Province of Catanzaro
The province of Catanzaro is a province of the Calabria region of Italy. The city Catanzaro is both capital of the capital of the region of Calabria; the province contains a total of 80 municipalities. Its provincial president is Vincent Bruno, it contains the Isthmus of the Gulf of Squillace. It borders the provinces of Crotone, Reggio Calabria, Vibo Valentia, it borders the Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas to the east and west, respectively. After the last ice age, stone age hunter-gatherers lived in this area. By about 3,500 BC they had started settling in villages. In the ninth and eighth centuries BC, Greeks began colonising the coastal regions of Calabria, calling the area Magna Graecia, they brought with them their Hellenic civilization and the olives and vines that are cultivated in the province today. By the third century BC, the Greeks were conquered by tribes from northern Italy, including a branch of the Samnites called the Bruttii, they established their sovereignty over present day Calabria and founded new cities, including their own capital "Consentia", now known as Cosenza.
After their victory in the Pyrrhic War, the Romans occupied Calabria, the region remained under their control until the fifth century AD. After the Visigoths overthrew the Romans, there followed an unsettled period for Calabria. However, by the middle of the sixth century, the Byzantine Empire was in control of southern Italy; the city of Catanzaro was founded by the Byzantines during the tenth century. The city, atop a hill above the Gulf of Squilis, was named Katanrzarion or Catasarion as these derive from the Greek words for "terrace" and "under"; the city was fortified in 1055 and a castle was constructed. The area of the plateau of La Sila towards the Ionian Sea was settled by immigrants from Albania in the period 1448–1535, they created the communities known as Sila Greca. The province of Catanzaro is one of the five provinces in the region of Calabria. To the south and east, the province has a coastline on the Ionian Sea, to the northwest, a coastline on the Tyrrhenian Sea; the Province of Cosenza lies to the Province of Crotone to the east.
To the south west lie the provinces of Vibo Valentia and Reggio Calabria. The provincial capital as well as the capital of the region is the city of Catanzaro; the province occupies both sides of the Calabrian Apennines and has a total area of 5,200 square kilometres. The central part of the province is the isthmus of Catanzaro, a long narrow valley of 30 kilometres, connecting the north and south parts of the coastline, the Gulf of Squillace and the Gulf of Saint Euphemia. Other parts of the province are mountainous, with steep sided valleys formed by short rivers; the River Ampollino on the boundary with the Province of Crotone is impounded to form the Ampollino Lake. The eastern part of the province forms part of the high plateau of La Sila, about 1,200 m above sea level, which covers around 2,000 square kilometres of territory along the central part of Calabria; the highest point is Botte Donato. There are large numbers of lakes surrounded by dense coniferous forests; the province includes much of the Sila National Park, a wild area with rough grassland and forests of pine, oak and fir.
The main transport hub of the province is the central town of Lamezia Terme, located beside the A2 Salerno-Reggio Calabria Motorway. From here, the SS.288 State Route runs to Catanzaro. The town is on the main line leading from Reggio Calabria to Naples, is a major terminal for goods traffic. Secondary branch lines connect to Crotone. Near Lamezia Terme is the principal airport of the Lamezia Terme International Airport. Since 2009, various people have been arrested in the provinces of Catanzaro and Reggio Calabria in connection with various crimes. Comunes of the Province of Catanzaro Official website
Calabria
Calabria, known in antiquity as Bruttium, is a region in Southern Italy. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro; the Regional Council of Calabria is based at the Palazzo Campanella in the city of Reggio Calabria. The region is bordered to the north by the Basilicata Region, to the west by the Tyrrhenian Sea, to the east by the Ionian Sea; the region has a population of just under 2 million. The demonym of Calabria is calabrese in Calabrian in English. In ancient times the name Calabria referred, not as in modern times to the toe, but to the heel tip of Italy, from Tarentum southwards, a region nowadays known as Salento. Starting in the third century BC, the name Calabria was given to the Adriatic coast of the Salento peninsula in modern Apulia. In the late first century BC this name came to extend to the entirety of the Salento, when the Roman emperor Augustus divided Italy into regions; the whole region of Apulia received the name Regio II Calabria. By this time modern Calabria was still known as Bruttium, after the Bruttians who inhabited the region.
