Old town of Santa Domenica Talao

The old town of Santa Domenica Talao began in the 17th century as an agricultural colony of the Spinelli princes of Scalea and took on much of its appearance in the 18th century, when the town reached about 3,000 inhabitants. Its heart is Piazza Italia, dominated by the mother church’s bell tower and the ancient wild olive tree that symbolises the village; enlarged in the 1920s and 1930s with contributions from emigrants in the Dominican Republic, it now has a panoramic terrace over the rooftops, the Tyrrhenian coast and the Lao valley. Along the streets stand the houses of the minor local nobility: Palazzo Campagna, built in 1774 by the archpriest Domenico Campagna, with arcaded stone loggias and a rusticated portal with floral motifs and little lions; Palazzo Perrone, later Senise, with over sixty rooms; Palazzo Schiffino, behind the mother church, birthplace of Sante Schiffino (1841–1906), a Jesuit and professor at the Gregorian University; Palazzo La Greca, on Via Veneto, home of the family of the painter Vicente La Greca, active in Brazil; and Palazzo Longo, on Via Fontana della Terra. In the upper town, ’A Codda, stands the 18th-century chapel of San Giovanni Evangelista; in the lower one, U’ Chianu, the chapel of the Madonna del Rosario of 1725. The Museo della Terra gathers farm tools, implements, maps and documents of rural culture.