Villa San Giovanni - Villa San Giovanni

Disambiguation - For toponyms of identical name, see Villa San Giovanni (disambiguation).

Villa San Giovanni is a city of Calabria.

To know

Geographical notes

The built-up area of ​​Villa San Giovanni to the south is contiguous to the urban area of ​​Reggio Calabria, in the locality of Bolano; to the north it borders the municipality of Scilla, in Marina di San Gregorio, at the mouth of the San Gregorio stream (38 ° 14 '45 "north latitude); to the east it borders the municipality of Campo Calabro; finally, to the west it is bordered by the sea of the Strait of Messina.

The municipal territory extends mainly along a flat strip that runs along the Strait, changing east and north-east into low hills that reach modest altitudes. Today it is intensely urbanized and densely inhabited.

When to go

The summer period is the most suitable for the hamlet of Cannitello.

Background

The area on which the current town of Villa San Giovanni stands played a strategic role for the populations that alternated in the dominion of the Mediterranean already from the Magna Graecia era.

An inhabited center located between Pezzo and Cannitello, probably linked to the presence of the temple of the god Poseidon, is already attested in a period prior to the Punic wars to serve trade with the Sicily. The site was first destroyed during the Second Punic War; subsequently rebuilt, around the year 36 BC. he was of support to Augustus in his war against Sextus Pompey.

The center of Villa was called Fossa, as one was excavated by the Romans at the time of the rebellion of the gladiator Spartacus.

The settlement presumably ended in the fifth century; from that moment on there are no more traces in the history of the site.

According to reports from the Villese historian Luigi Nostro, in the years following the end of the Western Roman Empire, a new inhabited center was built in the current district of Pezzo, called Dinners, however, abandoned between 850 and 870 due to Saracen raids. Its inhabitants founded Cenisio in the pre-Aspromonte hinterland, a city that during the Middle Ages changed its name to Fiumara di Muro or of the Moors (the current Fiumara). Thereafter, the territory between Cannitello is Catona along the coast and up to San Roberto inland it belonged to the Lordship of Fiumara di Muro.

The last decades of the sixteenth century saw the resurgence in the area of ​​small coastal villages, such as Cannitello and Pezzo, inhabited mostly by sailors and fishermen. Further inland, near the current center of Villa, there was a village called The pit. Later they also formed Piale and Acciarello. Coastal repopulation accelerated the progressive decline of Fiumara di Muro, until in 1806 the Lordship of Fiumara disappeared.

In 1743 Fossa, including the church of Maria SS.ma delle Grazie di Pezzo, was set on fire as retaliation for the illegal trade that brought the plague from Messina to Calabria; the inhabitants were stripped naked, deprived of all their possessions and little help afterwards.

The turning point in the history of the territory took place at the end of the 18th century, when Rocco Antonio Caracciolo wanted to detach the hamlets of Fossa, Pezzo, Cannitello, Piale and Acciarello from the then University of Fiumara di Muro in order to give political and administrative unity to small communities that are distant and rival. After a bitter confrontation with the Greco family, the new center was first named Fossa San Giovanni and then Villa San Giovanni (new name granted by decree of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies of November 6, 1791).

Villa then had a population of about 1,200 inhabitants; the town had meanwhile been devastated by the earthquake of February 5, 1783.

In 1797 the villesi were able to elect their own mayors (three, according to the regulations of the time) and it can be dated to the year following the birth of theUniversity of Villa San Giovanni, corresponding to the current common.

In 1807 Cannitello and Piale broke away from the Villa, forming a common in itself, with headquarters in Cannitello, but failing to include even Pezzo, who remained inside the Villa.

In 1810 Gioacchino Murat ruled the southern kingdom from the heights of Piale for four months; came to Scylla on 3 June 1810 and remained there until 5 July, when the great camp of Piale was completed. During his short stay, Murat had the three forts of Torre Cavallo, Castello di Altafiumara and Piale built, the latter with a telegraph tower. On 26 September of the same year, seeing the conquest of Sicily as a difficult undertaking, Murat abandoned the Piale camp and left for the capital.

In the following years the Bourbon restoration continued the urban development of the Villa, so much so that in 1817 Rocco Antonio Caracciolo took care of the definitive construction and arrangement of the cemetery; before that, the dead were buried in churches or in country estates used for this purpose.

