Calitri stands on a hill above the Ofanto, on the border with Basilicata, and its history is marked out by earthquakes. The one of 8 September 1694 destroyed the castle and killed prince Mirelli: the surviving members of the family left the ruins on the hilltop and rebuilt their baronial palace further down. The mother church of San Canio is the same story in miniature: rebuilt in 1547, destroyed in 1694, finished again in 1747, made unsafe by a landslide and demolished in 1881, rebuilt elsewhere in the nineteen-twenties, damaged by the earthquake of 1980 and reopened for worship only in 1993.
On 10 February 1941 the sky above Calitri saw the first wartime jump by British paratroopers. The target of Operation Colossus was the aqueduct bridge over the Tragino stream, between Calitri and Rapone: it carried the water of the Apulian aqueduct to Puglia and to the ports of Taranto, Brindisi and Bari, and striking it was meant to weaken the Italian war effort. The aircraft carrying the engineers went off course and dropped them far away, ice blocked part of the explosive, and to get the charges as far as the bridge the British forced a dozen farm people from the nearby holdings to carry them. Calitri is also the home town of the singer-songwriter Vinicio Capossela.
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📅 Every year, on 25 May, with pilgrimages on the Sundays of May
Calitri celebrates Saint Canius on 25 May, in the church dedicated to him. Every Good Friday, the procession re-enacting the Passion of Christ is held, and on the Sundays of May, pilgrimages to the small countryside churches.
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 Calitri, but an easy day trip away.
