Corigliano Calabro (Curegghìene in the local dialect) is a
fraction of 40 478 inhabitants of Corigliano-Rossano in the province
of Cosenza.
The hamlet of Cantinella is part of the Albanian
minority of Italy, which keeps the Byzantine language and rite
alive.
On 22 October 2017, through a referendum, the merger
process with the neighboring municipality of Rossano began, which
culminated on 31 March 2018 in the establishment of the new
municipality of Corigliano-Rossano.
According to some interpretations, the toponym derives from the Latin Corellianum with the meaning of "Corellio farm"; according to other hypotheses, the name could be traced back to that of other toponyms of Southern Italy such as Corigliano d'Otranto, and therefore from the Greek Byzantine term "χωρίον" (transliterated choríon), respectively to the etymologically related term "χώρα" (chóra) , with the meaning of village, town, farm, land or place, or village of oil, from the Greek choríon elàion.
The question relating to the
origins of Corigliano has always aroused lively debates. The terms
of the discussion, recently summarized, have highlighted four
hypotheses relating to the increase, which took place between the
Ancient Age and the Early Middle Ages, of the Coriglianese urban
reality. The first saw Ausoni and Enotri as protagonists: from the
first the site would have taken the name "Ausonia". The second
phase, which took place in the well-known historical framework
linked to the birth of Sibari (VIII-VII century BC), led to a strong
Greekization of the surrounding area. The third period was instead
characterized by the transfer of a group of sybarite exiles to the
Serratore hill after the destruction of their city. Their
descendants, federated with the new inhabitants of the city of
Thurii and for this reason also appealed to Turini, would have
welcomed the Roman Gaius Martius, known as Coriolano for having
conquered the capital of the Volsci. The commander in exile, in
return for the excellent hospitality received, wanted to leave the
victorious title he was proud of to the Ausoni-Turini, so the name
of the town became Ausonia, civitas Coriolanensium. The fourth and
last phase ̶ would seem the most reliable ̶ is linked to the Saracen
raids of the 10th century and the destruction of the hamlet of San
Mauro (see Luigi De Luca, Medieval Corigliano, from its origins to
the end of the 12th century, "with a new reading of the Rossanese
paper ", Cosenza, 1985).
The major documents available, up to
the Swabian domination, come from farmhouses or strongholds that
today are part of the municipality of Corigliano: Apollinara, Santo
Mauro and Crepacore. These were mainly managed by two important
monasteries, Santa Maria del Patir di Rossano and Santa Maria de
Ligno Crucis located in the Crepacore castro.
The first
feudal lord of Corigliano, of whom we have certain news, is the
well-known Andrea Cicala, a faithful of Federico II. As early as
1246 it seems that it no longer owned the present-day center of
Sybaris as it was involved in the Capaccio conspiracy against the
Swabian emperor.
With the advent of the Angevins, the French
knights became the feudal lords of Corigliano until the end of the
thirteenth century when the Roman nobleman Stefano Colonna took over
the feud, then Ruggero Sangineto who became the first count of
Corigliano in 1299. Between the fourteenth and the first half of the
fifteenth century the hegemony of the Sangineto family was gradually
overthrown by the Sanseverinos, who at the behest of the Aragonese,
new rulers of Southern Italy, received the title of "prince of
Bisignano".
In 1532 the number of inhabitants grew to almost
4,000 and in 1538 the city was able to repel the attack of the
Saracen pirate Barbarossa.
The Sanseverinos had dominion over
Corigliano until the death of the last Sanseverino, the prodigal
Niccolò Bernardino, prince of Bisignano. In 1616, to make up for the
debts left by Sanseverino, the government ordered the sale of his
feudal assets and among these Corigliano, which was purchased by
Agostino and Giovan Filippo Saluzzo, rich financiers engaged in the
economic activities of the Kingdom of Naples. After some inheritance
passages the lordship gradually consolidated in the hands of Giacomo
Saluzzo, president of the "Regia Camera della Sommaria", who
disposed of the fiefdom in favor of his son Agostino. The latter,
after having sustained a long siege in the Castle and having
repelled the republican forces of the Duke of Guise (1647-48),
obtained the title of Duke of Corigliano by Philip IV of Spain on 8
May 1649.
During the seventeenth century the Saluzzo family
were unable to stop the progressive economic decline: many of the
lands of the plain had been abandoned and had become swampy, causing
an accentuation of malaria, to which was added an epidemic of plague
in 1656.
In the eighteenth century there was an improvement
in conditions, thanks to the reclamation works undertaken by the
dukes and the production of licorice. The inhabitants reached the
figure of 6,800 in 1743 and the city developed with new
neighborhoods outside the walls ("Gradoni Sant'Antonio" and "San
Francesco").
The Saluzzo family sold their Coriglianese assets
in 1828 to Baron Giuseppe Compagna, (1780-1834), who cleverly
reassembled in his own hands and his heirs Luigi (1823-1872) and
Francesco (1848-1925), the economic power that had been of the
dukes.
Between 1814 and 1951 the inhabitants went from just
over 8,000 to about 21,000: the development is due to the agrarian
reform and the reclamation of the plain, where vast citrus groves
were planted. The various hamlets grew considerably, some of which
developed as tourist resorts (Piano Caruso).
In 1863
Corigliano took the name of "Corigliano Calabro" to avoid confusion
with Corigliano d'Otranto.