The oldest document on Corazzo is a Papal bull of September 13, 1129 in which Pope Honorius II placed the abbey of Corazzo under the direct protection of the Holy See. In another important document, dated November 1198, Empress Constance, daughter of Roger, first King of Sicily, a donation to Corazzo of a vast expanse of lands in Sila, and confirmed all the previous privileges and donations that the abbey already enjoyed. In 1221, Emperor Frederick II recognized all the abbey’s possessions and privileges.

Inside of the Abbey of Corazzo
(Villella private archive)
Click to Enlarge

These possessions extended from the River Corace to Amato as far as Decollatura, Martirano, Scigliano, Rogliano, Isola and Maida. On September 10 of each year, a great market-fair took place in the immediate vicinity of the abbey. The greatness of the abbey began to decline when it became a benefice for others, and abbot-beneficiaries began to be named around 1440. These thought only of aggrandizing their own patrimony from the revenues of the monastery, leaving to the brothers only the minimum necessary to live, thereby contributing to the decay of the abbey’s structure which continued to fall into ruin.
(See: V. VILLELLA, La Calabria della rassegnazione, vol. I., pp. 62 ss.).