Cerva

Cerva is a young village: it was founded at the end of the eighteenth century by settlers who came from the province of Cosenza, and at first it was called San Giovanni della Croce. It belonged to the fief of the Poerio of Belcastro until the abolition of feudalism, in 1806, except for a dozen years in the middle of the century when it passed to the Maida of Cutro. The present name came later, and nobody can say for certain where from: perhaps because the area was renowned for game, or — as tradition tells — because of a hind, a cerva, that often appeared near the houses. Recognised as a place and università by a decree of 1807, in 1811 the village was nonetheless reduced to a hamlet of Andali; it took forty years and a popular petition before, on 28 October 1850, it became an autonomous comune.

During the second world war the people of Cerva rose against the abuses of the commander of the local carabinieri post: the repression was harsh, with mass arrests and imprisonments. For the rest, the life of the village was made by the chestnut trees. The centre stands between eight hundred and sixty and nine hundred and fifty metres, on the edge of the Sila, and the chestnut wood was for generations the chief source of income; Cerva belongs to the national association of chestnut towns, and in palazzo Griffo, in the old centre, there is the museum of the chestnut and of peasant art. At the place called Melitani, then, there is the tree: a chestnut of about four hundred and fifty years, thirty metres tall, with a trunk measuring eight metres across at the base. The only industry in the village today is an artisan coffee roastery.