The name comes from the Byzantine Greek strongylon, «round», after the conical shape of the hill the town sits on. But before it was round it was called Petelia, and the Lucanians made it their metropolis. When Hannibal came down into Italy, Petelia stayed loyal to Rome and held out between 216 and 215 BC: Livy records that resistance, and from it came the epithet Fidelis Petelia. Once the war was over the Roman senate granted it not only the right to be rebuilt, but to mint its own coinage.
In 1836, inside a tomb, a small gold leaf was found bearing a Greek inscription: I am a child of Earth and of starry Heaven, I am parched with thirst and dying, give me the cold water that flows from the lake of Mnemosyne. It was an Orphic initiate's handbook for the afterlife, and together with those from Thurii and Hipponion it is among the most famous known. The cathedral church keeps four marble bases of Manius Megonius Leo, and on one of them his will is carved, which speaks of the Aminean vines grown around Petelia. The baroque composer Leonardo Vinci was born here too.
No events match these filters.
📅 Every year, on 15 August; in May, on Ascension Sunday, the Madonna di Vergadoro
Strongoli celebrates Our Lady of Grace on 15 August. The town also venerates the Madonna di Vergadoro, protector of sailors, fields and farmers, celebrated in May, on the Sunday of the Ascension, with a night vigil called «la nottata».
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 Strongoli, but an easy day trip away.
