Platì

Platì has 3,711 inhabitants inside the Aspromonte national park, on the left bank of the torrent that carries its name. It is a feudal village, born at the beginning of the sixteenth century under the Spinelli, princes of Cariati; the great valley on which the centre rests today was formed by the earthquake of 1638, and a century and a half later, in 1783, a second earthquake destroyed almost all of it.

On 17 September 1861, in the countryside of Platì, the band of the brigand Ferdinando Mittiga — a former Bourbon non-commissioned officer, joined by the legitimists of the Catalan general José Borjes — clashed with the National Guard and with Italian soldiers; Mittiga was killed twelve days later, near Natile, at the end of a long chase. But the date the town does not forget is 18 October 1951, when the flood of eastern Aspromonte swept away part of it and killed 18 people. From then on emigration multiplied: thousands of people of Platì to America, to Canada, to Argentina, to Australia and to northern Italy.