Scalea

Scalea (Scalìa in Calabrian, Skalia in Byzantine Greek) is a town of more than 11,000 inhabitants in the province of Cosenza, facing the Tyrrhenian Sea at the heart of the Riviera dei Cedri, on the Upper Tyrrhenian Cosentino coast. On 12 February 2018 it was granted the honorary title of city by the President of the Republic. Its name tells of an old bond with the sea: it most likely comes from the Greek skalíon, diminutive of skála, the word that in medieval Greek meant a sea landing, a pier, a quay. The natural landing was the islet of Torre Talao, an ideal mooring for boats from the mid-9th century, when the first settlement arose. The dialect form ’a Scalia recalls the plural ta skalía, “the little harbours”; the idea that the name comes from the stepped old town is folk etymology.

Geography

The municipality is roughly four-sided: about 8 km of Tyrrhenian coast and a depth of about 3 km inland, covering 22.5 km². It borders San Nicola Arcella, Santa Domenica Talao, Orsomarso and Santa Maria del Cedro. The town spreads over a broad promontory that closes the Gulf of Policastro to the south: the oldest districts climb in terraces to about 75 metres, while the modern town stretches along the coast. The shoreline changes from south to north: sandy and straight at first, then indented and rocky, with caves carved by the sea. Half the territory is plain, formed by sediment of the Lao river, which crosses the southern part for about 3 km before reaching the sea; the other half is hilly, rising to 408 metres. The Carpini stream marks the northern boundary.

History

The Torre Talao caves have yielded stone and bone artefacts from the Middle Palaeolithic, of the Mousterian phase, along with remains of Pleistocene fauna. The area was Oenotrian land until, in 600 BC, the Sybarite Greeks founded Laos on the first heights above the Lao to ease communications with their colony of Poseidonia: Scalea is considered its heir, as it is of the imperial-era Roman villas scattered across the plain.

The original nucleus arose during the struggles between Byzantines and Lombards, who occupied the area towards the end of the 6th century and built a stronghold. For about three centuries the town stayed perched on its hill, enclosed by its own houses linked one to another and opened by two gates: the military one, at the top, guarded by the gastald’s fortress that the Normans turned into a castle, and the town gate on the open space of Cimalonga. From the 7th century anchorites settled here, Greek-Byzantine hermit monks living in small refuges such as the Scalicella caves, joined in the 9th century by monks fleeing Sicily. By Norman times Scalea already had a busy merchant and seafaring life; at the start of the 14th century it became an important sea landing and, after rebelling against the Angevins, crown land, with tax relief that boosted trade: its ships reached the main ports of the Mediterranean. In the Angevin-Aragonese period the population passed 5,000, then wars, Saracen raids and epidemics halved it. In 1554 the Saracens of Dragut sacked the church of Santa Maria d’Episcopio; in the 16th century the town took part in anti-feudal uprisings, and the 17th brought earthquakes, plague and famine.

In the early 19th century Lorenzo Giustiniani’s Geographical Dictionary described a harbour handy for cargo boats, a lake called the Pantano and countryside rich in wheat, pulses, wine, melons and onions; dried figs and zibibbo grapes were sold to Genoese, Livornese and English traders. During the Second World War Scalea was bombed; from the 1960s the old town emptied and the town grew southwards along the sea, taking on its present look in the 1990s.

The old town

The old heart is a tangle of steps, alleys, small squares and arches. Typical are the suppuorti, covered stretches of street born of the need to build houses one on top of another for defence. Giustiniani recorded the town’s four gates: the sea gate, the bridge gate, the Cimalonga gate and the fort gate; at the top, the castle “almost in ruins” with its bastions. Among the civic buildings stand out the Palazzo dei Principi, from the 13th century, owned by the town and home to the library, with halls frescoed in the 17th century; the Norman palace known as the Episcopio, from the 12th century, which became a fortress under the Angevins and was the birthplace of Roger of Lauria, grand admiral of the Angevin-Aragonese fleet; and the Palazzo Palamolla, of the family that moved to Scalea in the 14th century for the sea trade. The town also keeps the bust of the philosopher Gregorio Caloprese, by Enrico Mossuti, from 1911.

The churches

The church of Santa Maria d’Episcopio, known as the Madonna del Carmine, has its first nucleus in the 8th century, when the area, known as Mercurion, was a centre of Basilian monasticism; in that period it may have been a bishop’s seat, hence the name. Under the Normans it was enlarged and entrusted to the Benedictines of Cava dei Tirreni, as the great apse window bears witness; after the 1554 sack it was enlarged, then rebuilt between the 18th and 19th centuries. Lower down rises the church of San Nicola in Plateis, recorded from the 8th century: on the high altar is a 17th-century painting by Giovanni Bernardo Azzolino, and in the 14th-century chapel of St Catherine the funerary monument of Admiral Ademaro Romano, attributed to the circle of Tino da Camaino. The small church of the Spedale, with two naves and three apses, was built by Basilian monks in the 9th century and keeps frescoes showing St Nicholas. The sanctuary of the Madonna del Lauro was built in the early 18th century by fishermen of Scalea and Meta di Sorrento to fulfil a vow made during a storm. In the 13th century Pietro Cathin, a disciple of St Francis, founded a Franciscan friary here.

Towers and coast

On the coast, the islet of Torre Talao has always been a natural landing; Giustiniani described a tower there from the time of Charles V, armed with three cannons. To the north, on a hill a few steps from the sea gate, stands the Torre della Scalicella, known as the Torre di Giuda (Judas Tower): according to the popular tale it is named after the watchman who in the early 17th century failed to warn the castle of approaching Saracens, while other historians link it to the nearby Jewish quarter. In the town there is also the Torre Cimalonga, which in Giustiniani’s day served as a prison. Along the rocky shore follow the Ajnella reef and the sea caves du trasi e jesci, della pecora and del bacio.

Feasts and traditions

The patron saint is the Madonna del Carmine, celebrated on 15 and 16 July. On the morning of the 16th the mayor offers the Madonna a votive candle on behalf of the townspeople, and the statue is carried in procession through the main streets; women carry on their heads the cinte, richly decorated wooden frames that hold candles. The Virgin was proclaimed patron on 7 March 1875, after a cholera epidemic; for the centenary the townspeople gave her a gold crown, melted down in the open air in the old square in front of the faithful. In summer the town hosts the Laos Fest, an independent music festival founded in 2003. Scalea has been twinned with the Polish town of Władysławowo since 2017.

Scalea today

Historically tied to farming and fishing, until the 1970s the land near the sea was planted with citron trees; then building development transformed the landscape, and today the economy is geared above all to tourism.

Getting there

Scalea is crossed by the SS18 Tirrena Inferiore and the SS504 di Mormanno state roads, and has a station on the Tyrrhenian line, Scalea-Santa Domenica Talao, where high-speed trains running along the coast also stop. From the A2 “del Mediterraneo” motorway you reach the coast from the Lagonegro nord exit via the SS585 Fondo Valle del Noce and the SS18. There is an airfield in the municipality; the nearest airport is Lamezia Terme, about 120 km away.