The government in those years chose Villa as the headquarters of the central post office as it represented the main ferry point for Sicily and one of the most important road junctions in the province. The construction of the large building intended to house the post office had already been contracted and the director Ristori had already come to Villa to order the offices, when Reggio demanded the transfer of this office to the capital city, which obtained it. The large palace was then sold at auction to the Caminiti brothers of Domenico Antonio.

In 1823 it was decided that Florio's first steamer should stop at Villa to pick up passengers and mail for Naples, but again the people of Reggio demanded and obtained that the steamer stop in Reggio, as the provincial capital.

Between 1823 and 1825 the National Road (the current Strada Statale 18), while in 1830 the Old Fountain, the first masonry water source placed at the service of the inhabited center, which today remains the oldest existing building in the city.

After the unification of Italy, the area, a strategic place for the defense of the Strait, became a focal point in the national coastal defense system with the construction of the Forte Beleno of Piale in about 1888, to make room for which the Torre del Piraino was demolished, with the annexed Murattian fort.

Between the end of the eighteenth and the first half of the twentieth century Villa San Giovanni was particularly famous for the breeding of silkworms and for its spinning mills, of which only a few ruins remain of the 56 that operated in ancient times, which constituted an important source of work and livelihood for the population; Villa was also famous for the pipe industry.

In 1884 the stations of Villa and of were inaugurated Cannitello, together with the stretch of railway that connected them with Reggio Calabria.

In the early years of the twentieth century the construction of the port was completed and the races of the moderns began ferry boats steam for Messina; in fact, Villa was increasingly preferred to Reggio as the main ferry point towards the Sicily as it is much closer to Messina than the capital. On 1 March 1905, the Villa station was connected to the ferry boat port by a railway link, thus setting the stage for the ferry service of railway rolling stock. The importance of Villa San Giovanni gradually increased to the detriment of Reggio Calabria, as the Tyrrhenian railway route, shorter than the Ionian one, produced the displacement of railway traffic by sea on the Villesi pots, which were increased and strengthened.

The city at the beginning of the last century was described as an industrious, industrious and avant-garde town, so much so that already in 1906 the city streets were illuminated by electric powered street lamps.

The Villa area had already been affected by seismic events since the last decade of the nineteenth century. On November 16, 1894 there was a first earthquake, which damaged most of the buildings, while in the following decade there were two other seismic events, the earthquake of September 8, 1905 and that of October 23, 1907, but the real disaster was the earthquake of December 28, 1908, which devastated the entire area of ​​the Strait, including Reggio and Messina, and which killed 8% of the population in Villa, 14% to Acciarello and 5% per Piece. The economic damage was incalculable: the whole inhabited center was destroyed, the port with the newest slipways, the station, the railway and most of the spinning mills, while others were seriously damaged; all the churches and public buildings collapsed.

The reconstruction began the following year and could only be said to be definitively completed in the early fifties, with significant changes in the urban layout of Villa. The first buildings to be rebuilt as early as 1909 were the spinning mills, to resume industrial activity and guarantee employment in the area devastated by the earthquake. Social housing, churches and other public buildings were housed in shacks until the 1920s. In the early thirties the city center was largely rebuilt, while the subsequent constructions were influenced by fascist architecture, as demonstrated by the austere geometric shapes of the central station building, designed by Roberto Narducci.

In 1927 the municipality of Villa San Giovanni, together with Cannitello and other municipalities in the district for a total of fourteen, it was conurbated to the municipality of Reggio Calabria following the Grande Reggio project, aimed, according to the promoters, at creating a single urban center on the Calabrian side of the Strait of Messina; the inconveniences for the villese population were considerable, as the centralization of the municipal offices in the capital involved moving at that time heavy and long for the simplest administrative acts, in addition the loss of administrative autonomy would have made the identity of Villa vanish, reduced a mere district of the Grande Reggio. There was no lack of grievances, in full Fascist regime: one of the greatest supporters of the autonomy of the Villese municipality was Don Luigi Nostro, who in the letter sent to Mussolini The end of a municipality, or rather a district of ten municipalities supported the instances of the villesi against the maxi-municipality. The government, by decree of January 26, 1933, returned administrative autonomy to Villa San Giovanni, which from that date included the territory of Cannitello (until 1947 also Campo Calabro is Fiumara).

