Pentedattilo’s name means five fingers in Greek. (Image: GETTY)
A tiny with a dark past is coming to life again after being left abandoned for years.
The village of Pentedattilo, in the southern region of Calabria, owes its peculiar name to the cliff it seemingly lays against, Monte Calvario.
When the Greek colonists who founded it in 640 BCE named it, they found inspiration in the mountain’s shape at the time, which reminded them of a massive hand with five fingers pointing towards the sky.
The old town was nestled around a castle, whose ruins can still be admired today.
Surrounded by a breathtaking landscape dominated by the Aspromonte mountain massif, the village was an important economic and military centre during the Greek and Roman times but lost its lustre as the world entered the common era.
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Pentedattilo is in the southern Italian region of Calabria. (Image: Getty)
A key moment in Pentedattilo’s history was its conquest by the Normans when it started being ruled by noble families – including two feuding ones.
In the late XVII century, the rivalry between the Alberti and Abenavoli families erupted into a massacre.
In April 1686, Baron Bernardino Abenavoli entered the Alberti’s castle with armed men. He killed most members of the family, including a nine-year-old boy, after Lorenzo Alberti decided to give his sister’s hand to the son of the Viceroy of Naples, despite the woman being the baron’s fiancee.
The horrifying massacre prompted the reaction of the viceroy, who sent his troops to execute the perpetrators of the killings and hang their beheaded heads on the battlements of the Pentedattilo Castle.
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The rocky towers behind the village resembles five fingers. (Image: Getty)
Over the centuries, the tragedy became intertwined with legends, including one claiming that the mountain’s “fingers” would crush the village underneath to punish the killers.
Another claims the rocky towers dominating the landscape behind the village represent the bloodied fingers of baron’s hand – which has led some to dub the cliff the “hand of the Devil”.
Another tragedy struck Pentedattilo in 1783 when a major earthquake devastated the area and prompted most of its residents to relocate to nearby Melito Porto Salvo. The migratory influx was so strong that in 1811, the village lost its autonomous status and became a fraction of the municipality of Melito.
By the 1960s, the settlement was completely abandoned for about 15 years, turning into a ghost village.
In the early 1980s, organisations and young people discovered the village again, which led to a slow but successful work of recovery of Pentedattilo.
Today, Pentedattilo is a key stop in the “Walk of the English”, a path retracing the trip carried out by foot by British author Edward Lear in 1847.
Moreover, between August and September, the village hosts the Pentedattilo Film Festival, an international event celebrating short films.
A few people and businesses, including craftsmen and a restaurant, have returned home in the village.