Bivongi

The first document that names Bivongi is the Brebion, a Greek inventory of about 1050 found in the library of the Capialbi counts at Vibo Valentia: it lists the property of the monasteries of the area, the names of the tenants and their rents, and records the rearing of silkworms. The village appears there as Bobònges, and that name is still argued over: some read it as the land of the silkworm, some as the land of oxen, some as the land where iron is tempered, and in support of this last the mocking nickname Bafungi, in use since the 17th century, is cited; others derive it from the Greek verb to eat, which would have named the oldest quarter, Mangiuni. In 1094 count Roger's diploma assigned these lands to the charterhouse of Serra San Bruno.

The readings all speak of work, and work there was. In 1782 in Calabria Ultra forty-two mines were active, twenty-three of them for silver mixed with lead: Bivongi was one of the silver districts, and the places where the digging was done are still called Raspa and Argentera. In 1913 the Guida hydroelectric plant was built on the Stilaro, and at Acque Sante the sulphur-alkaline springs, known since Byzantine times, kept a spa open from 1850 to 1950. In the upper course of the torrent falls the Marmarico, the highest waterfall of the southern Apennines, among clumps of Woodwardia radicans, a rare fern. The monastery of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, named in the platea of Charles V of 1535, was partly demolished in 1922 to let the Pazzano road through.