Further reconstructions became necessary after the Second World War, as in the summer of 1943 Villa had been heavily bombed by the allied forces. Almost all of the ferries themselves had been sunk, only one being saved Messina.

In 1947 the City Council had to pronounce on the administrative autonomy of the centers of Campo Calabro, Fiumara and Cannitello, annexed to the city in 1933 following the separation of Villa from Grande Reggio. The mayor Sciarrone made a report to the Council on the problem to show that Campo and Fiumara, having never been part of the Villese territory, could become autonomous, but that Cannitello already from the ancient times of Colonna Reggina constituted a single agglomeration with Villa. The Council voted on February 12 and the autonomy of Campo and Fiumara passed with 16 yes and 2 no, but many Cannitellese remained unhappy, since autonomy had not been granted to Cannitello as well; so in April the signatures of 675 citizens were collected asking for recognition for their country. The Council voted on November 22nd and the cannitellesi's requests were rejected with 12 votes against and only 3 in favor.

In 1955 the citizens of Cannitella again put forward proposals for the autonomy of their country; the issue was discussed in the City Council on May 29 of that year, but once again the mayor Sciarrone was strongly opposed, the council vote again gave negative results: 15 against and only 7 in favor.

Between the end of the forties and the beginning of the fifties many public works were completed, including the completion of Piazza Duomo, the four-storey building to house the State Railways, the subsidiary aqueduct of Bolano and the public housing of the INA.

Between the fifties and sixties city life was particularly animated. Important realities were the old Cinema Caminiti, the Cinema Mignon and the Lido Cenide, then one of the most important beaches of the Strait of Messina, among the main meeting points of the Villese society, capable of attracting nationally renowned artists such as Little Tony. The Lido, created in 1955 and located at the current embarkations of Caronte & Tourist, ceased its activity in the mid-sixties precisely because of the interests linked to the new boarding of private ferry companies. The structure, which had been abandoned for years, was finally demolished in November 2011 to make way for new port structures.

In 1969, with ministerial funding ECER for 335 million lire, the FIAT branch was inaugurated, operating until the end of the nineties. Following a lengthy renovation, the building has housed the shopping center since 2003 Pearl of the Strait (see section Shopping).

In 1965 the owner Amedeo Matacena founded the Caronte S.p.A., the first private shipping company to carry out the ferry service in Strait of Messina, followed in 1967 by the Tourist Ferry Boat S.p.A. by Giuseppe Franza from Messina (the two companies merged in 2003, giving life to Caronte & Tourist).

Thus ended the era of the State Railways monopoly and the consequences for Villa were not long in coming. Waiting to be able to take advantage of real landings, the rafts of the Charon coming from Messina they landed in Pezzo, until the night of August 15, 1968, the level of the railway underpass between Via Garibaldi and the port was lowered with trucks and bulldozers; subsequently a slide was built in the port and on 28 September 1968 the first private ferry line between Messina and Villa San Giovanni. In the following decades, the private ferry companies expanded more and more, up to overtake the FS.

Soon the presence in the city center of private embarkations led to the passage of an enormous quantity of vehicles at Villa, coming from the motorway junction, through the city streets, causing congestion of urban traffic and an increase in the level of atmospheric pollution to levels worrying. For years, in order to try to remedy these problems, the hypothesis has been put forward of moving the embarkations of private companies to a new location south of the center of Villa, directly connected with the junction of the A2 of the Mediterranean, thus avoiding the traffic jams and pollution caused by the passage of wheeled vehicles.

Starting from the seventies Villa San Giovanni has experienced a rapid demographic growth, mainly due to a phenomenon of internal emigration which has led many inhabitants of the neighboring municipalities to move to Villa; consequently the last decades have seen an expansion of the urban center and a growth of the building never had before.

Villa went through one of the most difficult periods in its history between 1985 and 1991, a period in which a feud between 'Ndrangheta families also bloodied the town of the Strait and claimed numerous victims in the villese citizenship, including the deputy mayor of the city Giovanni Trecroci, assassinated on 11 February 1990 and, on 9 August 1991, the Deputy Attorney General at the Supreme Court of Cassation Antonino Scopelliti. The feud ended in 1991 and since then no such serious acts of violence have occurred in Villa.

Today Villa still presents itself as a town in continuous expansion, registering a significant increase in citizens of foreign nationality in the last decade.

Villa San Giovanni has the title of city since 12 April 2005.

