Rocca Angitola

Rocca Angitola is a frazione of the comune of Maierato, in the province of Vibo Valentia. It sits on a hill overlooking the basin of Lake Angitola, where the ruins of the ancient town still stand.

Legend says the town rose on the ruins of ancient Crissa, founded by Crissus of Phocis, brother of Panopeus, and that in modern times it took its name from being built on a rock (rocca) facing the river Angitola. In the Middle Ages it was called Rocca Niceforo, in honour of the Byzantine general Nikephoros Phokas the Elder, who defeated the Saracens several times, and in the late Middle Ages it was called Kastron. It was walled and fortified with towers, and Angevin records show 1,228 inhabitants in 1276. The Reintegra written in 1474 with the licence of Ferdinand of Aragon, King of Naples, shows Rocca Angitola with eighteen hamlets under its jurisdiction.

In 1532 there were 141 families, rising to 263 in 1545 and 275 in 1651. From then on it emptied, helped by the earthquakes of 1638 and 1659. The town was officially declared abandoned in 1772. Finally the 1783 earthquake destroyed the last, already abandoned, buildings. In 1783 the few sacred objects spared by the earthquake were taken to nearby villages; the three bells of the parish church were placed in the bell tower of the parish church of Maierato, where one of them still rings.

The splendid 15th-century Crucifix known as the "Father of the Rock" was moved to the collegiate mother church of San Giorgio Martire in Pizzo.

Text: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0 · translated from Italian