Nobody knows when it was founded: of the chapel from which the church of San Nicola di Mira, the parish church of Castelluccio Inferiore, grew, what survives is an inscription bearing the year 1286, and from that we know the building was already standing in the fourteenth century. The first document granting it the rank of archpriest's church dates from 1510 and is a deed of the cathedral of Cassano all'Ionio: for centuries Castelluccio looked towards Calabria, not towards Basilicata. The parish moved to the diocese of Tursi-Lagonegro only with a decree of the Congregation of Bishops dated 8 September 1976.
What to see
The church looks the way the general rebuilding of the mid-seventeenth century left it, which came after alterations already made between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The gabled front faces north and a projecting string course divides it into two registers, both articulated by pilaster strips: below, the main portal in the centre and two smaller doorways at the sides; above, two round-headed windows and an oculus holding a sacred image, the whole closed by a triangular pediment. The bell tower attached to the church has a square base and a belfry with a single-light window on each side, crowned by a dome resting on a wide octagonal drum.
Inside, three naves are divided by piers with Tuscan pilasters carrying round arches; above the entablature runs an attic register pierced by windows, while the side aisles are covered with cross vaults. At the far end of the hall the presbytery, raised by three steps and closed by a flat wall, holds the high altar and the best works: the Last Supper painted in 1607 by Giulio dell'Oca and the fresco cycle carried out by Angelo Galtieri between 1731 and 1737.
Visiting
There are three doors, all on the front facing north: the main portal in the middle, two smaller ones at the sides. This is the village's parish church, part of the Mercure-Tirrenica pastoral area, so it is worth timing your visit around services. As soon as you are inside, look towards the far end: the presbytery is raised three steps, and the altar facing the congregation is its most recent addition, from 2000, when the building was adapted to post-conciliar liturgical norms.
Our editors' tip
Stop in the presbytery and compare the two dates: the Last Supper by Giulio dell'Oca carries 1607, the frescoes by Angelo Galtieri are from 1731-1737. More than a century passed between one job and the other, and in between sits the Baroque building site that remade the church: looking first at one and then at the others, you see what changed here between the early seventeenth and the full eighteenth century.