In the seventh century AD, the Byzantine Empire created the Duchy of Calabria from the Salento and the Ionian part of Bruttium. Though the Calabrian part of the duchy was conquered by the Longobards during the eighth and ninth centuries AD, the Byzantines continued to use the name Calabria for their remaining territory in Bruttium; the modern name Italy derives from Italia, first used as a name for the southern part of modern Calabria. Over time the Greeks started to use it for the rest of the southern Italian peninsula as well. After the Roman conquest of the region, the name was used for the entire Italian peninsula and the Alpine region too; the region is known as the “toe” of the “boot” of Italy and is a long and narrow peninsula which stretches from north to south for 248 km, with a maximum width of 110 km. Some 42% of Calabria's area, corresponding to 15,080 km2, is mountainous, 49% is hilly, while plains occupy only 9% of the region's territory, it is surrounded by the Tyrrhenian seas.
It is separated from Sicily by the Strait of Messina, where the narrowest point between Capo Peloro in Sicily and Punta Pezzo in Calabria is only 3.2 km. Three mountain ranges are present: Pollino, La Sila and Aspromonte. All three mountain ranges are unique with their own fauna; the Pollino Mountains in the north of the region are rugged and form a natural barrier separating Calabria from the rest of Italy. Parts of the area are wooded, while others are vast, wind-swept plateaus with little vegetation; these mountains are home to a rare Bosnian Pine variety and are included in the Pollino National Park. The Pollino National Park has the distinction of being the largest national park in Italy and covers about 1,925.65 square kilometres. La Sila, referred to as the "Great Wood of Italy", is a vast mountainous plateau about 1,200 metres above sea level and stretches for nearly 2,000 square kilometres along the central part of Calabria; the highest point is Botte Donato. The area boasts dense coniferous forests.
La Sila has some of the tallest trees in Italy which are called the "Giants of the Sila" and can reach up to 40 metres in height. The Sila National Park is known to have the purest air in Europe; the Aspromonte massif forms the southernmost tip of the Italian peninsula bordered by the sea on three sides. This unique mountainous structure reaches its highest point at Montalto, at 1,995 metres, is full of wide, man-made terraces that slope down towards the sea. In general, most of the lower terrain in Calabria has been agricultural for centuries, exhibits indigenous scrubland as well as introduced plants such as the prickly pear cactus; the lowest slopes are rich in citrus fruit orchards. The Diamante citron is one of the citrus fruits. Moving upwards and chestnut trees appear while in the higher regions there are dense forests of oak, pine and fir trees. Calabria's climate is influenced by mountains; the Mediterranean climate is typical of the coastal areas with considerable differences in temperature and rainfall between the seasons, with an average low of 8 °C during the winter months and an average high of 30 °C during the summer months.
Mountain areas have a typical mountainous climate with frequent snow during winter. Erratic behavior of the Tyrrhenian Sea can bring heavy rainfall on the western slopes of the region, while hot air from Africa makes the east coast of Calabria dry and warm; the mountains that run along the region influence the climate and temperature of the region. The east coast has wider temperature ranges than the west coast; the geography of the region causes more rain to fall along the west coast than that of the east coast, which occurs during winter and autumn and less during the summer months. Below are the two extremes of climate present in Calabria, both the warm mediterranean subtype on the coastline and the highland climate of Monte Scuro; when describing the geology of Calabria, it is considered as part of the "Calabrian Arc", an arc-shaped geographic domain extending from the southern part of the Basilicata Region to the northeast of Sicily, including the Peloritano Mountains. The Calabrian area shows basement of Paleozoic
Capetian House of Anjou
The Capetian House of Anjou was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct French House of Capet, part of the Capetian dynasty. It is one of three separate royal houses referred to meaning "from Anjou" in France. Founded by Charles I of Naples, the youngest son of Louis VIII of France, the Capetian king first ruled the Kingdom of Sicily during the 13th century; the War of the Sicilian Vespers forced him out of the island of Sicily, leaving him with the southern half of the Italian Peninsula — the Kingdom of Naples. The house and its various branches would go on to influence much of the history of Southern and Central Europe during the Middle Ages, until becoming defunct in 1435; the House ruled the counties of Anjou, Touraine and Forcalquier, the principalities of Achaea and Taranto, the kingdoms of Sicily, Hungary, Croatia and Poland. A younger son of House of Capet king Louis VIII of France the Lion, Charles was first given a noble title by his brother Louis IX of France who succeeded to the French throne in 1226.
