Built on a steep mountain in southern Italy, Pentedattilo is an ex-Greek-speaking village that remained totally uninhabited from the mid-1960s until the 1980s.
Usually off from the travel guides in the country, this region at the very south of the Italian peninsula inherited different attributes from a series of empires and reigns that ruled the area in early centuries*.
Pentedattilo sits on Monte Calvario, at 250 meters above sea level. The mountain’s shape resembles five fingers, which inspired its name from the Greek pente (five) + daktylos (fingers).
The combination of history, ruins and human occupancy almost nonexistent creates the perfect scenario for photographs and a great canvas to everyone’s imagination.
* The Greeks ruled Calabria for 400 years beginning in 800 B.C. and named it Magna Grecia (Great Greece). They brought their advanced political system, law and civilization to the region, as well as olive trees, fig trees and grape vines, which would prove to be the source of Calabria’s economy for centuries to come.
Calabria then became part of the Roman Empire for the next 800 years, beginning in 400 B.C. Thereafter, nearly every major power in the western world occupied the region, including the Byzantines, Saracens, Normans, Spanish, French and Bourbons. It was the Byzantines who actually began calling the area Calabria, which means “fertile earth".
