Cirella was once perched on a rugged promontory, surrounded by the boundless beauty of its setting. Perched atop the cliffs of the Riviera dei Cedri, the medieval town stood as a sentinel overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea, guarding the mystical spot where sea and sky converge. Today, however, it lies in ruins and is abandoned. Only a few melancholic ruins remain as a memory of the impenetrable fortress it once was.
Historical background
Ancient Cerillae, today Old Cirella, as the locals call it, is now a ghost town with bumpy lanes and precipitous houses. It is an otherworldly place, seemingly forgotten by time itself. Yet until a few centuries ago, it represented an important military stronghold, perched on a hill to protect the coast against incursions from the sea. Even today, it retains the semblance of the proud, impregnable centre it once was.
The earliest settlements of Cirella date to ancient times. The area was inhabited since the Upper Paleolithic, as evidenced by some archaeological findings. Here lived the Ausones and then the Phocians, who settled in Calabria after their homeland was conquered by the Persian armies of Cyrus the Great1. It is Pliny the Elder who tells of a Portus Parthenius Phocensium in the area2.
Under Roman rule, Cirella acquired town status and became a thriving seaport. Then, Silius Italicus refers to an early reconstruction following the Second Punic War3.
“[…] nunc sese ostendere miles Leucosiae e scopulis, nunc, quem Picentia Paesto misit et exhaustae mox Poeno Marte Cerillae”
Silius Italicus, Punica, book VIII, 575
Given the vagueness of the historical information provided about the event, there are two possible hypotheses. The first is that Hannibal destroyed the settlement because he had helped the Romans in the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC. Alternatively, Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator may have devastated Cerillae because it had rebelled. The town is also mentioned by Strabo4, who gives us its Greek name Κήριλλοι, and it is also referenced in the Tabula Peutingeriana. Furthermore, Cirella was already a diocesan seat in 649. In fact, a Romanus Episcopus Cerellitanus attended the synod of Pope Martin I5.
The medieval town of Old Cirella
The present-day location of Cirella Vecchia, on Mount Carpinoso overlooking the valley, dates back to the 9th or 10th century. It is difficult to determine exactly when the town arose on the promontory as historical sources from this period are scarce and fragmentary, often verging on myth. It is likely that the inhabitants of Cirella, which was then under the rule of Byzantine Calabria, moved to this elevated position to protect themselves from Saracen maritime raids.
In the third decade of the 9th century, the Arabs sacked nearby Cetraro. Just a few years later they established the Emirate of Tropea and the Emirate of Amantea. In particular, after the conquest of 846, a fortress (Al-Mantiah) was built in Amantea from which raids against Byzantine possessions were launched. Thus, the hill of Carpinoso in Cirella saw the erection of a fortification with towers and a wall. Many years later the Swabians expanded the structure.
The plague and the bombing
Despite its elevated position, Old Cirella was subject to numerous raids from the sea in the 16th century. Notable incursions included those of the Ottoman pirate Hayreddin Barbarossa in 1534, and the fleets of Suleiman the Magnificent. Old Cirella then had to cope with the plague of 1656-16586 and the March 1638 earthquake that devastated the area. The medieval town, which is now in a state of decay, changed hands several times between different feudal families before becoming the property of the Catalano-Gonzaga.
In the first decade of the 19th century the definitive and unexpected ruin came from the sea, the cross and delight of this ancient town. Between 1806 and 1807 the troops of Joseph Bonaparte, king of Naples, besieged Old Cirella to quell a local rebellion, inflicting in all likelihood a substantial damage. There the French established a garrison to control the coast. Thus, a fleet of the British Navy decided to bombard the city, razing it to the ground (1808?). Cerillae suffered abandonment from that moment on. Over time, the buildings became overgrown with vegetation and were stripped of their remaining stones and looted. Only in recent years has an archaeological restoration and recovery effort been undertaken.
The ruins of Old Cirella
Walking among the ancient ruins of Cirella Vecchia is a disconcerting experience: one catches glimpses of something familiar yet now foreign and out of place. Among them, one can see the remains of the town’s castle. It was remodelled several times over the centuries and is now shrouded in lush, wild vegetation. The fortress was once accessed through an imposing square entrance tower. We can still see the original arched opening at the front. The tower had two levels, traces of which remain in the barrel vault of the lower floor and the battlements of the elevation.
The Rectangular Tower and the Cylindrical Tower
Another tower, rectangular in shape, rose to the side, retaining part of the surface of the intermediate floors. An underground level housed a cistern or storehouse, as evidenced by the large holes that supported the wooden floor slab. The second floor, on the other hand, was used for residential purposes, and the cross vaults of the roof can still be seen there today. The two-storey “Cylindrical Tower”, located on the north-east side of the city wall, exhibits similar architecture and perhaps housed a small chapel for worship in medieval times.
The churches of Old Cirella and the Sovereign Palace
Of the religious architecture of Old Cirella, only uncertain remains survive: incomplete spaces to be filled in with the imagination. In the Church of Saint Nicholas the Great, pointed arches reach towards the sky and windows look out to infinity from the squat bell tower. The once mighty masonry looks down on stony paths that no longer lead anywhere. The building belongs to the 9th–10th centuries. However, it was certainly rebuilt later, as some stylistic features of the architecture suggest. It is possible that it housed wall frescoes, now lost.
Old Cirella had at least two other houses of worship. There are only a few wall remnants of Santa Maria della Neve and the Church of the Annunziata. The buildings are located further down the promontory.
All that remains of the Sovereign’s Palace is its devastated façade. Once a place of power, it now stands as a ghostly reminder of the transience of all things.
The convent of the Minims in Cirella
A few hundred meters from the ancient settlement of Old Cirella stands the convent building of the Order of Minims. It dating back to the 16th century.
The convent has a quadrangular layout and features a charming church on the east side and a cloister. The place of worship, dedicated to Santa Maria delle Grazie, has a single nave which was once adorned with frescoes.
Samuele Corrente Naso
Notes
- Herodotus, Histories, 1, 163, 1. ↩︎
- Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia. ↩︎
- Silius Italicus, Punica, libro VIII, 575. ↩︎
- Strabo, Geography, VI, p. 255. ↩︎
- F. Ughelli, Italia Sacra, Volume VIII, parte II. ↩︎
- This was the well-known “plague of Naples,” one of the most devastating epidemics until then that occurred within the kingdom. ↩︎
