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REGGIO CALABRIAReggio di Calabria (Italian pronunciation: [ˈrɛddʒo di kaˈlaːbrja]; Sicilian-Calabrian dialect: Rìggiu, Greek-Calabrian: Righi, Greek: Ῥήγιον, Rhégion, Latin: Rhegium), commonly known as Reggio Calabria or Reggio, is the biggest city and the most populated comune of Calabria, southern Italy, and is the capital of the Province of Reggio Calabria. Reggio is located on the "toe" of the Italian peninsula and is separated from the island of Sicily by the Strait of Messina. It is situated on the slopes of the Aspromonte, a long, craggy mountain range that runs up through the center of the region. The third economic center of mainland Southern Italy, the city proper has a population of more than 186,000 inhabitants spread over 236 km², while the fast-growing urban area numbers 260,000 inhabitants. More than 370,000 people live in the metropolitan area, recognised in 2009 by Italian Republic as the 10th Città Metropolitana ('Metropolitan City') in Italy. As a major functional pole in the region, it has strong historical, cultural and economic ties with the city of Messina, which lies across the strait in Sicily. It is the oldest city in the region, and despite its ancient foundation - Ρηγιον was an important and flourishing colony of Magna Graecia - it boasts a modern urban system, set up after the catastrophic earthquake on December 28, 1908, which destroyed most of the city. The region is subject to earthquakes and tsunami. It is a major economic center for regional services and transport on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. Reggio, with Naples and Taranto, is home to one of the most important archaeological museums, the prestigious National Archaeological Museum of Magna Græcia, dedicated to Ancient Greece (which houses the famous Bronzes of Riace, rare example of Greek bronze sculpture, which became one of the symbols of the city). The city has two recently founded universities: the Mediterranea University, and the "Università per Stranieri" (University for Foreigners). There are also an Academy of Fine Arts (opened in 1967) and a Conservatory of Music (founded in 1927). The city center, consisting primarily of Liberty buildings, has a linear development along the coast with parallel streets, and the promenade is dotted with rare magnolias and exotic palms. Reggio has commonly used popular nicknames: The "city of Bronzes", for the Riace bronzes which are testimonials of its Greek origins; the "city of bergamot", which is exclusively cultivated in the region; and the "city of Fatamorgana", an optical phenomenon visible in Italy only from the Reggio seaside. EtymologyDuring its 3500 year history Reggio has often been renamed. Each name corresponds with the city's major historical phases:
The toponym of the city is perhaps derived from Chaldean word Rec (meaning king) or maybe from the Greek one régnȳmi referring to the Straits between Calabria and Sicily as a break in the land. Ancient TimesThe origins of the ancient city of Reggio merge into the mists of mythology and the meanderings of archeology. From the late third millennium BC until the 8th century BC it was inhabited by peoples called Opici and Osci (perhaps Askenazi) and also by Oenotrians, Phoenicians, Mycenaeans, Ausones, Sicilians, Morgeti and Itali.[5] We know that the sculptor Léarchos was at Reggio at the end of the 15th century BC, and that Iokastos was King of Reggio at the beginning of 13th century BC.[5] After Cumae, Reggio is one of the oldest Greek colonies in southern Italy. The colony was settled by the inhabitants of Chalcis in 730 or 743 BC[5] on the site of the older settlement, Erythrà (Ερυθρά), meaning "the Red one". This dated back to the 3rd millennium BC and was perhaps established by the Ausones. The last Ausonian ruler was king Italus, from whom the name of Italy is derived:[6] the land round Reggio was at first known as Saturnia and then Italia, which in Roman times became the name of the whole peninsula, but in those days corresponded only to present-day southern Calabria, which was also known later as Bruzium.[5] King Iokastos is buried on the Punta Calamizzi promontory, called "Pallantiòn", where Greek settlers later arrived. The colony retained the earlier name of "Rhégion" (Ρήγιoν). Under Greek rule, Reggio became a Polis of Magna Græcia: it was governed by the Messenians, from 737 to 461 BC; by Syracuse from 387 to 351 BC, when it was known as Febea and then by the Campanians although for a time in the 5th-3rd centuries BC, it was also a republic. Reggio was one of the most important cities in Greater Greece, reaching great economic and political power during the 5th and 6th centuries BC under the Anaxilas government. Anaxilas allowed Reggio to rule over all the Messina Strait, including Zancle (modern Messina). Rhegion later allied with Athens during the