History

The Hill on which is located the ancient centre of Castrovillari was certainly inhabited in prehistoric times. In Roman times a "castrum" was built at the peak of  the hill, of which remain some finds  of a hollow space beneath the loggias of the  “Santa Maria del Castello” shrine. The town was strengthened with walls, which, over the centuries, consented to the town a reliable defence against the Saracens and Normans, who latter conquered it only after a long siege.

Towards the end of the 11th century, some medieval documents mention the locality also under the name of "Castrum Villarum", or how a fortified place of the "villas" (plural);  for which some scholars thought to the development of a  structure  articulated on two centres; the fortress on the Hill of “Santa Maria del Castello”, and the “Villa”, which has no walls, gathering around the new Church patron, San Giuliano. An expansive phase of the town appeared with some slowness throughout the XII century. Settled in it some Jewish communities, who chose the South-western slopes of the Hill to edify their civilian dwellings, the so-called “‘palatiate’ houses” in documents later, located in a quarter called "Giudecca". Around 1220-21 “San Pietro da San Andrea della Marca”, a disciple and companion of St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), in his work of disclosure of the doctrine of his Order in Calabria, founded a monastery here.

The process of expansion of the town came to the fifteenth century when Castrovillari is testified by its northern limit to the “Chain bridge”, with the quarter called "Casale", which was strengthened with battlemented walls, as evidenced by a notarial act of  the 1483. They opened at eight gates. Inside this circle of walls, the town was a typical medieval centre, grown slowly on itself without any particular building legislation. In this period of evolution of urban shape, the story of Castrovillari unfolded in a tumultuous, since the first siege of Robert Guiscard [1015-1085] (1064), a second of Ruggero [1031-1101] (1093).

By the Hohenstaufen, to whom it remained very faithful, it obtained a variety of benefits and privileges and the honorific title of the “ Swabians’ New City”; more confusing was the chaotic period  of the Angevins and Aragonese rule, until, repressed the conspiracy of the barons, Ferdinand I of Aragon (1424-1494), as part of the restructuring of defensive Calabrie, ordered the construction of a more substantial Castle, equipped with four angular towers and deep moats and on whose coat of arms appears the date of 1490.

In the early 16th century began a long feudal eclipse, which caused a stasis under the Dominion of the powerful Dukes Spinelli from Cariati, with a brief parenthesis (1579-1610) of the Sanseverino from Bisignano family. Between the 17th and 18th centuries the town was the subject of remakes and repairing of churches and convents and some new Foundation, which however in no way affect the urban form, as it was historically determined in medieval times. A negative  impacts instead provoked an earthquake in 1638, and some neighbourhoods of the "Civita"  with other dwellings towards San Giuliano and entire sections of defensive walls where destroyed. At the end of the 18th century, the clergy of San Giuliano  began to build in the area of the “Olivitello”. With the French occupation in 1806, for its strategic location at the mouth of the ancient  “Via Consolare” in the plain of Sibari, Castrovillari was elevated to the role of one of the four districts of the "Calabria Citeriore", obtaining, after the unification of Italy (1861), some bureaucratic and administrative functions.

Etymology

The first part of the name, "Castro", refers to the Latin word "Castrum", or "fortified village". The second part, "Villari", shows the socio-economic function of the ancient "Castrum", the territory of which, in Roman times was divided into "Villae" a kind of typical Roman settlement.

In this sense P. Di Leo writes: "[…] The most distinctive sign in the process of Romanisation, after the social war, was certainly in rural context, the imposition of the  “villae”, between the 2nd and 1st century BC, intended to replace, it seems, the small properties (…) The system of the “villa”  was a real example of a self-sufficient farm , intended exploitation land, often directed to monoculture and the production and sale of the ‘surplus’.

The wide use of slaves enlisted the double result that they have a lot of cheap labour, and a small army for defensive and offensive purposes (…) The system of  ‘villae’ also shows the presence of wealthy landowners, who had undertaken a wide range of interests stretching beyond the boundaries of ‘villa’. The fertility of the Earth and the abundance of water gave good crops, forests nearby gave wood, and summer pasture fed cattle; finally, the Roman roadways allowed trade into the surrounding territories […] "(see P. Di Leo, L. De Rose, "The ancient and medieval Age", in F. Mazza, "Castrovillari, History, Culture and Economy”, Rubbettino, 2003: 44-45). In medieval documents the town was called "Castri Villa", or " Fortified Villa", which constitutes the meaning of its name. P. De Leo and L. De Rose, in their important study about Castrovillari, add more interesting things about the first settlement of the ancient populations inside the "Castrum", due to the necessity of defence by the incursions of the Normans. The ancient “castrum” was said, in Greek, "Nèon Sassionion", and "[…] It was erected on two neighbours hills, Casale and Civita. Also it is to discard the hypothesis very weak that in 997 Castrovillari was called ' Katzibellos ', also because the document to which the name make reference dates back to the 1081; instead, it is certain that the first reliable sources documenting the existence of the town are the ‘Chronicle’ by Amato from Montecassino (11th century) and that by Geoffroi Malaterra (11th century), both dating back to the 11th century […] "(See: 47).