Charles was named Count of Maine. Charles married the heiress of the County of Provence named Beatrice of Provence, she was a member of the House of Barcelona. After fighting in the Seventh Crusade, Charles was offered by Pope Clement IV the Kingdom of Sicily — which at the time included not only the island of Sicily but the southern half of the Italian Peninsula; the reason for Charles being offered the kingdom was because of a conflict between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire, the latter of whom were represented by the ruling House of Hohenstaufen. It was at the Battle of Benevento that the Guelph Capetians gained the Sicilian kingdom from the Ghibelline Swabians, this was cemented after victory at Tagliacozzo. In keeping with the political landscape of the period, Charles is described by scholars as shrewd and ambitious, he signed the Treaty of Viterbo in 1267 with Baldwin II of Courtenay and William II of Villehardouin, the political alliance gave many of the rights of the Latin Empire to Charles and a marriage alliance for his daughter Beatrice of Sicily.
The Byzantines had taken back the city of Constantinople in 1261 and this was a plan to take it back from Michael VIII Palaiologos. It recognised Charles' possession of Corfu and cities in the Balkans such as Durazzo, as well as giving him suzerainty over the Principality of Achaea and sovereignty of the Aegean islands aside from those held by the Republic of Venice. For a while Charles was preoccupied helping his French brother in the unsuccessful Eighth Crusade on Tunis. After this he once again focused on Constantinople, but his fleet was wrecked in a freak storm off the coast of Trapani. With the elevation of Pope Gregory X, there was a truce between Charles and Michael in the form of the Council of Lyons, as Christians focused on improving ecumenical relations, with hopes of regaining the Kingdom of Jerusalem back from the Muslims. Charles had solidified his rule over Durazzo by 1272, creating a small Kingdom of Albania for himself, out of Despotate of Epirus territory. Charles was driven out of Sicily in 1282, but his successors ruled Naples until 1435.
This House of Anjou included the branches of Anjou-Hungary, which ruled Hungary and Poland, Anjou-Taranto, which ruled the remnants of the Latin Empire and Anjou-Durazzo, which ruled Naples and Hungary. The senior line of the House of Anjou-Durazzo became extinct in the male line with the death of King Ladislaus of Naples in 1414, extinct with the death of his sister Joanna II in 1435. During Middle Ages, there were the House of Capet. Charles I, founder of the House of Anjou-Sicily, with his first wife, Beatrice of Provence fathered his eldest son, Charles II of Naples. In 1270, Charles II married Mary of Hungary, daughter of Stephen V of Hungary and Elizabeth the Cuman, they had fourteen children which provided the House of Anjou-Sicily with a secure position in Naples. The childless Ladislaus IV of Hungary, was succeeded by Andrew III as King of Hungary, he was the son of Stephen the Posthumous, considered by Stephen's much older half-brothers a bastard son of infidelity. For this reason, after the death of Ladislaus IV. some of the Árpád dynasty's cognates sought the family as extinct.
