Paola

With about 15,000 inhabitants, Paola is the most populous town of the Upper Tyrrhenian Cosentino coast and marks its southern boundary. Its name comes from the Latin pabula, “pastures”, but the world knows the town for one man: Saint Francis of Paola, born here in the 15th century, patron of Calabria and of seafarers. His sanctuary, in the valley behind the town, draws pilgrims from all over southern Italy and has made Paola one of Calabria’s religious-tourism destinations.

Geography

The territory, 42.88 km², rises from the sea to the 1,389 metres of Monte Cozzo Cervello, in the Catena Costiera that divides the coast from the Crati valley. The town has two souls: the marina, along the railway and the SS18, and the upper, hilly part, where the old town climbs towards the sanctuary in the green, narrow valley of the Isca stream. It borders Fuscaldo to the north, San Lucido to the south and, inland, Montalto Uffugo and San Fili.

History

The Roman ruins and the archaeological sites of contrada Cutura and Via Sant’Agata show the place was inhabited in antiquity, but the Paola you visit today is above all a child of the 16th century. It was the town’s golden age: the fame of Saint Francis, who died in 1507 and was canonised in 1519, brought the faithful from every part of Calabria, and Paola grew and adorned itself with palaces, streets and fountains in a season of intense building and artistic activity. From that period also dates the fief of the Spinelli marquises, whose documents already mention the great public fountain at the start of the century.

The saint has remained the thread of the town’s history. In 1921 his sanctuary was raised to a minor basilica; in 2000, for the Jubilee, the new liturgical hall opened; in 2008 the town closed the celebrations for the fifth centenary of his death, and in 2020, five hundred years after his canonisation, the Calabrian bishops’ conference proclaimed the basilica a regional sanctuary. The war left a visible mark: the British bombing of July 1943 flattened the long stairway and the houses around it, while the fountain at its foot stayed standing; a month later a bomb fell into the stream beside the sanctuary without exploding, and today it is displayed along the Via dei Miracoli.

What to see

The Sanctuary of Saint Francis stands at 178 metres, at the head of the Isca valley. You reach it across a wide forecourt: the 16th-century old basilica keeps in its Baroque chapel the few relics of the saint left in Paola (the rest are in Tours, France), the cloister with the rose garden and the frescoes of his life, and the hermitage of 1436, the cramped underground rooms where Francis lived with his first brethren. From the arch on the right starts the Via dei Miracoli: the brick kiln, the unexploded bomb of 1943, the Cucchiarella spring where pilgrims drink, the Devil’s Bridge with the footprint of legend and the Cave of Penance. The new basilica, opened in 2000, houses works by Bruno d’Arcevia and a 44-stop Mascioni organ.

In contrada Gaudimare, beneath the church of the Carmine, a staircase leads down into the church of Sotterra: a sixteen-metre underground hall, probably of the 9th–10th century, buried by landslides and floods of the Palumbo stream and rediscovered in 1874, with Byzantine-style frescoes (the Ascension in the apse, the Annunciation, the nursing Madonna of the Pomegranate) and graffiti left by medieval pilgrims.

In town, the Seven Channels fountain at the foot of the stairway is a 15th-century trough turned monument: seven sandstone spouts, a basin of 1636 with the image of the saint and his miracles, and shields bearing the peacock, symbol of Paola and of the Minim order. Around it huddles the Rocchetta, the old quarter of alleys, arches, loggias and stone portals, with the Porta di San Francesco at the town entrance, the Clock Tower, the saint’s birthplace, the “Pisciariddi” fountain in Piazza del Popolo and the Norman-Aragonese castle. The Badia with its tower, the Torre del Soffio and Palazzo Scorza complete the picture; two museums, the Museum of Saint Francis and the Don Salvatore Stillo museum of sacred art, gather the town’s religious memory.

The feasts of Saint Francis

Paola’s calendar revolves around its saint. On 27 March his birth is remembered and on 2 April, the canonical feast, his death; the solemn celebrations take place from 1 to 4 May, with processions on land and at sea of the saint’s bust and of his cloak. The cloak is at the heart of the best-loved legend: a boatman refused to ferry Francis from the Calabrian coast to Messina, and the saint crossed the strait sailing on his own cloak. Hence his title of patron of seafarers, alongside that of patron of Calabria.

Getting there

Paola is the coast’s transport hub: its station on the Tyrrhenian railway is the interchange with the Paola–Cosenza line, the SS107 branches off from the town towards Cosenza and the Sila, and the SS18 crosses it from north to south. By car from the A2 “del Mediterraneo”: from the north, exit Rende/Cosenza nord and SS107 to the coast; from the south, exit Falerna and SS18 northbound. The nearest airport is Lamezia Terme.