CALABRIA

Guardia Piemontese - the old town centre


We do not precisely know when the Waldensians arrived in Calabria for the first time, and it is not possible to agree on the reasons of their arrival.

According to some historian they arrived in the 13th century, during the Swabians’ dominion over the Kingdom of Naples, because they wanted to escape from the persecutions which had begun in Provence in the first decades of the century. According to others they came here under the Angevins, between 1265 and 1273, as they escaped from the persecutions against the Waldensians of Piedmont and Lombardy. Another hypothesis, the most accepted one, suggests that they arrived between 1315 and 1340 under Robert Angevin, because of the unemployment caused by the overpopulation of the valleys of Piedmont and Dauphiné, where the Waldensians lived.

The Waldensians settled many parts of Calabria, almost all near Cosenza. Among them: Guardia Piemontese, Montalto Uffugo, San Sisto (later renamed San Sisto dei Valdesi), San Vincenzo la Costa, Vaccarizzo, Argentina, Castagna (now S. Maria la Castagna).

(from AA. VV., I calabro valdesi, Claudiana, 1986)


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