Spezzano Albanese, which its own people call Spixana, stands on a hill 320 metres above the plain of Sybaris and belongs to the oldest minority Italy recognises: the Arbëreshë, the Albanians who arrived after the death of George Kastrioti Skanderbeg, when the fortresses of their land were falling one after another. The first twenty-five families settled here between 1470 and 1479, then moved down into the valley, then higher up again. On 31 October 1572 they wrested from Prince Giuseppe Vespasiano Spinelli a written pact, the Capitolazioni, granting them the right to work his land and draw his water: two things that in Calabria are worth as much as a title.
The language survived, and today law 482 of 1999 protects it; the rite did not. The Arbëreshë followed the Greek-Byzantine rite, and at Spezzano that rite was extinguished from above: the first mass in Latin was celebrated on 4 March 1868. What remains are the words, the songs, the names of the districts where the first arrivals stopped, Pusi and Kullumbri, and in the middle of the Esaro plain the round tower of Torre Mordillo, which marks an Iron Age necropolis and can be seen for kilometres. A town that lost its way of praying and kept its way of speaking.
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📅 Every year, on the Tuesday after Easter; the Carnival brings the striking Horse Race
Spezzano Albanese celebrates Our Lady of Grace on the Tuesday after Easter (Pashkët), in the shrine dedicated to her. Also striking is the Carnival of Spezzano Albanese, a community of Arbëresh origin, with the traditional «Horse Race».
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 Spezzano Albanese, but an easy day trip away.
