The Grecanic village

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Category: dintornis

Last Updated on Friday, 23 February 2024 13:48

Published on Thursday, 23 May 2013 15:27

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The Grecanici villages mentioned are located in the mountains, are cultural and natural attractions, still have people living there, and can be reached from Bova. The Grecanici municipalities on the coast (Bova Marina, Brancaleone Marina, Palizzi Marina, Condofuri Marina, San Lorenzo Marina, Melito di Porto Salvo...) are not mentioned here because they are new settlements, where the main tourist attraction is the beaches and the sea. 

Village of Gallicianò (Municipality of Condofuri)
Gallicianò is defined as the Acropolis of Magna Graecia: it is a small centre located in the heart of Aspromonte, perched on the promontories of the Grecanica area that overlooks the right slope of the Fiumara Amendolea and, together with Bova, preserves the historical memory of the Greeks of Calabria: the Grecanica language, the art of broom weaving, of wood carving according to Byzantine forms. It is a hamlet of the municipality of Condofuri, a place frozen in time: forty inhabitants in a cluster of houses on the rocks overlooking the Fiumara Amendolea. Among the narrow alleys one can still hear people speak in Grecanico and the toponymy is indeed bilingual, as in Bova. Although the Greek language is mainly used in an increasingly domestic environment, thanks to its structural isolation Gallicianò has kept intact its cultural, craft, musical and religious traditions and has developed in its inhabitants a strong spirit of togetherness and hospitality, characteristics peculiar to the Greeks of Calabria. In Gallicianò there is the Orthodox Church of Panaghìa tis Elladas (Our Lady of the Greeks) where services are celebrated in the Greek Orthodox rite. Despite being sparsely populated, Gallicianò is a village in ferment, recognised as the 'capital' of music, which together with singing and dancing constitutes an authentic art for the inhabitants of Gallicianò, cultivated and handed down from father to son since ancient times. Many are the cultural tourists who visit it, staying overnight and tasting the Greek Calabrian food and wine in the village's typical inns. In the village is the Ethnographic Museum dedicated to Angela Bogasari Merianoù, the Greek philosopher who came to Gallicianò in the 1970s to discover this small community with which she shared her origins. In Gallicianò, those who live there are proud of their land of Magna Graecia origins and ready to tell their story as they accompany the visitor through the streets of the village and let him quench his thirst at the Fountain of Love (Cannalo Tis Agapi) and rest in the small open-air amphitheatre, dedicated to Bartholomew I, Patriarch of Constantinople, who visited the village, overlooking the magnificent landscape of the Bovesìa where the Amendolea Castle rises in the distance.

 

Village of Staiti
A characteristic medieval village, with houses arranged in terraces and the historical centre crossed by a dense tangle of narrow streets, Staiti rises about 12 kilometres from the coast in the Aspromonte Park, surrounded by a real natural rock barrier that, in past centuries, proved to be an excellent protection against pirate raids. It was founded as Casale di Brancaleone, around 1500, by farmers and shepherds; it took its name from the Staiti family, who exercised feudal rule over it. The parish church of medieval origin, dedicated to Santa Maria della Vittoria in memory of the victory of the Christians over the Muslims in the Battle of Lepanto, restored in 1967, houses a marble Madonna and Child by Gagini. In the area stands the Abbey of Santa Maria dei Tridetti, a Byzantine church whose origin is uncertain: legend has it that a temple dedicated by the Locrians to Poseidon, god of the sea, existed on the site, information supported by the discovery of a coin with the god depicted. Between the 7th and 8th centuries, on the same site, Basilian monks founded a Greek church in honour of Our Lady of the Trident (a clear allusion to the sea deity), later passed down in Tridetti through the dialect. The church is first mentioned in a document from 1060. Also worth seeing are the ruins of a monastery, dating back to the year 1000, inhabited by the first Basilian monks who took refuge on Aspromonte. Recently established, the Museum of the Italo-Greek Saints of Staiti, with its collection of Byzantine icons, is the real pearl of the village, and is intended to be the completion of a journey to recover the community's Greek Orthodox traditions.  

Village of San Lorenzo superiore

San Lorenzo supriore is a small and extremely charming municipality of Byzantine origin, in which Greek was still spoken until the first half of the 18th century. Although today it is sparsely inhabited, it was, together with Bova, one of the most important municipalities in the region in the area between Reggio Calabria and Locri. In the history of united Italy, when Garibaldi landed in Melito Porto Salvo, the village welcomed Garibaldi's fugitives after their failed attempt to conquer the Altafiumara fort, protecting them from the Bourbons and allowing them to continue the liberation of southern Italy. The symbol of San Lorenzo is a centuries-old elm tree, located in the square that houses the church. It is a rarity from a botanical point of view, as no comparable specimens of this tree are known in the whole of southern Italy. he Protopapal Church and the Dittereale Church are dedicated to Santa Maria Nives and Santa Maria della Caramia respectively. Two treasures of Byzantine origin that bear witness to the passage of various conquering peoples. Important works are kept in the Protopapale church: the marble statue of Santa Maria della Neve, attributed to Gagini, and the wooden statue of San Lorenzo. Every 12 August, a procession carries an ancient Byzantine icon from San Lorenzo to San Pantaleone at the Sanctuary of the Madonna della Cappella.

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Village of Roccaforte del Greco
In Greek Vunì, meaning mountain or mountain, Roccaforte del Greco sits on a steep hill that offers a 360° panoramic view of the entire Amendolea Valley. The village arose in the orbit of the Holy Trinity monastery, the innermost Byzantine outpost, near punta d'Atò, Greek for 'peak of the eagle'. The village church, dedicated to San Rocco, houses a statue of the Madonna and Child, made after the Latinisation of the Bova diocese. Positioned on three rocky ridges, the village dominates the Amendolea valley. The old part houses the Town Hall, right where, according to popular memory, the castle that later collapsed stood near the precipice. Surrounding it are the Castello district, the Borgo district and the San Carlo district, the latter now almost uninhabited.

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Village of Bagaladi

The village of Bagaladi is located in the Valle del Tuccio, an area strongly linked to Calabria's Greek Orthodox past. In fact, in this area, which is also overlooked by the Borgo di San Lorenzo Superiore, there are small hamlets and districts that have Greek names, such as Chorio and Musupuniti, and names of typically Byzantine saints such as San Pantaleone and San Fantino. Bagaladi is not only one of the two gateways to the Greek Aspromonte National Park (the other is Bova), but it is also a small municipality resulting from the mixture of many cultures, starting with its name, which seems to be of Arab-Greek origin. Known for its numerous olive groves that enrich its agriculture and make the landscape of unparalleled beauty, it is important for the production of a special harvested olive oil that is the livelihood of much of its population. Bagaladi is situated on a hill at the foot of Mount San'Angelo, and lays its roots, dating back to the 10th century, in a place that was home to numerous Basilian monasteries such as the Badìa di San Teodoro, very close to the town, the Monastery of Sant'Angelo, San Fantino and San Michele. Around 1500, the village took its current name, a name that is the subject of historical disputes as to its derivation. Many maintain that it comes from the Arabic 'Baha-Allah', meaning beauty that comes from God,later mispronounced as Vadalà, the surname of a family that used to reside here. In the Calabrian Greek language, in fact, the suffix -adi is given as belonging to a family. Others trace it back to the great oil production, a mixture of Latin and Greek terms such as 'bag' or 'vallum-val' and 'aladi' meaning oil in modern Greek, and therefore Valle dell'olio.

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