Gerace (; , ) is a town and ''

comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...

'' in the

Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria ( it, Città metropolitana di Reggio Calabria) is an area of local government at the level of metropolitan city in the Calabria region of the Republic of Italy. It comprises the territory of the city of Reg ...

Calabria , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

, southern

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. Gerace is located some inland from

Locri Locri is a town and ''comune'' (municipality) in the province of Reggio Calabria, Calabria, southern Italy. Its name derives from that of the ancient Greek region of Locris. Today it is an important administrative and cultural centre on the Ion ...

, yet the latter town and the sea can be seen from Gerace's perch atop a vertical rock. The town stands on a hill formed of conglomerates of sea fossils from 60 million years ago. It is inscribed into ''

I Borghi più belli d'Italia I Borghi più belli d'Italia is an association of small Italian towns of historical interest, that was founded in March 2001 on the initiative of the Tourism Council of the , with the aim of preserving and maintaining villages of quality herit ...

'' list.

History

The name of the city derives from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

''hierax'' (ἱέραξ) ("

sparrowhawk Sparrowhawk (sometimes sparrow hawk) may refer to several species of small hawk in the genus ''Accipiter''. "Sparrow-hawk" or sparhawk originally referred to ''Accipiter nisus'', now called "Eurasian" or "northern" sparrowhawk to distinguish it f ...

"). According to a legend, the inhabitants of the coast, fleeing from a

Saracen upright 1.5, Late 15th-century German woodcut depicting Saracens Saracen ( ) was a term used in the early centuries, both in Greek and Latin writings, to refer to the people who lived in and near what was designated by the Romans as Arabia ...

attack in 915 CE, were led by a sparrowhawk to the mountains commanding the area of Locri, and here they founded the city. Archeological findings showed that the area was in fact inhabited since the

Neolithic Age The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...

; also traces of

Sicel The Sicels (; la, Siculi; grc, Σικελοί ''Sikeloi'') were an Italic tribe who inhabited eastern Sicily during the Iron Age. Their neighbours to the west were the Sicani. The Sicels gave Sicily the name it has held since antiquity, b ...

presence have been found. Later, even during the highest splendour of Locri, the hill was inhabited and was later the site of a Roman military garrison. After the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

reconquest of Italy in the 6th century, the town became an administrative, military and religious capital under the name of Santa Ciriaca. Gerace Cattedrale

In 986 the Saracens briefly conquered the city, but it returned to

control until the Norman conquest in 1059. Gerace was seat of a principality under the Normans, whose symbol was the Castle of the Hautville or Altavilla. It subsequently followed the history of the

Kingdom of Naples The Kingdom of Naples ( la, Regnum Neapolitanum; it, Regno di Napoli; nap, Regno 'e Napule), also known as the Kingdom of Sicily, was a state that ruled the part of the Italian Peninsula south of the Papal States between 1282 and 1816. It was ...

. During the

Sicilian Vespers The Sicilian Vespers ( it, Vespri siciliani; scn, Vespiri siciliani) was a successful rebellion on the island of Sicily that broke out at Easter 1282 against the rule of the French-born king Charles I of Anjou, who had ruled the Kingdom of ...

(late 13th century), Gerace was occupied by the Aragonese Admiral

Roger of Lauria Roger of Lauria (''c''. 1245 – 17 January 1305) was a Neapolitan admiral in Aragonese service, who was the commander of the fleet of the Crown of Aragon during the War of the Sicilian Vespers. He was probably the most successful and tal ...

who turned it into his own feudal estate; later it became a "Royal City". In 1348 it became a county, a possession of the

Caracciolo Caracciolo () is an Italian surname most associated with the noble House of Carácciolo from the Kingdom of Naples. Other people with the name include: * Alberto Caracciolo, Argentinian musician * Andrea Caracciolo, Italian footballer * Battistel ...

s, Gonzalo de Córdoba and, as a principality, of the Grimaldi (end of the 16th century). With the abolition of feudalism in 1806, Gerace became district capital. In 1847, the population of the district of Gerace rebelled, but the insurrection was eventually repressed by royal troops, and the leaders (including

Rocco Verduci Rocco Verduci (3 August 1824, Caraffa del Bianco – 2 October 1847, Gerace) was an Italian revolutionary, and martyr of the Insurrection of 1847 in the Two Sicilies. In September 1847 Verduci led a rebellion in the district of Gerace, a ...

) were sentenced and executed in Gerace. A new modern town, Gerace Marina, was built on the coast in the 19th century to house new public buildings. The name was changed to Locri in 1934.

Main sights

The main attractions of Gerace are the remains of the old Norman Castle (probably begun in the 10th century by the Byzantines) at the top of Gerace, and the perfectly preserved medieval town. It was once home to 128 churches; the most noteworthy amongst the remaining ones include: *Church of St. Francis (13th century), containing a precious Baroque altar. *The Norman Cathedral, the largest religious building in Calabria, including the prison of the Five Martyrs of Gerace (1045). It has a nave and two aisles, each divided by 13 columns coming from the ancient temples of

. The

crypt A crypt (from Latin '' crypta'' " vault") is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, sarcophagi, or religious relics. Originally, crypts were typically found below the main apse of a c ...

is accessible also. It has also a museum, founded in 1996. *The tiny Greek-Orthodox church of ''San Giovannello'' ("Little St. John"), built in the 10th century. *''Santa Maria del Mastro'' (1083), of Greek rite until 1480.

References

{{Authority control Cities and towns in Calabria Castles in Italy 915 establishments 10th-century establishments in Italy