The ancient fortified site of Nicastro (Neocastrum) on the Gulf of Lamezia was confirmed as a strategic military location at the height of the Byzantine era (IXth and Xth centuries), coinciding with the expansionist threat of the Saracens in southern Italy. Subjected then by the Normans, the city showed its hostility towards the invaders with an insurrection that was subdued with some effort by Robert Guiscard and his brother Roger. The foundation of the great Abbey of Saint Eufemia dates from this period (its charter being from the year 1062). Its ruins are still visible today in the area of Terravecchia.

Ruins of the Benedictine Abbey (S. Eufemia). The Guzzi Collection.

The abbey’s very rich endowment and its financial resources, combined with its very efficient economic management, made it the political-economic center of the Lamezian plain. Its role diminished with the advent of the Swabians, when Frederick II took the city of Nicastro from the Abbey and, in its place, gave the friars other lands in the area of Nocera and Aprigliano. The same sovereign then restored the castle of Nicastro, whose strategic-military importance had become evident under the Normans who had first built it. Nicastro was later reduced to an ordinary fief under the Angevines. Accordingly, in 1417 Queen Joan I bestowed the land of Nicastro to her favorite, Ottino Caracciolo.

After other changes following the uprising of Centelles against King Alfonso I (1444) and against King Ferrante (1448), in which the Count of Nicastro, Luigi Caracciolo was involved, the city was bestowed (along with Sambiase, Zangarona, Feroleto, Maida and Lacconia) to Frederick of Aragon, second-born of Ferrante, on the occasion of his marriage to Isabella del Balzo. When Frederick ascended the throne, the county of Nicastro was given to Marcantonio Caracciolo (1496). In 1607 the Caracciolo sold the county to the Aquino family, who were already Counts of Martirano and Princes of Castiglione and Feroleto, which thereby constituted an immense fief around Nicastro which stretched from Savuto (in the west) to Amato (in the east), from the sea (in the south) to the edges of the Sila (in the north). The county of the Aquino suffered a hard blow from the earthquake of March 27, 1638, which hit the Lamezian plain from its epicenter in the Gulf of S. Eufemia. Those dead on the plain were around 12,000. Nicastro itself had 1,190 victims, that is around a fifth of its population which consisted of 1,156 homes or about 6,000 inhabitants. There was very serious damage to the buildings. The Abbey of S. Eufemia was destroyed, and the castle collapsed, burying under the rubble the prince, Cesare D’Aquino. The historical events of the sixteen and seventeen hundreds were primarily calamities. In fact, these misfortunes came less from the acts of men than from nature itself: from the frequent torrential flooding of the plain, from pestilence, and above all from the terrible earthquakes that have periodically shaken the region.