In the first half of the twelfth century Joachim of Fiore was born here, the theologian and mystic who would become one of the most discussed figures of the Middle Ages. Celico was part of the ancient Universitas Casalium, the body of villages around Cosenza; in 1600 the Grand Duke of Tuscany became its feudal lord, and between 1644 and 1647 it was the seat of a governor whom a popular revolt eventually drove out. The village stands at seven hundred and fifty metres below Serra Stella, and from the pass of Monte Scuro one reaches Botte Donato, the highest peak of the Sila.
Between 1940 and 1943 Celico was one of the fourteen comuni of Calabria designated by the fascist authorities to receive Jewish refugees in free internment: five were confined here, among them an Austrian family with a little girl, and all of them were freed when the Allied army arrived, in September 1943. From Celico came also Gioachino Greco, a seventeenth-century chess player and writer, among the first to live by the game.
No events match these filters.
📅 Every year, on 29 September
On 29 September Celico celebrates Saint Michael the Archangel; the municipal territory lies within the Sila plateau, with the Tasso-Camigliatello Silano nature reserve and Monte Scuro.
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.
