A Byzantine chapel from the tenth century, five small domes, built against the rock. The philosopher born below it spent twenty-seven years in prison for what he wrote.
The Cattolica di Stilo is a Byzantine chapel of the ninth or tenth century built against the rock: a square plan, three apses facing east, five brick domes, and four interior columns probably taken from the ruins of Greek Kaulon. It is considered the most intact Byzantine building in Italy.
Tommaso Campanella, who wrote The City of the Sun, was born here in 1568 and organised the anti-Spanish conspiracy of 1599 in this town. It cost him twenty-seven years in prison.
Lamezia Terme (SUF), about a hundred and ten kilometres, an hour and forty. The Monasterace-Stilo station is nine kilometres away on the Ionian line, with an Intercity stop since 2023.
The Cattolica keeps limited hours and can be shut out of season: telephone first. The Ionian railway is slow and infrequent. The beds are on the coast.
Sources: tuttitalia.it/calabria/12-stilo/ ; borghipiubelliditalia.it/borgo/stilo/
Each town is a day. The order of the drives, the nights and the meals is the part that ruins most first trips to small Italy. Twelve of them in one guide, free, and a letter a week after that.
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