentic golden age for the region, characterized by extraordinary developments in the field of art, philosophy, architecture and urban organization.<\/p>\n\n

The Roman period and the decline<\/h2>\n\n

With the advent of Roman domination<\/strong>, Calabria experienced a period of stark contrast to the splendor of Magna Graecia, marking the beginning of a long economic and social decline<\/strong> that profoundly transformed the territory and its development dynamics. The Calabrians<\/strong> tenaciously opposed Roman expansion, even going so far as to ally themselves with Hannibal<\/strong> during the Punic Wars in an attempt to preserve their autonomy, but despite this strenuous resistance, Rome<\/strong> finally managed to impose its rule, starting a policy of intensive exploitation of the natural resources of the territory.<\/p>\n\n

One of the most devastating consequences of this domination was the systematic deforestation<\/strong> of the forests of the Sila<\/strong> and other Calabrian mountain ranges, an operation that caused a serious hydrogeological instability<\/strong> with consequent landslides and landslides, irreversibly altering the environmental balance of the region and laying the foundations for territorial problems that persist to this day.<\/p>\n\n

This period also marked an interruption of the cultural and economic dynamism that had characterized the Greek era, with a progressive impoverishment of<\/strong> the once flourishing cities and the abandonment of many advanced agricultural and commercial practices, leading the region to experience a phase of stagnation and marginalization compared to the more developed areas of the Roman Empire.<\/p>\n\n

The medieval era and the dominations<\/h2>\n\n

After the fall of the Roman Empire<\/strong>, Calabria went through tumultuous centuries, first suffering the devastation of the Visigoths<\/strong> and Goths<\/strong>, and then entering the orbit of the Byzantine Empire<\/strong>, under whose control it remained for a long period, transforming itself into an important defensive bulwark<\/strong> against the raids of the Saracens<\/strong> who constantly threatened the coasts.<\/p>\n\n

During the Byzantine period, the region also experienced a significant cultural development thanks to the flourishing of numerous monasteries<\/strong>, which became vital centers for the conservation and transmission of ancient knowledge through the production of precious manuscripts<\/strong>, although today unfortunately only a few of these artistic and cultural treasures have remained on the Calabrian territory, with the notable exception of the magnificent Codex Purpureus Rossanensis<\/strong> preserved in Rossano.<\/p>\n\n

While the Arabs<\/strong> and Lombards<\/strong> tried in vain to conquer the entire region, around the year 1000 A.D. the Byzantines were replaced by the Normans<\/strong>, a period in which important figures of monasticism lived such as Joachim of Fiore<\/strong> at the Abbey of San Giovanni in Fiore and Brunone of Cologne<\/strong> at the Certosa di S. Stefano in Serra San Bruno, founder of the Carthusian order, who contributed significantly to the spiritual and cultural life of the territory, leaving a lasting imprint that still characterizes the religious and artistic heritage of Calabria.<\/p>\n\n

From the Kingdom of the Sun to the Bourbons<\/h2>\n\n

A moment of particular splendor in Calabrian history occurred under the reign of Frederick II,<\/strong> who created in the southern regions one of the most advanced political and cultural realities of the time, the famous Kingdom of the Sun<\/strong>, an authentic crossroads of civilizations where Western, Islamic and Greek Orthodox<\/strong> traditions met and dialogued, generating a climate of extraordinary intellectual and artistic liveliness.<\/p>\n\n

With the death of Frederick in 1250, the territory fell under the control of the Angevins<\/strong>, who introduced a rigid feudal<\/strong> system as an instrument of iron control over the subjects and the territory, profoundly changing the social and economic organization of the region.<\/p>\n\n

