Mormanno

Mormanno (Murmànnu in Calabrian) is a town of about 2,450 inhabitants in the province of Cosenza, in the mountainous hinterland of the Upper Tyrrhenian Cosentino coast, inside the Pollino National Park. The village stands at 820 metres, between the ridges of Mounts Costa and Santa Croce, and from here you can reach the main peaks of the Pollino massif and the Orsomarso Mountains, once known precisely as the mountains of Mormanno. On Monte San Michele rises the Votive Lighthouse to the Fallen of Calabria, built in 1928 and now the symbol of the town; on the main square stands the Baroque mother church of Santa Maria del Colle.

Geography

The municipal territory covers 78.88 km² and borders Laino Castello, Morano Calabro, Orsomarso, Papasidero and Saracena and, in Basilicata, Rotonda and Viggianello. The town occupies a commanding position north of the Lao valley and over the broad valley of the Mercure, the name under which the Lao flows in Lucanian territory. The old town, which once counted 28 districts, is today divided into four quarters: Costa to the west, Capo lo Serro to the east, Casalicchio to the south and Torretta to the north, where the votive lighthouse stands. Mormanno is a mountain resort: from the town the peaks of the Pollino and the Orsomarso Mountains are easy to reach.

History

Mormanno’s origins remain uncertain. Local historians suggest it existed in the Lombard era, with the first settlements on the Costa hill, commanding the Lao valley. The name appears as in montibus Miromanorum in the hagiography of Saint Leoluca of Corleone, who came to Mormanno to meditate; some derive it from the Germanic Marimannus or Merimannus, others from the arimanni, Germanic mercenaries granted land between the gastaldate of Laino and the fortress of Papasidero. Among its many variants, Miromagnum, which stresses the position over the Mercure valley, did more than others to shape the present form. The first document is a deed of donation in Greek from 1092. In the feudal era the town belonged to the Orsini and then to the Sanseverino of Bisignano, who held it until 1612; after several transfers it passed to the royal domain in the last decade of the 18th century, when the mother church was rebuilt in late Baroque style, in a period of impoverishment that also struck the minor local nobility. In 1866 Mormanno saw clashes linked to attempts at a Bourbon restoration, followed by heavy emigration. Between 1940 and 1943 it was one of 14 Calabrian towns chosen by the Fascist authorities for the “free internment” of Jewish refugees: four refugees were confined here and freed when the Allies arrived in September 1943. In 2012 the town was among those hardest hit by the Pollino earthquake.

What to see

The Votive Lighthouse to the Fallen of Calabria 1915–1918, a regional monument, was raised in 1928 on Monte San Michele, at Torretta, on the forecourt of the 17th-century church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help; it holds relics and memories of the 11 gold medals for military valour and of the Calabrians who fell in the Great War, and is surrounded by a Remembrance Park. On Piazza Umberto I stands the mother church of Santa Maria del Colle, built around 1700 in Neapolitan Baroque style and consecrated on 5 September 1790, with its three-portal tuff façade. Among the many churches and chapels of the town, the Annunziata stands out, considered the oldest in the village: built in the 9th century, it was enlarged in the 14th and 18th. About 3 kilometres from the town, at San Brancato, lies the sanctuary of the Madonna della Catena; at Montagnella there is the botanical garden named after the botanist Biagio Longo, and the modern church of Santa Maria Goretti was designed by the architect Mario Cucinella.

Churches and chapels

Mormanno is a town of churches: besides the mother church and the Annunziata, sanctuaries, chapels and oratories are scattered through the town, many of them private chapels of local families. The sanctuaries include Our Lady of Pity and Perpetual Help, next to the lighthouse, San Rocco on the Corso Municipale and Santa Maria degli Angeli by the former Capuchin convent in the Casalicchio quarter. Among the chapels are San Michele and San Francesco di Paola at Capo lo Serro, Santa Caterina d’Alessandria and Sant’Antonio da Padova near the Costa, San Giovanni Battista at Costa al Castello, the chapel of the Blessed Virgin of Carmel, known as Sant’Anna, at the Vallone, and the Immacolata on Piazza Umberto I; then the church of the Madonna del Suffragio, the oratory of the Blessed Virgin of the Assumption at the Scarnazzo and that of Santa Barbara, known as the Crucifix oratory.

Patron saints and twin towns

Mormanno’s patron saints are the Madonna Assunta and San Rocco, celebrated on 16 August. The town is twinned with Savigliano, in Piedmont, and with Diamante, on the Upper Tyrrhenian Cosentino coast. The inhabitants are called mormannesi.

Getting there

Mormanno is served by the A2 “del Mediterraneo” motorway through its own junction, near the former Papasidero station of the Lagonegro–Castrovillari–Spezzano Albanese railway. The municipality is crossed from north to south by the SS19 delle Calabrie state road; to the north the SP3 branches off, leading to the motorway, to Papasidero and to Scalea, on the coast. The railway that once served the town, with a station open from 1931 to 1979, is no longer active. The region’s nearest airport is Lamezia Terme.