In 986 Arab pirates destroyed Boidin, the first settlement on the coast; the survivors climbed a tufa hill two hundred metres up, easier to defend, and there Bovalino Superiore was born. Around 1100 Roger the Norman had a castle built there. The name, Greek, means land of oxen, or else place where flax grows: flax was much cultivated here.
In 1571 count Vincenzo Marullo went to Lepanto with a galley armed at his own expense and manned from his county: the enterprise ruined him, and in 1584 the family had to sell the fief at auction. Ten years later, on the eighth of September 1594, the Turks of Scipione Cicala, a Genoese who had gone over to Islam under the name of Sinan Pasha, took the castle and set fire to the town. Tradition tells that while the people were praying in church it began to rain so hard that the fire went out and the invaders fled: ever since, the patron of Bovalino Superiore has been the Immaculate Virgin.
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📅 Every year, on 2 April; the last Sunday of July brings the ancient feast of the Madonna del Carmelo
Bovalino celebrates Saint Francis of Paola on 2 April. The feast of the Madonna del Carmelo, held on the last Sunday of July, is age-old: the statue, made in 1776, was carved by the Neapolitan sculptor Giuseppe Sarno.
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 Bovalino, but an easy day trip away.
