#aspromonte

Greek heritage in Gallicianò, Calabria, Italy

Photos by Angelo Cavallaro and Meraviglie di Calabria

il sole tramonta sull'Aspromonte

Misty woods.

Looking toward St. John the Baptist Church in Gallicianò, Calabria, Italy

At the very tip of Italy, on the edge of the Aspromonte Mountains in southern Calabria, you can find the last bastion of Greek civilization in the region.

Just forty people remain in Gallicianò, which today is officially a district of the larger community known as Condofuri. They speak grecanico (Grecanic), a language that hearkens back to ancient Greece, to Magna Graecia of southern Italy, founded in the eighth century BC.

The drive up to the village, past banks of prickly pear cactus and the occasional goatherd, revealed the area’s remoteness. What were those early Greek settlers thinking? The road flanked a wide, gray, dry riverbed, the fiumara Amendolea, and climbed up wild, rugged hills that extended further inland. The town site afforded an expansive panorama of the entire area all the way out to the Ionian Sea – a natural lookout and defense, seemingly impossible to reach. In ancient times, however, the dry, rocky wash was a navigable river. Today’s vehicles, albeit few, zigzag relatively easily up to Gallicianò.

Photo by Karen Haid

Aspromonte Mountains, Calabria, Italy

Aspromonte mountains, Calabria, Italy

Photos by L'Altro Aspromonte di Alfonso Picone Chiodo