Belvedere Marittimo

Belvedere Marittimo is a town of about 8,900 inhabitants in the province of Cosenza, between Diamante and Sangineto, on the Upper Tyrrhenian Cosentino coast. The name says it all: the old town sits on a rocky spur about 150 metres above the sea, and from up there the eye runs along the Riviera dei Cedri; at its feet, on the beach, the Marina has grown. A castle rebuilt in 1490 to Renaissance standards, a chapel with the date 1091 carved on its portal and a wooden crucifix of 1711 make the village a stop dense with history.

Geography

The territory splits into two distinct cores. The medieval village occupies a rocky outcrop about 150 metres up, its houses dropping steeply towards the narrow valley of the Soleo river. On the coast, some ten metres above sea level, stretches the Marina di Belvedere Marittimo, of more recent formation, where beaches, homes and tourist facilities are concentrated; the headland of Capo Tirone marks its shoreline. Behind, the countryside is dotted with dozens of hamlets and districts (Laise, Sant’Andrea, Petrosa, Calabro, San Nicola, Trifari, Quattromani, Oracchio, San Giorgio) and part of the municipality lies within the Pollino National Park. The climate is that of the Tyrrhenian coast: notably mild winters, hot but not scorching summers.

History

Belvedere’s history begins long before the village. Along the Soleo river, on the Galiso plateau at Oracchio, the historian Giovanni Amellino published between 1886 and 1890 the burials of a prehistoric community of the 10th–9th century BC. In the 7th century BC Bruttian groups settled on the hills around Monte La Caccia in small clusters of herders and farmers who grew vines and made terracotta, tiles, amphorae and jars; the Marina was their embarkation point. The tombs of Capo Tirone (4th–3rd century BC), with terracotta necklaces, bronze mirrors and Greek-style pottery, tell of the relations between those Bruttians and the colonies of Magna Graecia. In Roman times the territory held a villa d’otium on the Cotura plain, a Hellenistic-period farm at Sant’Ianni, a wine press for treading grapes at San Giorgio and another villa (1st–3rd century AD) on the northern boundary, towards Quattromani.

Today’s village was born with the Normans: tradition dates the first core of the castle to that period, enlarged by the Swabians and turned by the Angevins into a residence. In 1287 the feudal lord Ruggero Sangineto renewed fortress and town walls. By the late 1400s the fief belonged to the Sanseverino of Bisignano, who in 1490, under King Ferrante of Aragon, remade the castle to the military criteria of the Renaissance; the king’s coat of arms is still on the gate of the enclosure. In 1599 the brethren of Santa Maria del Pianto began the church that in the 18th century would take the name of the Santissimo Crocifisso, and in 1622 the lordship of Belvedere and Diamante passed to the prince of Bisignano Tiberio Carafa. The municipal coat of arms was recognised in 1931, the blue banner dates from 1930. Belvedere is twinned with Belvedere Langhe, Belvedere Ostrense, Belvedere di Spinello, Ceuta in Spain and Mitzpe Ramon in Israel.

What to see

The Castle dominates the village. The Norman-Swabian core, the Angevin residence and the late-15th-century remodelling can still be read in its walls: the corbels of the crowning recall solutions of the castle of Imola, the towers those of Calabrian and Apulian castles of the same period (Corigliano, Taranto, Otranto), and recent studies have linked the design to masters such as Giuliano da Maiano, Francesco di Giorgio Martini and Antonio Marchesi da Settignano. Over the gate into the enclosure stands the coat of arms of Ferrante of Aragon.

At the edge of the town, set against the old walls on the slope down to the Soleo, the Church of the Santissimo Crocifisso has a plain look that does not prepare you for what it holds: a monumental wooden crucifix of 1711, carved and painted, conceived by Pietro Frasa, a Milanese cleric and preacher who died in Foggia at 33 in that very year. The dead Christ, head fallen on the right shoulder and body twisted in a spiral, repeats the crucifix of Foggia cathedral and shows the influence of Caravaggio’s realism; the carving was done in Naples under Frasa’s direction, and a link to the workshop of Giacomo Colombo has been proposed. It was this sculpture that made the confraternity change its name, known until 1708 as Santa Maria del Pianto.

The village also holds the Chiesetta del Rosario, with the date 1091 carved on its sandstone portal, among the oldest monuments in town, and the birthplace of Saint Daniele Fasanella, the patron. In the Rocca district a quadrangular Roman watchtower survives. The Museo della Memoria Storica “Città di Belvedere Marittimo”, in via Castel Ruggiero, displays faithful reproductions of the archaeological finds from the area, whose originals are kept at the Civic Museum of Cosenza, in the stores of the Reggio Calabria museum and at Sibari.

Feasts, fireworks and crafts

Every year the town hosts Note di Fuoco, a fireworks festival born in 2007 that pits the three strongest nations in the field against each other over three to six days of shows; the first edition drew two hundred thousand spectators. The religious feasts follow the usual calendar: Saint Daniele Fasanella, the patron, with feast and market from 13 to 20 October; the Holy Cross on 22 June; on 13 December the feast in honour of Luigi Pollio and Riccardo Barbato. The economy joins the Marina’s beach tourism to citron processing, the fruit that gives the Riviera its name, and to a tradition of clay working that in the past counted several master craftsmen.

Belvedere on the Riviera dei Cedri

Belvedere Marittimo is the first town south of Diamante along the Upper Tyrrhenian Cosentino coast and opens the southern stretch of the Riviera dei Cedri, which continues with Sangineto, Bonifati and Cetraro. Its railway station is also the reference for Sangineto, whose stop has been closed since 2010. Inland, the inclusion of part of the territory in the Pollino National Park ties the village to the mountains, in the pattern that marks the whole coast: the sea in front, the Apennines behind.

Getting there

Belvedere Marittimo lies on the SS18 Tirrena Inferiore state road and is served by Belvedere Marittimo station on the Battipaglia–Reggio Calabria railway, which is also the reference station for Sangineto. By car from the A2 “del Mediterraneo” motorway: from the north, exit Lagonegro nord, then SS585 and SS18 southwards; from the south, exit Falerna and SS18 northwards. From the Marina a road climbs to the medieval village. The nearest airport is Lamezia Terme.