Cutro (
Calabrian: ) is a town and ''
comune
The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces ('' province''). The can ...
'' in the
province of Crotone
The province of Crotone ( it, provincia di Crotone) is a province in the Calabria region of southern Italy. It was formed in 1992 out of a section of the province of Catanzaro. The provincial capital is the city of Crotone. It borders the provinc ...
,
Calabria region,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
. It's called "City of chess". It is the place of birth of
Vincenzo Iaquinta,
World Cup
A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...
-winning
footballer
A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...
who played for
Serie A
The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Copp ...
club
Juventus
Juventus Football Club (from la, iuventūs, 'youth'; ), colloquially known as Juve (), is a professional football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, that competes in the Serie A, the top tier of the Italian football league system. Founded in ...
.
History
Cutro was a
Greek colony
Greek colonization was an organised Colonies in antiquity, colonial expansion by the Archaic Greece, Archaic Greeks into the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea in the period of the 8th–6th centuries BC.
This colonization differed from the Iron Ag ...
of
Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia (, ; , , grc, Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, ', it, Magna Grecia) was the name given by the Romans to the coastal areas of Southern Italy in the present-day Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania and Sicily; the ...
, with the name of ''Kyterion''.
It obtained the title of city in 1575 by the Spanish King
Philip II, after the local
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...
champion
Giò Leonardo Di Bona had won a contest at the Spanish court, become ''first international winner of chess''.
Cutro was destroyed by an
earthquake
An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...
on March 8, 1832. It remained the most populous centre of the region until the mid-20th century, when a strong emigration flow towards
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...
and
northern Italy
Northern Italy ( it, Italia settentrionale, it, Nord Italia, label=none, it, Alta Italia, label=none or just it, Nord, label=none) is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. It consists of eight administrative Regions ...
(especially in
Reggio Emilia
Reggio nell'Emilia ( egl, Rèz; la, Regium Lepidi), usually referred to as Reggio Emilia, or simply Reggio by its inhabitants, and known until 1861 as Reggio di Lombardia, is a city in northern Italy, in the Emilia-Romagna region. It has abou ...
) reduced the number of inhabitants considerably.
Notable people
*
Giovanni Leonardo Di Bona (1st international chess tournament champion)
*
Vincenzo Iaquinta (footballer)
*
Rino Gaetano (Songwriter, born in Crotone, from a Cutro family)
References
External links
Italian Wikipedia article
Cities and towns in Calabria
{{Calabria-geo-stub