How to orient yourself

Neighborhoods

Acciarello is the southern district, on the border with Reggio, while Pezzo is the northern one, where the closest point of the Strait of Messina to Sicily is; Cannitello, on the other hand, is a marine hamlet, located in the north and to be considered for seaside tourism given the numerous presence of houses overlooking the beach, while Piale is another hamlet, adjacent to the first.

How to get

By plane

The nearest airport is that of the neighboring municipality of Reggio Calabria, the more distant they are to Lamezia Terme is that of Catania; in any case, you will have to continue by other means to reach the city.

By car

The city is equipped with a junction of the A2 of the Mediterranean, which allows both entry into the city and the queuing at the jetties of the shipping companies, thus continuing to Messina.

On boat

Both public and private ferries allow docking in the city from Messina.

On the train

The city is equipped with an RFI station, which allows both the arrival in the city and the continuation to Reggio Calabria (southbound, by land), the other cities to the north and Messina (both on foot and by train, in the latter case the train is boarded on a special Bluferries ferry and transported in Sicily); the railway station of the hamlet of Cannitello is now inactive, so it is no longer possible to reach it directly by trains, even if there are always political requests to reactivate it.

By bus

Several companies stop in the city, both for local and national routes.

How to get around

What see

In Porticello there is an ancient chapel, also dedicated to Maria SS. del Rosario, recently renovated and reopened to public worship; along the Via Nazionale there is a private temple dedicated to Sant'Antonino, dating back to the mid-19th century; near the Santori district you can see the ruin of the church of Santa Filomena.

• Church of the Immaculate Conception. It dates back to the very origins of Villa San Giovanni: in fact the first church in the village of Fossa was a small church dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, visited in 1692 by the archbishop of Reggio Calabria Msgr. Martino Ybañez y Villanueva, who noticed three altars dedicated to San Martino, Sant'Antonio di Padua and St. John the Baptist. The church was frequented and the population was given the elementary notions of catechism. Already in 1768 the Congregation of the Immaculate was born. In those same years a small church dedicated to San Giovanni Battista was erected, probably in the current Fontana Vecchia district. The Church of the Immaculate Conception was elevated to a Parish on 6 August 1789; before that it was run by a bursar dependent on the parish priest of Campo Calabro. In the meantime, the church building (located in the current Piazza Pretura, therefore in a different site from the current one) had already been destroyed for the first time by the earthquake of 1783: it was definitively sober neoclassical style. This new church was again razed to the ground due to the devastating earthquake of December 28, 1908. From September 12, 1909, the shack church became functional, blessed on February 8, 1914. On July 24, 1927, the construction of the new church was contracted, larger in size. imposing, in neo-Romanesque style, designed by the architect Pietro De Nava, located in a different place than the old church, that is in the part of the city sloping towards the sea, to build a larger building (in fact the area where it was built the new church was almost uninhabited at the time). The new temple was solemnly consecrated on 8 December 1929, the solemn feast of the Immaculate Conception, by the archbishop Msgr. Carmelo Pujia. Since 1993 it has been run by the Somascan fathers. The stained glass windows were created in 1953 by the Milanese painter Amalia Panigati. 

• Church of the Madonna del Rosario. In the eighteenth century it already existed in the neighborhood Old Fountain a small church dedicated to the Madonna del Rosario, as well as another nearby dedicated to San Giovanni Battista. Towards the middle of the 19th century, the mayor Giovanni Corigliano, concerned about the urban aesthetics of Villa (which was filled with spinning mills and chimneys, but lacked monuments and churches), proposed the construction of a new sacred building in a place that would reconcile the needs of the various neighborhoods; it was then decided to build the work in an area of ​​the city center corresponding to the space where the current church stands, next to the town hall. However, when the walls of the temple were already being erected, objections were raised to the project: it was feared that this new church would also be built. sunken, as had happened to the old church of the Immaculate Conception, which due to the construction of the National Road remained about 3-4 meters below the level of the road itself. Then all the buildings were demolished and the project of the new church of the Rosario was entrusted to the famous architect from Reggio Scopelliti, who had a high embankment built and designed a majestic church in Gothic style. In a few years, thanks above all to the offerings of the faithful, the construction had reached an advanced stage and the construction of the monumental facade with three portals was almost finished. But after the unification of Italy, political circumstances prevented the completion of the work; the 1908 earthquake destroyed much of that incomplete building and all that remained was to tear it down. In its place a covered market was erected, which functioned until the 1950s. After the war, the need for a second church for the center of Villa was felt again, in addition to that of the Immaculate Conception: the construction of the new church of the Rosary was thus undertaken, completed in the early sixties. It was elevated to a parish on 1 April 1971 and entrusted since that date to the Regular Clerics of Somasca, who since the nineties have also ruled the parish of the Immaculate Conception and now also that of Acciarello, after having been in Piale for years. It is therefore the youngest of the Villesi parishes, but it has a centuries-old history of devotion to the Madonna del Rosario. 

