The Road of the Calabrian Greenhouses - Gagliato
From the churchyard of the Mother Church the enchanting view from the Ancinale Valley to the Gulf of Squillace
Where is
This municipality is located along the Serre Calabre Road.
A hillside village between the Gulf and the Serre.
Gagliato is the first town one encounters going up the Serre Calabresi road from Soverato toward Chiaravalle Centrale and Serra San Bruno. A small hill town, just over 500 inhabitants, it overlooks the valley of the Ancinale River in its most eventful stretch, among waterfalls and natural pools, against the backdrop of the Gulf of Squillace.
The decisive role of the Carthusians of San Bruno.
Regarding the origins of the town, there are those who refer them to the period of Magna Graecia and those to a more recent Byzantine settlement. The earliest certain records date back to the 14th century and concern a Carthusian grange, or one of those rural complexes through which a large monastery, in this case the Charterhouse of Serra San Bruno, managed almost boundless land holdings . The grange was an industrious citadel, the bearer of a certain prosperity even for the village in its more immediate sphere of influence. Too bad, that earthquakes, most recently the catastrophic one of 1783, reduced it to ruin.
The serene beauty of the Ancinale Valley
The center, structured around the confluence of two provincial roads, is surprising in the number of historic buildings that stand out among the low dwellings. The Mother Church, first and foremost, but above all the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildings that stand as evidence of a past of some significance. All around, well-cultivated countryside that finds a lower edge in the Mediterranean scrubland that accompanies the Ancinale River.
The enchanting belvedere of the Matrice church.
At the highest point of the town, on a terrace with the sea on the horizon, the Matrice church, dedicated to St. Nicholas the Bishop, is a 16th-century building that has been repaired several times to repair the damage of earthquakes that marked the history of the area. The interior is decorated with frescoes from the second half of the 19th century that hark back to the School of Cortale, that is, to the sphere of the famous Cefaly. The nave guides the eye to the marble niche above the high altar that houses the statue of the titular saint, as well as patron saint, celebrated on December 6. Other saints represented in sculpture include St. Francis of Paola, patron saint of Calabria.
Between history and legend, the controversial epic of the brigands
At the time of the French interlude, from 1806 to 1815, Gagliato unabashedly sided with the ousted Bourbons. Distinguishing himself in misdeeds against the Napoleonic occupiers was one such Procopio, an outlaw in the circle of the infamous Francesco Moscato, a brigand better known as 'u Vizzarru,' the bizarre, for his unspeakable brutalities.
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