centro storico, collinare, a terrazzo, Luzzi, Tebe Lucana (denominazione originaria)

High on a hillock at the end of a long ridge, Luzzi surveys the meeting of valley and Sila plateau. The old town, once known as Tebe Lucana, is a classic Norman borgo, arranged in four quarters, Timpone, Pedale, Piazza and Conche, its streets paved in local stone. The hill is cut about by the channels of the Torrente Ilice and its tributaries before they join the Crati below, giving the settlement a natural, defensive isolation.

Its first nucleus clustered around the churches of Sant’Angelo and Santa Maria on the Colle Ilice. The name Luzzi is said to derive from the Lucij family, Normans from the French département of Dromfrout, who held the feudal grant. In the twelfth century, the fief passed to Goffredo di Loritello, count of Catanzaro; later it went to the D’Aquino of Acerra, then in the mid-1400s to the Sanseverino of Bisignano. At its edge, Palazzo Vivacqua and its garden command a fine panorama over the surrounding countryside.

Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.