Calabria's near-abandoned Byzantine hilltop city — a Norman cathedral built with columns from a Greek city of Magna Graecia, earthquake-emptied lanes, and a 475-metre rock above the Ionian plain
Gerace is a near-abandoned medieval hilltop town in Calabrian Aspromonte, perched on a near-vertical sandstone outcrop 475 metres above the Ionian Sea. Six earthquakes between 1169 and 1908 progressively depopulated the town; Gerace now has a few hundred permanent residents among its preserved medieval and Norman lanes. The Cathedral of Gerace (1045 CE) is the largest Norman Romanesque church in Calabria, built using 26 granite and marble columns removed from the ruins of ancient Locri Epizephirii — one of Magna Graecia's most important Greek colonial cities.
Gerace was founded in the 9th century CE when the population of ancient Locri Epizephirii fled Arab raids on the Ionian coastal plain and established a refuge on the near-inaccessible sandstone rock above. The Byzantine diocese moved its seat to Gerace. Under Norman rule from the 11th century, the great cathedral was built using 26 columns removed from Locri's ancient temples — Doric-order capitals salvaged from the city founded by Dorian Greeks in 680 BCE. The 1908 Messina earthquake completed the town's depopulation.