Furthermore, it was established that all the olive and oak trees on that land should remain for the benefit of Di Sensi as representative of the petitioning citizens, while twenty plants of small olives would remain for the benefit of Archdeacon Bruni. Four years later, specifically on July 4, 1789, there appeared before notary Antonio Saladino, the canon don Francesco Caliguri, on one part, high confessor of the Cathedral as representative of the chapel Santa Maria de Martibus, commonly called the chapel of Bishop John, and, on the other part eighty-two citizens of Nicastro, most of whom were from the quarter of Terravecchia, destroyed by the flood of 1782.
The latter declared that, following the “unusual and sudden” flood of the Piazza River on the night of December 10, 1782, their quarter called Terravecchia had been upturned by the waters, with most of the houses and large buildings leveled to the ground, and over one hundred citizens killed; in fact whole families had been buried under the rocks or dragged off by the river’s current. The homeless sought temporary shelter in other homes in the city, either with relatives or else renting new property, while waiting for a definitive outcome of the situation. But barely two months had passed when on February 5-7 and then again on March 28, the terrible earthquake was unleashed which caused incalculable damage.
Ancient house in
the “Seminario” section (Bella)
On the orders of higher authority, permanent homes were abandoned and wooden shanties constructed either on private land as on lands belonging to church entities that had been kept available and serviceable. The above mentioned citizens of Terravecchia—the notary wrote—desiring to find a place to which they could return to live together rather than stay dispersed here and there throughout the area and on haystacks in the fields, and after having evaluated many alternatives, have identified a property belonging to the above mentioned chapel as an ideal place to reconstruct their quarter, “a place outside of this city a third of a mile distant known commonly as La Bella, treed with olives and oaks, a place eminently healthful, on a level spot where there an ancient church is placed with an image of the Blessed Virgin under the rubric of the “Nativity of Virgin Mary, commonly called Virgin of Bella.”
Back .....................Next