Patron saint festival In 98 days
Saint Sebastian, patron of San Paolo Bel Sito
📅 Every year, on 20 January
San Paolo Bel Sito celebrates Saint Sebastian on 20 January.
San Paolo Bel Sito has 3,422 inhabitants behind Nola, and the "Bel Sito" was pinned on it by a royal decree of 1862, so as not to confuse it with the other San Paolos of Italy: it is the translation of the Greek ghè kalè, beautiful land, from which the name of the hill of Cicala also comes, the hill the first inhabitants came down from to farm the plain. The saint is not the apostle but Paul of Thebes, the first hermit of Christianity.
Between the eighteenth and the twentieth century the village was a holiday place for the Neapolitan aristocracy, and in villa Montesano Domenico Cimarosa composed The Secret Marriage. In the same villa, during the war, the State Archive of Naples had been put in safekeeping: on 30 September 1943 the retreating Germans set fire to it, and there burned the register of Frederick II, the 378 volumes of the acts of the Angevin sovereigns and the thousands of volumes of the Regia Camera della Sommaria. The damage was immense.
The San Paolo Bel Sito guide
🎉 Festivals and feasts in San Paolo Bel Sito 1
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Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near San Paolo Bel Sito
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside San Paolo Bel Sito, but an easy day trip away.
Museo storico militare Brigata Catanzaro 📍 Catanzaro · 7.8 km Catanzaro museum of the Catanzaro Brigade: arms, uniforms and relics from Napoleon to the Second World War. Chiesa di Sant'Omobono 📍 Catanzaro · 9.0 km Catanzaro church with Norman-Byzantine features, described as the oldest place of worship in the city. Basilica dell'Immacolata Concezione 📍 Catanzaro · 9.3 km Catanzaro basilica built in 1254, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, patron of the city. Chiesa del Santissimo Rosario 📍 Catanzaro · 9.5 km Fifteenth-century church in Catanzaro, consecrated in 1499, with a Baroque mother-of-pearl altar. Villa Margherita 📍 Catanzaro · 9.7 km Catanzaro's oldest public garden, of 1881, with an archaeological museum, a library and a view over the gulf. Castello normanno-svevo di Nicastro 📍 Lamezia Terme · 16 km Medieval castle on the hill of San Teodoro in Nicastro, with cylindrical towers and a pentagonal keep.