The village stands on a hill between two seasonal torrents, and its name appears for the first time in a document of 1114. Where it comes from is not clear: some derive it from vadum latum, a wide ford, some from the Vodà stream that runs beside it, and there are even those who hold that the village takes its name from Filippo di Badolato and not the other way round. That Filippo did exist: in 1269 the king gave him the fief in thanks for services rendered, and the following year he went to war with count Pietro Ruffo of Catanzaro. The inhabitants ended up shut inside the village, besieged by an army of some nine hundred men, and in the end the count took it — even though Filippo had warned the king in good time.
Then the village emptied. The earthquake of 1640 killed three hundred people, more came in 1783 and in 1947, and in 1951 there was a flood: the state then built the first houses of Badolato Marina, down by the sea, and whoever could went down. The upper village emptied so far that in 1986 an article in Il Tempo presented it, provocatively, as a village for sale. Eleven years later, in December 1997, the cargo ship Ararat ran aground a few metres from the coast: on board were Kurdish refugees, and three hundred and thirty-nine of them were taken into houses made available by the comune and by private citizens. The village that was for sale was not sold.
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📅 Every year, on 10 November; the Good Friday procession with the a cappella choir
Badolato celebrates Saint Andrew Avellino on 10 November. On Good Friday, the traditional procession, led by a men's choir singing a cappella, sets out from the Church of San Domenico.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Badolato, but an easy day trip away.
