Lamezia Terme Personaggi

FRANCESCO FIORENTINO
He studied in the seminary of Nicastro, then in Catanzaro,
and received his degree in law. He participated in Garibaldi's
uprising, and immediately afterwards was named lecturer in
philosophy in the royal lyceum of Spoleto. In 1862 he was
nominated "extraordinary" professor of philosophy in Bologna.

In 1870, Fiorentino was elected deputy at the college of Spoleto,
and in 1874 he was re-elected to the college of Sanseverino
Marche. In the same year he was named professor of theoretical
philosophy in Pisa. In 1880 he began to teach philosophy of
history in Naples, and in 1883, he succeeded Bertrando
Spaventa in the instruction of theoretical philosophy upon
Spaventa's death.

In Naples, he edited the Giornale Napoletano di Lettere e Filosofia
(Neapolitan Journal of Letters and Philosophy) and the Giornale
Napoletano della Dominica (Neapolitan Sunday Journal).
Standing out among Fiorentino's works are his studies of
Giordano Bruno and Bernardino Telesio, and his Manuale di
Storia della Filosofia (Manual of the History of Philosophy) for use
in high schools.

The essence of Fiorentino's work, as F. Bartoletta has written,
lies not so much in the originality of his thought as in the
methodology that he followed in his writings and research.

PIETRO ARDITO
A liberal priest and critic and historian of Italian literature, Ardito
taught in the seminary of Nicastro (1854-1860) and in the
high school of Spoleto (1861-1868). In 1882 he returned to
Nicastro for good, where he was in charge of the gymnasium
(high school) and the elementary school as well, until his death.

Of importance to the history of Nicastro, Ardito's book
Spigolature Storiche Sulla Citta di Nicastro (1889--Historical
Gleanings on the City of Nicastro). This work marks a serious
beginning in reconstructing the history of Nicastro and of its
territory based on the search and study of documentary sources.
Ardito deserves great credit for having found and reconstructed
the original charter of the Benedictine Abbey of S. Eufemia.

FRANCO COSTABILE
He was one of the most representative of Calabrese poets. Among his collections of poems, La Rosa nel Bicchiere (1961--The Rose in the Drinking Glass) is the one that most expresses the poet's love for his land, although it also expresses the signs of its decay.

The following verses are carved on his tomb in the cemetery of Sambiase:

"With this story-teller's heart
I placed a rose in the drinking glass.
But like one's heart
The rose spent itself
A little at a time
By singing a forever-tragic story."

THE TWO BISHOPS
Two of Nicastro's bishops became Popes. One was Marcello Cervini (bishop from 1539 to 1540), who was elected pope as Marcellus II in 1555. the other was Giovanni Antonio Facchinetti (bishop from 1560 to 1575), who was elected pope in 1591 as Innocent IX.

Bishop Cervini - as Francesco Russo writes - never came to Nicastro, and in fact never took up the episcopal office throughout the whole time that he ruled the Nicastro church, administering it instead from a distance.

As for Fachinetti, it seems that he was the first bishop, after Girolamo De Paola (1523-1530), to set foot in the dicese after 30 years of ansence by the shepherds of the Nicastro flock, but he remained there for only a short time.