Vibonati has 3,237 inhabitants on a narrow, elongated spur above the gulf of Policastro, and they call it the village of doorways: in the alleys, which here are called ruve, they follow one another by the dozen, and some have allegories and symbols carved on them, some of them esoteric. A good deal has been imagined about its origins — some make it the Vibo ad Siccam that Cicero mentions, others bring in Phoenician exiles from Tyre, since one part of the village is called Tirone — but the first document that names it is of 1415.
In the sanctuary of Sant'Antonio Abate, which for centuries followed the Greek rite, the baptismal font is hollowed out of an ancient Corinthian capital, and in one chapel there is a panel with the Virgin of the Rosary among the Dominican saints and the victors of Lepanto: it is there to record that the village sent its own men to that battle. On 3 September 1860 Vibonati played host to Garibaldi, and a plaque on palazzo De Nicolelis still says so. On the fountain in the square, which is of 1904, there is instead a phrase from Cicero's De legibus: salus populi suprema lex.
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📅 Every year, from 8 to 17 January, with the procession of the 18th-century wooden bust
Vibonati celebrates Saint Anthony the Abbot from 8 to 17 January, drawing hundreds of Vibonati emigrants and faithful from across the Gulf of Policastro.
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 Vibonati, but an easy day trip away.
