Calabria

Calabria, the south-west peninsula of the kingdom of Italy, bounded N. by the province of Basilicata. The area is 6600 miles, the population a million and a half. It is traversed all its length of 160 miles by the Apennines, whose summits in the region in the north, known as La Sila, and the Aspromonte in the south, are crowned with pines, while forests of oak, beech, and chestnut cover their sides. The valleys be- tween the various hills afford rich pasture, especially in the north, to which, where swamps have not rendered them uninhabitable from malaria, in spring-time whole colonies migrate with their flocks and herds. There is no river of any importance in Calabria; but the valleys and plains, watered by such streams as there are, are very fertile, yielding wheat, rice, cotton, liquorice, saffron, the sugar-cane, &c., and also the vine, orange, lemon, olive, fig, and mulberry, in luxuriance. Iron, tin, lead, silver, alabaster, marble, and graphite are among its minerals. The fisheries of its coasts, particularly the tunny and anchovy fisheries, are important. The district is very subject to earthquakes. For purposes of administration the compartimento is divided into the provinces of Cosenza, Catanzaro, and Reggio (for areas and populations, see table at ITALY). In ancient times the name Calabria was given to the south-east peninsula, nearly corresponding to the modern province of Lecce, no portion of which is included in modern Calabria, which answers to the ancient Bruttium. The name, as applied to the district now known by that name, appears to have originated with the Byzantines sometime prior to the conquest of the country by the Normans, in the 11th century. The people, who are a proud, fiery, and revengeful race, were long celebrated as among the fiercest of banditti. They strenuously resisted the power of France during the Napoleonic campaigns, and were not finally subdued until 1810.—Il Calabrese ('the Calabrian') is the name by which the painter Maltia Preti (1613-57) is usually known. See The Highlands of Calabria, by Ross and Cooper (1888).