In Naples, Charles Martel of Anjou, the eldest son of Mary of Hungary announced his claim to the Hungarian crown, backed by his mother, the pope. He started to style himself king of Hungary, but he never managed to gain enough support from the Hungarian magnates to realize his claim. With Andrew III's childless death, the "last golden branch" of the tree of King Saint Stephen's family ended; the Hungarian diet was determined to keep the blood of Saint Stephen on the throne in the maternal line at least. In the upcoming years, a civil war followed between various claimants to the throne. After the short period of rule of Wenceslaus of Bohemia, Otto of Bavaria the civil war ended with Charles Robert's victory, the son of Charles Martel of Anjou, but he was forced to continue fighting against the powerful Hungarian l
Amantea
Amantea is a town, former bishopric and Latin Catholic titular see in the province of Cosenza in the Calabria region of southern Italy. It is the twentieth municipality in the region by population, while for population density it is ranked twenty-fourth place It is a tourist centre on the southern Tyrrhenian Sea coast. Amantea appears as a centre of its own in the 7th century, although traces of human presence from pre-historical times onwards have been found in the area. In 839 the Arabs captured it, being ousted by the Byzantines in 889, it was under Norman domination. In 1269 the Amanteani rebelled against the Angevines in the name of Conradin of Hohenstaufen, but were besieged by the French and defeated; the town is famous for the long resistance of its inhabitants against the French troops under Joseph Bonaparte who, in 1806–1807, attempted to conquer its castle. In July 1810, three British warships, the frigate HMS Thames, HMS Weazel, Pilot, captured or destroyed a convoy of 31 coasting vessels that were carrying stores and provisions from Naples to Murat's army at Scylla.
Seven large gunboats, four scampavias and an armed pinnace protected the convoy. At the approach of the British warships the convoy and its escorts beached themselves in front of Amantea, but the British were still able to capture all the vessels, destroy half a dozen, all while suffering only minimal casualties. In 987 a diocese of Scala / Scalen was established on territory split off from the Diocese of Amalfi On 1603.07.31 the bishopric was suppressed, merging its territory and title -under its last hitherto nominated incumbent- into the Diocese of Ravello–Scala Suffragan Bishops of Scala incompleteSergio... Alessandro Orso Alessandro... Costantino D’Afflitto Matteo D’Afflitto... Teodoro Scacciavento Guglielmo Lombardo Guglielmo Giacomo Sazali Andrea Fusco, next Bishop of Ravello, Bishop of Venosa Pietro Petruccio De Penni Natale Mastini D’Afflitto Evangelista Frioli Matteo Doti Giacomo Pisanelli Ferdinando de Castro Baldassarre Del Rio Ludovico Vannio Gaspare De Fossa Alfonso Romero Costantino De Monte Veltronio Feliciano Niguarda Francesco D’Afflitto Giovanni Battista Serignano Floriano Nanni Francesco Bennio, next first incumbent of successor see as Bishop of Ravello-Scala.
In 1968 the diocese was nominally restored as Latin Titular bishopric of Scala / Scalen. So far, it had the following incumbents, of the fitting Episcopal rank, with an archiepiscopal esception: Joseph Alphonse McNicholas as Auxiliary Bishop of Archdiocese of Saint Louis. First built by the Byzantines, it was strengthened by the Arabs; the current cylindrical tower is however to the Norman-Hohenstaufen age. It was long besieged by Charles of Anjou's troops in 1269, it was nearly destroyed during the French siege in 1806-1807. It is abandoned. Church of San Bernardino. Palazzo delle Clarisse; the palace was built in the early seventeenth century as the Convent of the Poor Claires and has remained a convent until 1806 when the French, as a result of the siege of Amantea, confiscated it along with other church properties and sold it to the Marquis de Luca di Lizzano who made it his noble residence. The Marquis De Luca lived in the palace until 1977. Following a period
Domenico Caruso
Domenico Caruso is an Italian poet and writer. He is a noted scholar of the Calabrian dialects, the language in which he composed many of his works. Calabria mia La Calabria e il suo poeta Liriche e satire Primi abbozzi Storia della Calabria Storia e Folklore Calabrese Martino di Tours'U barveri A' funtana A' stada Calabrisi jeu sugnu e mi'ndi vantu Gnuri e pezzenti Mondo domani Alla ricerca del folk italiano Era Lacinia Domenico Caruso su Storia e Folklore Calabrese Domenico Caruso su Calabresi.net Dialettando.com – I racconti della regione Calabria CalabriaOnLine – Poesie Calabresi Centro Studi Bruttium
Messina
Messina is the capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of more than 238,000 inhabitants in the city proper and about 650,000 in the Metropolitan City, it is located near the northeast corner of Sicily, at the Strait of Messina, opposite Villa San Giovanni on the mainland, has close ties with Reggio Calabria. According to Eurostat the FUA of the metropolitan area of Messina has, in 2014, 277,584 inhabitants; the city's main resources are its seaports, cruise tourism and agriculture. The city has been a Roman Catholic Archdiocese and Archimandrite seat since 1548 and is home to a locally important international fair; the city has the University of Messina, founded in 1548 by Ignatius of Loyola. Messina has a light rail system, Tranvia di Messina, opened on 3 April 2003; this line is 7.7 kilometres and links the city's central railway station with the city centre and harbour. The city is home to a significant Greek-speaking minority, rooted in its history and recognised.
