Calcata is a wonder perched on a tufaceous spur in the Valle del Treja Regional Natural Park. It is one of the most impressive naturally fortified sites in Italy on the Via Francigena. The winding pedestrian streets overlook the incredible views of the reddish tuff gorges. We are on one of the stages of the Via Amerina and Forre district, a destination for hikers and photographers.
Hidden under ivy-covered arches, you will find, leather craftsmen, ceramic and glass workshops art studies and jewelery creations. All around, tea rooms, cafes and restaurants, where you can taste good wine and traditional dishes.
Glimpse of Calcata
The village is enriched with the medieval Palazzo Baronale Anguillara, the right location for exhibitions, conferences and weddings, and the Church of the Santissimo Nome di Gesù, with the ancient wooden trussed ceiling and a beautiful baptismal font from the 16th century.
Palazzo Baronale Anguillara
After the Messina earthquake in 1908, some towns threatened by landslides were considered unsafe. A law decided the transfer of the town and the abandonment and demolition of the houses in the villages at risk. Calcata. with a Royal Decree of 1935, was also included in that list. Fortunately, not everyone bothered to respect this law, thus saving the village from total abandonment.
However, from the second half of the 1960s the first transfers of the inhabitants from the historic centre to the new town began. A Calcata Nuova existed not far away, but Medieval Calcata didn’t die. A new life begins for this wonderful small village. Calcata in fact becomes a meeting place for people eager to experience a new lifestyle, far from the chaos of big cities, in contact with nature, in simple and authentic places. Calcata becomes the ideal retreat for many artists, musicians, painters and people from the world of cinema looking for their source of inspiration.
Il borgo di Calcata
The “Borgo degli Artisti” is born. Personalities such as the architect Paolo Portoghesi, the American choreographer Paul Steffen, the painter Simona Weller and the sculptor Costantino Morosin moved to Calcata. It has less than 1000 inhabitants but is culturally lively thanks to its history and the associations that always keep it alive with special events, concerts, theatrical performances and extravagant markets.
The musician Roberto Ciotti remembers: “I met Calcata in the 70s and was immediately fascinated by its romantic and evocative beauty. It has always been a source of inspiration for me. It is here that I composed many of my songs and the soundtracks of Marrakesh Express and Tournè by Gabriele Salvatores“.
The surrounding area has been marked by the presence of man since the prehistoric period. It preserves traces of important Etruscan-Falisque cities and necropolises such as: Pizzo Piede, Monte Li Santi and Narce.
Also mentioned in many novels. Between the lines of “Ulysses” by James Joyce, in the novel “Il Vangelo secondo Gesù Cristo” by José Saramago, in “Un delitto a regola d’arte” by Donald Bain, in “Passeggiate Romane” by Stendhal and in the book “The keys of St. Peter” by Peyrefitte
Evening panorama of Calcata
It has also been the setting for several films and music videos. Hayoo Miyazaki visited it in 1990 and took inspiration from it for the architecture of the Glibli Museum and for the film “Laputa – Castle in the Sky”.
Fabrizio De André fell in love with it in 1980, choosing it as the location for the video dedicated to Pasolini for “Una storia sbagliata“. We find its originality in “Decameron” by Pier Paolo Pasolini, in “Amici Miei” by Mario Monicelli, in “The Adventures of Pinocchio” by Luigi Comencini, in “Nostalghia” by Andrej Tarkovsky, in “Mary” by Abel Ferrara, in “La mazzetta” by Sergio Corbucci, in “Ardena” by Luca Barbareschi and in “All the money in the world” by Ridley Scott.
On September 16th the Patron Saints, Cornelius and Cyprian, and the Celtic Festival are celebrated. In November the Tree Festival is celebrated in the Treja Park.
Calcata is an Orange Flag village, a prestigious quality mark awarded by the Italian Touring Club for tourism-environmental development and has been recognized by the Times as Italy’s Ideal Village.