In the following centuries, the dominations of the Aragonese<\/strong>, the Spanish<\/strong> (against whom the famous philosopher Tommaso Campanella<\/strong> sided in 1599), the Austrians<\/strong> and finally the Bourbons<\/strong> alternated, a period during which the local population intensified its retreat towards the hilly and mountainous areas to escape both the malaria that raged in the coastal plains, and to the raids of pirates, first Saracen and then Turkish, a phenomenon that generated a profound isolation both external and internal, with the formation of inhabited nuclei on the heights and in the valleys, often without adequate communication routes and with impassable paths during the winter months, a situation that persisted until the Unification of Italy<\/strong> in 1861, when Calabria had only one main road that crossed it from north to south up to Reggio Calabria, it was completely devoid of railways and 90% of the municipalities had no internal and external road connections.<\/p>\n\n

The modern era: from the Unification of Italy to today<\/h2>\n\n

The eighteenth century<\/strong> represented a particularly difficult period for Bourbon Calabria, hit by a devastating famine<\/strong> and a violent earthquake<\/strong> that brought the local economy and society to its knees, paving the way for the era of revolutions<\/strong>, such as that of 1799 which saw the figure of Murat<\/strong>, Napoleon’s brother-in-law, executed in Pizzo Calabro<\/strong>. In the mid-nineteenth century, during the Risorgimento uprisings, the Bandiera brothers<\/strong> also met their deaths in Calabria, shot for their revolutionary activities, until the arrival of Garibaldi<\/strong> in 1860 who brought new hopes of rebirth with the advent of the Kingdom of Italy<\/strong>, hopes that were quickly disappointed because unification, instead of favoring development, actually only produced an increase in poverty<\/strong> and emigration<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n

This climate of economic and social difficulty favored the proliferation of brigandage<\/strong> in the years around 1870, a phenomenon fueled mainly by extreme poverty<\/strong> that pushed a large part of the population to leave the region in search of better living conditions, starting a massive emigration<\/strong> that practically halved the Calabrian population, creating communities of Calabrians in the world that today number millions of people and who maintain a strong bond with the land of origin despite the geographical and temporal distances.<\/p>\n\n

Contemporary Calabria<\/h2>\n\n

Only with the efforts of national governments<\/strong> and during the period of Fascism<\/strong> did the historical isolation of Calabria begin to be broken, starting a process of modernization which, together with the changed economic and social conditions of the post-war period, determined an important reversal of the trend<\/strong> in regional development.<\/p>\n\n

Thanks also to the growth of tourism<\/strong> as a driving economic sector, numerous inhabited centers<\/strong> have sprung up along the coasts, surpassing the traditional hilly centers themselves in demographic and economic importance, radically transforming the landscape and settlement dynamics of the Calabrian territory.<\/p>\n\n

However, this development has not been without problems, since building speculation<\/strong> has partly compromised the natural landscape, while the dispersion of the inhabitants<\/strong> from the historic centers towards the new coastal urbanizations has led to a progressive loss of the heritage of traditions and culture<\/strong> that had characterized the life of the Calabrians for centuries, threatening the historical identity of the region.<\/p>\n\n

Only in recent decades has the importance of recovering and enhancing<\/strong> this rich cultural heritage that Calabria has accumulated thanks to the alternation of numerous peoples and civilizations from all over the Mediterranean<\/strong> basin begun to be understood, launching projects for the rediscovery and protection of local traditions, craftsmanship, gastronomy and historical-architectural heritage that represent not only the memory of the past but also a fundamental resource for the future development of the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Calabria, a land of extraordinary beauty and complexity, represents an authentic crossroads of Mediterranean cultures that have stratified over the millennia. This southern strip of the Italian peninsula has experienced a fascinating historical journey, characterized by the alternation of numerous peoples and dominations that have left indelible marks on the cultural, artistic and social heritage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senza-categoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/villaggiorobinson.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/villaggiorobinson.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/villaggiorobinson.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/villaggiorobinson.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/villaggiorobinson.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/villaggiorobinson.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2020,"href":"https:\/\/villaggiorobinson.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017\/revisions\/2020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/villaggiorobinson.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/villaggiorobinson.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/villaggiorobinson.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/villaggiorobinson.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}