Santa Severina
The village, which holds the title of one of the Most Beautiful Villages in Italy, stands on a spur of tufa overlooking the valley of the Neto River.
Santa Severina
The Stone Ship
Santa Severina is an ancient medieval village set on a hillock three hundred metres above the sea, located in the centre of the province of Crotone halfway between the Ionian Sea and the Sila mountains in the middle of a wonderful hilly landscape, with the Neto river running through its territory. The town coincides with the historical centre, whose ‘stones’ tell the thousand-year history of this community.
The village, which holds the title of one of the Most Beautiful Villages in Italy, stands on a spur of tufa overlooking the valley of the Neto River.
An Ancient History
Santa Severina is an ancient Greek colony known as Siberene, the settlement is documented as an Oenotrian city as early as the 5th century BC.
The place became an outpost of the Byzantium empire, which built a kástron (fortress agglomeration) on the highest part of the rocky outcrop and in the following century was elevated to the Metropolitan See of Byzantium, where the archbishop took up residence.
After the year 1000, the village, after a two-year siege, was conquered by the Normans and construction of the castle began.
The Stone Ship
The village of Santa Severina is known as the ‘stone ship’, because of its shape that from above resembles a ship stranded between the rocks, an image that is made even more fascinating at first light, when the valley is immersed in mist and the ‘stone ship’ seems to want to plough this ‘white sea’.
The Most Beautiful Village In Italy
Santa Severina has been included in the circuit of the Most Beautiful Villages in Italy, and here it is impossible not to be captivated by the Byzantine charm emanating from the historic buildings, and the breathtaking views stretching as far as the sea. A stroll through the Grecìa District, in the eastern part of the town, which has retained virtually unchanged its original urban structure. Here the houses appear to be carved into the rock. From Grecìa, we move on to the neighbouring district of Iudea, an ancient Jewish quarter until the 16th century.
But the most evocative place is Piazza del Campo, which, with its name, preserves its identity as a parade ground, dividing the Norman Castle and the Villa Comunale from the Co-cathedral of Sant’Anastasia, with its Baptistery, the oldest Byzantine monument in the whole of Calabria,. and the Diocesan Museum. The square immediately conveys the charm of this ‘medieval’ village, which, amid myths, legends and history, takes on a magical dimension. The southern side of the square is dominated by the majestic Norman castle built in the early 11th century on the ruins of an earlier Byzantine fortification. Over the centuries it was modified and enlarged and today it is magnificently preserved and considered one of the most beautiful and complex military works in Calabria.