Founded by Greek colonists in the 8th century BC, Messina was called Zancle, from the Greek ζάγκλον meaning "scythe" because of the shape of its natural harbour. A comune of its Metropolitan City, located at the southern entrance of the Strait of Messina, is to this day called'Scaletta Zanclea'. In the early 5th century BC, Anaxilas of Rhegium renamed it Messene in honour of the Greek city Messene; the city was sacked in 397 BC by the Carthaginians and reconquered by Dionysius I of Syracuse. In 288 BC the Mamertines seized the city by treachery, killing all the men and taking the women as their wives; the city became a base from which they ravaged the countryside, leading to a conflict with the expanding regional empire of Syracuse. Hiero II, tyrant of Syracuse, defeated the Mamertines near Mylae on the Longanus River and besieged Messina. Carthage assisted the Mamertines because of a long-standing conflict with Syracuse over dominance in Sicily; when Hiero attacked a second time in 264 BC, the Mamertines petitioned the Roman Republic for an alliance, hoping for more reliable protection.
Although reluctant to assist lest it encourage other mercenary groups to mutiny, Rome was unwilling to see Carthaginian power spread further over Sicily and encroach on Italy. Rome therefore entered into an alliance with the Mamertines. In 264 BC, Roman troops were deployed to Sicily, the first time a Roman army acted outside the Italian Peninsula. At the end of the First Punic War it was a free city. In Roman times Messina known as Messana, had an important pharos. Messana was the base of Sextus Pompeius, during his war against Octavian. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the city was successively ruled by Goths from 476 by the Byzantine Empire in 535, by the Arabs in 842, in 1061 by the Norman brothers Robert Guiscard and Roger Guiscard. In 1189 the English King Richard I stopped at Messina en route to the Holy Land for the Third Crusade and occupied the city after a dispute over the dowry of his sister, married to William the Good, King of Sicily. In 1345 Orlando d'Aragona, illegitimate son of Frederick II of Sicily was the strategos of Messina.
Messina may have been the harbour at which the Black Death entered Europe: the plague was brought by Genoese ships coming from Caffa in the Crimea. In 1548 St. Ignatius founded there the first Jesuit college in the world, which gave birth to the Studium Generale; the Christian ships that won the Battle of Lepanto left from Messina: the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes, who took part in the battle, recovered for some time in the Grand Hospital. The city reached the peak of its splendour in the early 17th century, under Spanish domination: at the time it was one of the ten greatest cities in Europe. In 1674 the city rebelled against the foreign garrison, it managed to remain independent for some time, thanks to the help of the French king Louis XIV, but in 1678, with the Peace of Nijmegen, it was reconquered by the Spaniards and sacked: the university, the senate and all the privileges of autonomy it had enjoyed since the Roman times were abolished. A massive fortress was built by the occupants and Messina decayed steadily.
