Corigliano-Rossano

Corigliano-Rossano is one of southern Italy’s youngest cities, created in 2018 by joining two ancient towns with different characters. It pairs a baronial castle and one of the world’s most precious manuscripts with olive groves, a working port, and a licorice tradition that perfumes an entire district. This is Calabria at its most layered: Byzantine, feudal, agricultural, and quietly self-assured.

Why visit

Few Italian cities let you move, in a single morning, from a sixth-century Gospel written in silver ink on purple parchment to the cells of a medieval fortress and then on to a museum dedicated to licorice. Corigliano-Rossano rewards travellers who enjoy places where history is not staged but simply lived. The combined city is large enough to have real infrastructure — good hotels along the Ionian shore, a busy fishing port at Schiavonea, genuine restaurants — yet its heart remains the hilltop old quarter of Rossano, a onetime Byzantine stronghold whose lanes still carry Greek names. Come here for the manuscript, stay for the atmosphere of a working Calabrian city that tourists have largely to themselves outside summer.

Character and history

The modern comune was born on 31 March 2018, when the neighbouring municipalities of Corigliano Calabro and Rossano merged after a local referendum — the first such union in Calabria and one of the largest cities in the region by area. Rossano, set on a hillside facing the Sibari plain, was a flourishing Byzantine provincial capital; its Greek-rite heritage survives in the figure of St Nilus the Younger, one of its patron saints, and in the famous manuscript that bears the city’s name. Corigliano, further inland among the olive groves, grew around a Norman-era fortress that later became a sumptuous ducal residence for the Sanseverino, Saluzzo and Compagna families. The surrounding plain is one of Calabria’s richest agricultural zones, planted with olives and citrus, and it gave rise to an unusual industry: the Amarelli family’s licorice works, which have processed local liquorice root for generations and turned that heritage into a museum. The result is a destination with several centres of gravity — the old Byzantine town, the feudal castle, the seaside — and a distinctly authentic, unhurried feel.

What to see

The unmissable stop is the Museum Diocesano e del Codex, beside Rossano Cathedral, home to the Codex Purpureus Rossanensis, a sixth-century Greek Gospel manuscript recognised in 2015 by UNESCO’s Memory of the World programme. Its pages, dyed a deep purple and written in silver and gold, contain the Gospels of Matthew and Mark and some of the earliest surviving illuminations of the New Testament. A short drive away, the Castle Ducale di Corigliano ranks among the best-preserved medieval fortresses of southern Italy: begun as a military strongpoint in the eleventh century, associated with the Sanseverino counts, and reshaped over the centuries into a noble palace with state rooms, dungeons and exhibition spaces. In the hills above the plain, the Abbey di Santa Maria del Patire preserves the memory of the Italo-Greek monastic tradition that made this corner of Calabria a centre of Byzantine spirituality. Back towards the coast at Corigliano, the Museum della Liquirizia Giorgio Amarelli tells the story of the licorice trade inside the family’s historic factory, where roots, presses and old advertising sit alongside the scent of the plant itself.

How to experience

Start early in Rossano’s old town, when the light is soft on the stone lanes, and give the Codex the unhurried attention it deserves. Walk down to the cathedral, then linger over a coffee in the piazza. Devote the afternoon to the castle at Corigliano, exploring its halls and the views over the olive plain, and finish at the Amarelli museum, where tastings connect the visit to something genuinely local. Beaches along the Ionian coast at Schiavonea make an easy late-day reward in the warm months. Food-wise, this is the home of Calabrian olive oil and of desserts flavoured with licorice; look for restaurants serving the plain’s citrus and vegetables. Rossano’s Good Friday rituals are among the most solemn in the region, should your travels fall in spring.

Practical planning

Corigliano-Rossano sits between the Sila mountains and the Ionian Sea, roughly midway along Calabria’s eastern side. It is reachable by train on the coastal line, by car from the A2 motorway via Cosenza, and from the airports of Crotone and Lamezia Terme. A car is the most practical way to reach the scattered sights — castle, abbey, museum and old town lie several kilometres apart. Opening arrangements vary by season and site, so check the official pages of the Codex museum (museocodexrossano.it), the castle and the Amarelli museum before setting out. Spring and early autumn offer the best balance of mild weather and quiet streets; July and August bring heat and Italian holiday crowds to the coast.

Nearby places

Base here and you can range widely across northern Calabria: Cosenza with its charming old centre lies inland to the west, Crotone and its ancient Greek heritage sit down the coast to the south, and the forested plateau of Sila is an easy excursion for cooler mountain air. Northwards along the plain, Cassano all’Ionio leads towards the archaeological riches of Sybaris.