Description of the attraction
Gerace is a small picturesque town in the province of Reggio Calabria in the Italian region of Calabria. It is located 10 km from the ancient city of Locri on the top of a 500-meter cliff. The city's name comes from the Greek word for sparrowhawk. According to legend, the first inhabitants of these places, fleeing from the attack of the Saracens in 915, followed the sparrowhawk, which led them to the mountains. True, archaeological finds made on the territory of modern Gerace indicate that people lived in these places as early as the Neolithic era. Later, during the heyday of the ancient Greek colony of Locri, the settlement remained on the hill, and in the era of Ancient Rome a military garrison was located here. After the Byzantine conquest of Italy in the 6th century, Gerace became an administrative, military and religious center, which received the name of Santa Chiriaca. And in the 11th century, the Normans appeared in Calabria, and the city became the center of one of the Norman principalities. Its symbol was the Castle of Hauteville (Castello Altavilla in Italian). At the end of the 13th century, during the so-called Sicilian Supper, Gerace was occupied by the Aragonese admiral Roger Lauria, who turned the city into his fiefdom, but after only half a century, Gonzalo de Cordoba made it a principality again. Only in 1806, with the abolition of feudal law, Gerace became the provincial capital. Even later, in the 19th century, the Gerace Marina area was built on the coast.
The main attractions of the city today are the ruins of a Norman castle, which once stood on top of a cliff. Of particular interest to tourists is the well-preserved medieval center of Gerace, which once had 128 churches. Only a fraction of them have survived: the 13th century church of San Francesco with a priceless Baroque altar, the Greek church of Santa Maria del Mastro from the end of the 11th century, the tiny church of San Giovannello of the 10th century and the majestic Norman Cathedral, one of the largest in Calabria. … Inside, it consists of a central nave and two side chapels, separated from each other by 26 columns brought from the ancient temple of Locri.