Peloponnesian War until 387 BC when the city was taken by the Syracusans. Later, the polis of Rhegion reached great artistic and cultural heights, as is shown by the presence of art, philosophy and science academies, such as the Pythagorean School and also for its well-known poets, historians and sculptors such Ibycus, Ippy and Pythagoras of Rhegium. Many items of archaeological interest from this Hellenic era have been retrieved and are displayed in various places locally. As an independent city Rhegium was an important ally and "socia navalis" of Rome. During the Imperial age it became one of the most important and flourishing cities of southern Italy when it was the seat of the "Corrector", the Governor of "Regio II Lucania et Bruttii" (province of Lucany and Brutium). It was devastated by several major earthquakes and associated tsunami during the Roman Empire when it was called "Rhegium Julium" and was a noble Roman city. It was a central pivot for both maritime and mainland traffic, reached by the final part of the Via Popilia or Annia and nearby there was the port of Columna Rhegina. Rhegium boasted in imperial times, no less than eight thermal baths, one of which is still visible today. During all this time however, Reggio maintained its Greek customs and language. The Apostle, St. Paul passed through Rhegium in his final voyage to Rome (Acts XXVIII:13). After the invasions by the Vandals, the Longobards and the Goths in the 5th-6th centuries AD, Reggio became the capital of the "metropolis of the Byzantine possessions in southern Italy" and several times between 536 and 1060 AD it was also the capital of the Duchy of Calabria and linchpin of the Greek church in Italy. In addition to being a Byzantine centre of culture, during the 8th century the city became a Holy See: Reggio was until the 16th century, the most important Greek Rite Bishopric in Italy. Numerous occupying armies came to Reggio during the early Middle Ages due to the city's strategic importance. For hundreds of years Reggio was taken by various factions. The Saracens established a self-proclaimed sultanate on the Southern Italian coast under Mofareg-ibn-Salem which, at its peak reached, from Bari to Reggio and lasted from approximately 853–871.[7] Following their expulsion from Italy, the Saracens occupied Reggio in 918 and sold most of it inhabitants into slavery.[8] The city passed under the crowns of the Normans from 1060 to 1194 when it was called Risa and of the Swabians from 1194 to 1266. In 1060 the Normans, under Robert Guiscard and Roger I of Sicily, captured Reggio but Greek cultural and religious elements persisted until the 17th century. Reggio, because of its geographical position was often contested between the Kingdom of Naples (on continental Italy) and the Kingdom of Sicily, in fact between 1266 and 1503 Reggio passed between the rule of the Aragonese, who called it Regols and who enlarged its medieval castle and also of the Angevins. In the 12th century Reggio became part of the Kingdom of Sicily. In 1282, during the Sicilian Vespers, Reggio rallied in support of Messina and the other oriental Sicily cities because of the shared history, commercial and cultural interests. For 413 years Reggio was the capital of the Calabrian ‘Giustizierato’, from 1147 to 1443 and from 1465 to 1582. It supported the Aragonese forces against the House of Anjou. The city was ranked to Kingdom of Naples. In the 14th century it obtained new administrative powers. Reggio, throughout the Middle Ages, when sometimes it was written as Regio, was first an important centre of calligraphy and then of printing after this was invented, boasting the first printed edition of a Hebrew, a Rashi commentary on the Pentateuch, printed in 1475 in La Giudecca of Reggio[9] although scholars consider Rome as the city where Hebrew printing began. Early ModernLater came the Habsburgs of Spain although Reggio was ruled by a viceroy from 1504 to 1713; the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily were in fact part of the Spanish crown territories. Because of continuous Turkish incursions, pestilence, and oppressive Spanish domination taxes, the power of Reggio began to decline during the 16th century. After Barbary pirates attacked Reggio in 1558, they took most of its inhabitants as slaves to Tripoli.