• Church of Santi Cosma e Damiano. In 1742 Don Giuseppe Azzarello was authorized by the archbishop to erect a church dedicated to Saints Cosma and Damiano in the new town that the Azzarellos were building south of Fossa. The church was destroyed by the earthquake of 1783 and rebuilt in 1811, the phase to which the current bell tower dates back. The church, not yet definitively completed, was reopened for worship in 1851 and again destroyed by the 1908 earthquake.

Following the subsequent reconstruction, the bell tower currently has a lower height than the church itself, which suffered further damage during the Second World War and was, therefore, further partially rebuilt. In recent years it has undergone an important and valuable restoration that has affected the interior of the temple. 

• Phenomenon of the "Fata Morgana". winter. In winter mornings, after heavy rains and only in particular conditions of clear sky, the phenomenon of Mirage: the water particles left suspended in the air after the rain create a gigantic magnifying glass, making the Sicilian coast appear only a few hundred meters away from the Calabrian one, while in reality they are 3 km away. This phenomenon occurs only on the Calabrian coast when looking at the Sicilian coast and never vice versa. 
• Old Fountain. In 1829 the Ministry of the Interior approved a fountain project, similar to a small temple, based on a design by the Reggio engineer Calabrò, at a cost of 127.38 ducats; first two and then three deputies were elected for the execution of the works, mentioned in the epigraph placed in the fountain together with the intendant Bonaventura Palamolla, while there is no mention of the one who had been the creator of this fountain Rocco Antonio Caracciolo. The fountain was erected in 1830. The fountain was erected behind the Caracciolo family home, in the district now called Old Fountain, which then took its name from it. From 1903 Villa was served by running water and the fountain lost its importance; so it was abandoned and took the name of Old Fountain. It has withstood all the natural disasters and wars that have repeatedly destroyed or seriously damaged Villa and today it is the oldest vestige of the city center. 

Events and parties

What to do

Shopping

• 38.21333715.6363041 Pearl of the Strait, Via Zanotti Bianco, 44 (Not very far from the main train station), ☎ 39 0965 756308. Mon-Fri 9-20: 30 Sat-Sun 9-21. The main shopping center of the city, it has several shops, including Bata (footwear), Carpisa (bags, suitcases and accessories), Conad (supermarket), Euronics (electronics and appliances) and OVS (clothing). -->

How to have fun

Where to eat

Where stay

Safety

How to keep in touch

Post office

• 38.22045715.638011 Post Office, Via Nazionale, 346, ☎ 39 0965 793549, fax: 39 0965 793546. Mon-Fri 8: 20-19: 05, Sat 8: 20-12: 35. There is Wi-Fi, ATM and seat reservation via the Internet. 
• 38.21675915.6382282 Post office Acciarelo, Via Nazionale Acciarello, 586, ☎ 39 0965 752715, fax: 39 0965 752715. Mon-Fri 8: 20-13: 45, Sat 8: 20-12: 45. 
• 38.22940115.6381913 Post office Piece, Via Briatico, SNC, ☎ 39 0965 751594, fax: 39 0965 751594. Mon-Fri 8: 20-13: 45, Sat 8: 20-12: 45. Present ATM 
• 38.23417715.6500134 Acciarello post office 2, Vico Vittoria, 2 (Acciarello fraction), ☎ 39 0965 759684, fax: 39 0965 759684. Mon-Fri 8: 20-13: 45, Sat 8: 20-12: 45. 

Around

At the city level it is inevitable to think of Reggio Calabria, Messina and Scylla as destinations in the surroundings, while as a naturalistic destination is to be considered the Mount Gambarie.

Other projects

• Wikipedia contains an entry concerning Villa San Giovanni
• Commons contains images or other files on Villa San Giovanni

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