priests in the town. Now there are only two. From Lungro especially a great number of Albanians have gone to America. However, it is still the chief Albanian colony of these parts. It has about 6,000 inhabitants; all speak Albanian and keep their rite. The church is the handsomest of its rite in Calabria. It has three cupolas, a nave and transepts, three altars,[1] and no Ikonastasion.[2] About 3½ kilometres south-west of Lungro is Acquaformosa[3] with 2,000 Albanians. There are no Latins. The Albanians came here in 1502, and began to reclaim what was then a quite desolate place. They have a priest and a parish church, St John the Baptist. Five kilos. south-east of Lungro is Firmo,[4] also all Albanian, with about 2,000 souls, a priest, and the church, B.M.V. Assumpta. Going north of Lungro we come first to San Basile[5] with nearly 2,000 Albanians; then to Frascineto,[6] over 2,000 Albanians. Five kilos. to the east is Civita,[7] 2,500 souls. There are also in this region two small villages, Plataci and Porcile,[8] of no great importance. All these, I believe, are entirely Albanian and Byzantine. At Cassano al Ionio, the diocesan city, there is no Albanian colony; but Mgr. Pietro Camodeca de' Nobili Coronei, the Vicar General for the Byzantine rite,[9] resides here near the bishop.
Crossing the valley of the Crati we come to the third group, along the slopes to the south. Here, too, is a line of Albanian villages stretching from west to east between the two diocesan cities, Bisignano and Rossano. First, west of Bisignano, there is a place which has played a great part in the past, San Benedetto Ullano.[10] Here once stood the seminary for the Calabrian Albanians. In the early eighteenth century it was a disused Benedictine monastery. By the advice of Samuel Rodotà, Clement XII (1730-1740) turned this into an Italo-
- ↑ This is one of the un-Byzantine features common here. A Byzantine church should have only one altar.
- ↑ For Lungro see Rodota, "del Rito greco," iii, 79-88; V. Vannutelli, O.P., "Le Colonie italo-greche" (Rome, 1890), 147-152.
- ↑ Rodotà, iii, 88-89; R. Netzhammer, O.S.B., "Unter den Albanesen Kalabriens," in the Studien u. Mitteilungen aus dem Ben.- u. Cist.-orden, 1906, p. 100.
- ↑ Rodotà, iii, 89-91.
- ↑ Ibid., 91.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Ibid., 92.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ His portrait may be seen in Charon, "Le quinzième Centenaire," p. 260.
- ↑ Also called "San Benedetto d'Ullano," Latin "S Benedicti Vllano" or "in Vllano." There was an old village, Vllanum, destroyed by the Saracens in the ninth century (Rodotà, iii, 70). The form in the text seems the usual one now.
