centro storico, costiero, di crinale, commerciale, Rossano, Roscianum (denominazione originaria, III-IV sec. d.C.)

Rossano’s historic centre, now part of the municipality of Corigliano-Rossano, spreads across a rocky spur commanding the plain and the sea, its deep ravines a natural defence. The urban fabric has always been bound to this terrain, as the many hermit caves still attest. Its polycentric development reveals a layering of influences: Byzantine, Jewish, Islamic, medieval. The Byzantine imprint remains strongest, visible in churches such as the Patirion, Panaghija and San Marco, while the aristocratic palazzi are largely eighteenth-century in style. Nothing survives of the ancient defences.

The Byzantine historian Procopius mentions a fortress called ‘Ruskian’, a stronghold established by Thurii to protect the Bruttian peoples. Under the Romans, a colony of the gens Roscia gave the site its name, Roscianum, recorded in the Antonine Itinerary. Rossano resisted Lombard invasions in the sixth century and later Muslim pressure. From the seventh century, it became a major Byzantine centre, a refuge for Greeks arriving in Calabria and Sicilians fleeing Muslim conquest. The historic core remains within the old walls.

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