[10] In 1714 southern Italy became once more property of the Austrian Hasburgs until 1734, when the Bourbons of Spain took possession. Then, in 1759, Reggio became part of the newly independent Kingdom of Naples. In 1783 a disastrous earthquake damaged Reggio, all southern Calabria and Messina. The precious citrus fruit, Bergamot, which had been cultivated and used in the Reggio area since the 14th century, was in 1750, for the first time in the world grown and produced intensively. Travellers such as Jean Claude Richard de Saint-Non (1778) and Edward Lear (1847) likened the city and its surroundings to a "beautiful garden". In 1806 Napoleon Bonaparte took Reggio and made the city a Duchy and General Headquarters. Reggio was the capital of Calabria Ulteriore Prima with the Bourbons of Naples from 1759 to 1860. Under the Bourbons the two ancient Kingdoms of Naples and of Sicily were unified becoming the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. During the 19th century the area became the third economic and military European power boasting of various conquests in the fields of science, technology, the arts and law. On August 21, 1860, during the famous "Battaglia di Piazza Duomo" (Cathedral Square Battle), Giuseppe Garibaldi conquered the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Brun Antonio Rossi, the mayor of Reggio after Domenico Spanò Bolani who helped the citizenship during the previous turbulent years, was the first in the kingdom to proclaim the new Garibaldi Dictatorship and the end of the rule of Francis II. The city, renamed Reggio di Calabria, came under the House of Savoy, which was heavily indebted and who impoverished southern Italy to pay their debts by looting the state coffers and by crushing flourishing local activities such as forestry, mining, boat-building, silkworm breeding, silk-weaving and agriculture; they also issued laws to eliminate standing scolarships. On December 28, 1908, at exactly 5:21 AM, the town was hit by a heavy earthquake and shook violently for 31 seconds. Damage was even worse in Messina across the Straits. It is estimated that 25,000 people perished in Reggio and 65,000 in Messina. Reggio lost 27% of its inhabitants and Messina lost 42%. Ten minutes after the catastrophic earthquake those who tried to escape running towards the open spaces of the coast were engulfed by a 10 metre high tsunami. Three waves of 6–12 metres swept away the whole waterfront. The 1908 Messina earthquake remains one of the worst on record in modern western European history.[11][12] It took Reggio a generation to fully recover.[citation needed] The city was rebuilt according to then modern standards. Under Fascism with the Podestà Genoese-Zerbi, in 1927 the city became an administrative centre for the surrounding municipalities and was called Grande Reggio (‘Greater Reggio’), but because of its strategic military position, it suffered a devastating air raid by the British 8th Army in 1943. After the Second World War Reggio recovered considerably. In 1970 rioting broke out on the streets of Reggio in protest a decision to make Catanzaro capital of the newly instituted Region of Calabria instead of Reggio.[13] The revolt was taken over by young neofascists of the Italian Social Movement (Movimento Sociale Italiano – MSI) backed by the 'Ndrangheta, a Mafia-type criminal organisation based in Calabria.[14][15] The Reggio Calabria protests were the expression of malcontent about cronyism and the lack of industrial planning. Between the 1970s and the 1980s Reggio went through twenty years of an increase in organized crime by the 'Ndrangheta as well as urban decay. The town is home to several 'ndrine, such as the Condello-Imerti and the De Stefano-Tegano clans, which were involved in bloody wars against each other during this period.[16] The 'Ndrangheta extorts protection money ("pizzo") from every shop and viable business in town and has more power than the city council in awarding licences to retailers.[15] The spiral of corruption reached its zenith in the early 1990s. The sitting mayor at the time, Agatino Licandro, made a remarkable confession reporting "suitcases coming into city hall stuffed with money but going out empty". As a result of the nationwide corruption scandals most of the city council was arrested.[15] But, since the early 1990s, the so-called "Primavera di Reggio" (Reggio Spring) – a spontaneous movement of people and government institutions – encouraged city recovery and a renewed and stronger identity. The symbol of the Reggio Spring is the Lungomare Falcomatà, the sea-side boulevard named after Italo Falcomatà the centre-left mayor who initiated the recovery of the town.[17] On October 9, 2012, the Italian government decided to dissolve the city council of Reggio Calabria for infiltration by the 'Ndrangheta. The move came after some councillors were suspected of having ties to the powerful crime syndicate, under the 10-year centre-right rule of Giuseppe Scopelliti, mayor from 2002 to 2010.[18] His successor, the centre-right mayor Demetrio Arena and all 30 city councillors were sacked to prevent any "mafia contagion" in the local government. It is the first time that the entire government of a provincial capital has been dismissed over suspected links to organized crime. Three commissioners will run the city for 18 months until a new election.[2][19] ______________________________
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