The Cattolica Church. Stilo. Italy

Consigned to history, thanks to the famous defeat Emperor Ottone II's troops suffered, at the hands of the Arabs, in 982, the city of Stilo, whose name derives from the Greek "stulos" (column), has its origins in Caulonia, an ancient Greek colony, founded in the 8th century. B.C. and destroyed in 389 AD by Dionisio I, the old tyrant of Syracuse. For a short time, between the 8th and the 10th century, this part of Calabria welcomed a true community of hermits, who had emigrated from the East.

This community became the protagonist of unprecedented spiritual renewal and was so closely integrated with the local population that it became a center for spreading agricultural technologies: thanks to this, the growing of mulberry stems, vines and olives spread; as did the study of religious, literary and scientific disciplines. In other words, the guests of Byzantium, who in the West were often called "Basilians" in honor of St. Basil the Great, lived according to this monastic rule and made the Stilaro valley a real cradle of Byzantine culture, in Calabria.

The audioguide tells the story, describes the architecture and reports interesting facts about the Cattolica di Stilo, a unique historic place, in the city. It is believed its design and construction took place prior to 1071, when the Normans, guided by the brothers Roberto Guiscardo and King Ruggero I of Sicily, won these places. Under the first arch of Cattolica there is an extraordinary representation of the Virgin that dates back to the period of the building of the church and was made by a Byzantine artist who had probably fled from the Orient or had been invited by the monks.

The audioguide has been made by professionals in the field of history and art.