Aieta

Aieta (also written Ajeta, Ajìta in the local dialect) is a small town of about 700 inhabitants in the province of Cosenza, behind Praia a Mare on the Upper Tyrrhenian Cosentino coast. Its territory is part of the Pollino National Park and rises to Monte Ciagola, at 1,463 metres; the historic centre stands at 524 metres and is dominated by the Renaissance Palazzo Martirano-Spinelli. For its churches and palazzi Aieta belongs to the association of the Borghi più belli d’Italia, the most beautiful villages of Italy. Though only a few kilometres from the Tyrrhenian, it keeps mountain traditions in its culture and food.

Geography

The village stands on a ridge that looks north-west over the Tortora valley and south-east over an inner basin, fertile and crossed by a small stream, ringed by the mountains Calimaro, Curatolo, Rosello, Gada, La Destra, Ciagola, Le Fabbriche and Schiena. Until 1928 the municipality reached the sea: with the creation of the municipality of Praia a Mare it lost its coastal strip, but the name lives on in the Praja-Ajeta-Tortora station. The inhabitants are called aietani; the patron saint is San Vito, celebrated on 15 June.

History

The name appears in documents as Asty Aetou, “city of the eagle”, from the Greek aetòs, and dates from the Byzantine era: perhaps for the village’s commanding position, perhaps for the eagles of the area; the eagle, gold on three green hills, also appears in the coat of arms, granted in 2016. The inner basin was inhabited and farmed from protohistoric times. Farm villas of the Oenotrians (6th–5th century BC) and the Lucanians (5th–4th century BC) stood here, and the latter built a first lookout fortification on Monte Calimaro against the Greeks of Thurii, who came up from the Mercure-Lao valley across the Piani del Carro of Tortora. After the Roman farms, the Byzantines made the basin the seat of a tourma, strengthened the Calimaro stronghold against Goths and Lombards coming from Laino and gave the place its present name; in the same period numerous lavras of Greek-Byzantine monks who had fled the East settled here, remembered in the saints’ names of many localities. With the Normans the Calimaro post lost its purpose and was abandoned, while the village on the ridge grew, following from then on the fortunes of the Tyrrhenian towns of the Kingdom of Naples until the unification of Italy. A twentieth-century chapter is that of the wool textile machines bought in 1925 at Morano by Giacomo Cosentino: worked by hand or by pulleys driven first by steam and then by electric motors, they turned raw wool into cloth and yarn for jumpers, socks and trousers, and ran at full pace until about 1970.

What to see

The historic centre is dominated by the Renaissance Palazzo Martirano-Spinelli, a rare example of Renaissance architecture in Calabria. Around it cluster the sixteenth-century churches: Santa Maria della Visitazione, Santa Maria Assunta and the church of the monastery of the Friars Minor Observant of St Francis of Assisi, built in 1520. The chapels tell of different centuries: San Biagio and Santa Lucia are given as 11th-century, San Vito Martire as 17th-century, and then the Addolorata, San Giuseppe and Santa Maria della Purità. Outside the village, in contrada Meiazzo, the Valle dei Mulini preserves restored old mills; on Monte Calimaro lies the archaeological site of Aieta Vetere, the first settlement.

Getting there

Aieta is reached from Praia a Mare on the SP13 provincial road. The nearest railway station is Praja-Ajeta-Tortora, in Praia a Mare on the Tyrrhenian line, about 10 km away; a scheduled bus service links the village with Praia. By car on the A2 “del Mediterraneo”: from the north take the Lagonegro nord exit and the SS585 Fondo Valle del Noce to the coast, then the SS18; from the south take the Falerna exit and the SS18 northwards. The nearest airport is Lamezia Terme.