Deep-dive

Identity: districts, a rebuilt city, the Vara and the Giants

A municipality divided into municipalità, with a seventh created in 2025 for the northern villages. The city was rebuilt after 1908: the Cathedral bell tower with its astronomical clock dates from 1933. In mid-August the Giants Mata and Grifone and the Vara of the Assumption, pulled by hand with ropes.

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Districts

The Comune is organised in municipalità, decentralised district bodies. In September 2025 the city council decided to create the seventh, grouping the villages of the far north: Ortoliuzzo, Rodia, San Saba, Acqualadrone, Le Masse, Castanea, Piano Torre, Salice, Gesso and Spartà, where the administration has identified a building for its seat.

The rebuilt city

The earthquake and tsunami of 28 December 1908 razed the centre and the coastal strip, including the Palazzata, the row of buildings on the harbour. The Cathedral, of Norman origin and consecrated in 1197, was also nearly destroyed in 1908 and then burned by the 1943 bombings; the bell tower was rebuilt and completed in 1933, commissioned by Archbishop Angelo Paino, with the astronomical clock by the Ungerer firm of Strasbourg to a design by Francesco Valenti.

The Vara and the Giants

The feast of the Assumption is one of the city's most recognisable traditions. On 14 August the Giants Mata and Grifone, large equestrian figures, parade through the neighbourhoods and the centre. On 15 August, at 18:30, the Vara — a votive float about 14 metres high depicting the Assumption of the Virgin — is pulled by hand with long ropes from Piazza Castronovo along Via Garibaldi to Piazza Duomo. Suspended after 1908, the procession resumed in 1926.