In 1743, 48,000 died of plague in the city. In 1783, an earthquake devastated much of the city, it took decades to rebuild and rekindle the cultural life of Messina. In 1847 it was one of the first cities in Italy. In 1848 it rebelled against the reigning Bourbons, but was suppressed again. Only in 1860, after the Battle of Milazzo, the Garibaldine troops occupied the city. One of the main figures of the unification of Italy, Giuseppe Mazzini, was elected deputy at Messina in the general elections of 1866. Another earthquake of less intensity damaged the city on 16 November 1894; the city was entirely destroyed by an earthquake and associated tsunami on the morning of 28 December 1908, killing about 100,000 people and destroying most of the ancient architecture. The city was rebuilt in the following year, it incurred further damage from the massive Allied air bombardments of 1943. The city was awarded a Gold Medal for Military Valour and one for Civil Valour in memory of the event and the subsequent effort
Milan
Milan is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, the second-most populous city in Italy after Rome, with the city proper having a population of 1,372,810 while its metropolitan city has a population of 3,245,308. Its continuously built-up urban area has a population estimated to be about 5,270,000 over 1,891 square kilometres; the wider Milan metropolitan area, known as Greater Milan, is a polycentric metropolitan region that extends over central Lombardy and eastern Piedmont and which counts an estimated total population of 7.5 million, making it by far the largest metropolitan area in Italy and the 54th largest in the world. Milan served as capital of the Western Roman Empire from 286 to 402 and the Duchy of Milan during the medieval period and early modern age. Milan is considered a leading alpha global city, with strengths in the field of the art, design, entertainment, finance, media, services and tourism, its business district hosts Italy's stock exchange and the headquarters of national and international banks and companies.
In terms of GDP, it has the third-largest economy among European cities after Paris and London, but the fastest in growth among the three, is the wealthiest among European non-capital cities. Milan is considered part of the Blue Banana and one of the "Four Motors for Europe"; the city has been recognized as one of the world's four fashion capitals thanks to several international events and fairs, including Milan Fashion Week and the Milan Furniture Fair, which are among the world's biggest in terms of revenue and growth. It hosted the Universal Exposition in 1906 and 2015; the city hosts numerous cultural institutions and universities, with 11% of the national total enrolled students. Milan is the destination of 8 million overseas visitors every year, attracted by its museums and art galleries that boast some of the most important collections in the world, including major works by Leonardo da Vinci; the city is served by a large number of luxury hotels and is the fifth-most starred in the world by Michelin Guide.
The city is home to two of Europe's most successful football teams, A. C. Milan and F. C. Internazionale, one of Italy's main basketball teams, Olimpia Milano; the etymology of the name Milan remains uncertain. One theory holds that the Latin name Mediolanum planus. However, some scholars believe that lanum comes from the Celtic root lan, meaning an enclosure or demarcated territory in which Celtic communities used to build shrines. Hence Mediolanum could signify the central sanctuary of a Celtic tribe. Indeed, about sixty Gallo-Roman sites in France bore the name "Mediolanum", for example: Saintes and Évreux. In addition, another theory links the name to the boar sow an ancient emblem of the city, fancifully accounted for in Andrea Alciato's Emblemata, beneath a woodcut of the first raising of the city walls, where a boar is seen lifted from the excavation, the etymology of Mediolanum given as "half-wool", explained in Latin and in French; the foundation of Milan is credited to two Celtic peoples, the Bituriges and the Aedui, having as their emblems a ram and a boar.
Alciato credits Ambrose for his account. The Celtic Insubres, the inhabitants of the region of northern Italy called Insubria, appear to have founded Milan around 600 BC. According to the legend reported by Livy, the Gaulish king Ambicatus sent his nephew Bellovesus into northern Italy at the head of a party drawn from various Gaulish tribes; the Romans, led by consul Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus, fought the Insubres and captured the city in 222 BC. They conquered the entirety of the region, calling the new province "Cisalpine Gaul" – "Gaul this side of the Alps" – and may have given the site its Latinized Celtic name of Mediolanum: in Gaulish *medio- meant "middle, center" and the name element -lanon is the Celtic equivalent of Latin -planum "plain", thus *Mediolanon meant " in the midst of the plain". In 286 the Roman Emperor Diocletian moved the capital of the Western Roman Empire from Rome to Mediolanum. Diocletian himself chose to reside at Nicomedia in the Eastern Empire, leaving his colleague Maximian at Milan.
Maximian built several gigantic monuments, the large circus, the thermae or "Baths of Hercules", a large complex of imperial palaces and other services and buildings of which fewer visible traces remain. Maximian increased the city area surrounded by a new, larger stone wall encompassing an area of 375 acres with many 24-sided towers; the monumental area had twin towers. From Mediolanum the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, granting tolerance to all religions within the Empire, thus paving the way for Christianity to become the dominant religion of Roman Europe. Constantine had come to Mediolanum to celebrate the wedding of his sister
