I PARCHI LETTERARI® IN CALABRIA “JOURNEYS TO THE FUTURE OF MEMORY” - I PARCHI LETTERARI IN THE LOCRIDE AREA: GERACE

"... full of beautifully situated buildings, placed on a narrow strip of rock… Amazed by so many panoramas that arrive from all sides; each rock, Sanctuary or building in Gerace seems to have been created and coloured especially for artists..."
1847 Edward Lear

Gerace is considered to be one of the most beautiful artistic cities of Calabria because it preserves a splendid historic city centre with homes that are still intact and feature the ancient Gothic, Byzantine, Norman and Roman architectural styles, as well as works of art that testify to its historic and cultural importance.

The upper area of the city is dominated by the Norman Castle, while the city centre features the Cathedral. The present day road system is the same that was used in Medieval times. Gerace’s main road is named after Zaleucus, a resident of Locri in the 6th Century B.C., the first author in the Western world to create a corpus of written laws which remained valid for 200 years.
He was one of Pythagoras’ disciples and he had codified, among others, the law that prohibited citizens, under penalty of death, to enter assemblies while armed. He forgot that he had a weapon with him, entered the Senate and when he realised what he had done, killed himself on the spot.