The village was founded by peasants who had left Motta Santa Lucia after the earthquake of 1638. Moving inland, they asked asylum of the prince of Tiriolo, who let them settle in the place they call Colla Pagliara in exchange for the payment of a modest head tax; later they came down a little lower, where there was more shelter from the wind. The name comes from a small statue of the apostle Peter that had been put up there. For a long time it was Tiriolo that administered the place; autonomy came with a law of January 1807, under the name San Pietro a Tiriolo, and on the fourth of May 1811 the comune was given the name of San Pietro Apostolo — the separation from Tiriolo was written into the name, even though Tiriolo remained the administrative seat. A law of 1816 moved the village, with its nearly two thousand inhabitants, from Tiriolo's administration to that of Gimigliano.
On the night of the twenty-eighth of August 1860 Garibaldi stopped here, arriving from Maida, the guest of a local supporter, Anselmo Tomaini, whom the Bourbons had already condemned to death for taking part in the movements of Maida and Filadelfia; with his closest collaborators he took stock of the situation and prepared the operations that would open the road to Naples. That same night, a few kilometres away, Francesco Stocco with very few men obtained the surrender of ten thousand soldiers under general Ghio, encamped at Soveria Mannelli: he had had numerous fires lit, well in view, on the heights all around.
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📅 Every year, on 29 June
On 29 June San Pietro Apostolo, a municipality of 1,778 inhabitants in the province of Catanzaro, celebrates its patron Saint Peter the Apostle; at the end of June there is also the Cherry Festival.
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 San Pietro Apostolo, but an easy day trip away.
