We start again, and this time with different intentions and with a project that could, after years and years of discussions, proposals and controversies, realize a dream so dear to the lawyer Giovanni Barone, researcher and scholar of the History of Popular Traditions who at the beginning of the seventies he had the idea of working on a program for bring the ancient medieval site of Castelmonardo back to the surface razed to the ground in 1783 by the earthquake and on whose ashes today’s Philadelphia was founded a few kilometers away. Archaeologists from all over Italy and abroad arrived in the city and under the guidance of university professor Diego Maestri began the first excavations which brought to light interesting finds dating back to the medieval era and even before. Over the years, the idea conceived by the lawyer Barone, at the time vice mayor and councilor of the City of Philadelphia for the creation of an archaeological park, was hindered by various factors, primarily that of financing. Now it seems the right time has come.
A meeting was held in the hall of the municipal library on the first results obtained in the presence of the mayor Anna Bartuccaof the president of the municipal institution Castelmonardo Giuseppe SerrainoOf Loredana Majoloof the councilor Masino Diacoof the Equal Opportunities advisor Liliana Campisano and the archaeologists who will have to carry out the archeology project. It was the professor’s turn Carlo Citter of the University of Pisa and to the archaeologist Assunta Campi explain the contents on which we intend to work to bring to light the site which during the Middle Ages was not only a cultural but also a commercial point of reference for the whole of Calabria. On Saturday morning the Castelmonardo area was visited by students of the Scientific High School and Ipsia in the presence of Professor Citter who explained to them the historical value of the site and the procedure that will be used during the excavations to bring the remains to light of the medieval village.