Rossano

Rossano is a town in Southern Italy, in Calabria in Cosenza province. The city is situated on an eminence two miles from far from the Gulf of Taranto. The town is known for its marble and alabaster quarries. The town is the seat for a Catholic archbishop and has a notable cathedral and castle. The highest part of the town is 975 feet above sea-level.

Catholic Traditions

The famous Codex Rossanensis is a Greek parchment manuscript of St. Matthew and St. Mark and is one of the oldest pictorial Gospel known was discovered in 1879 in the cathedral sacristy. Scholars dates from the parchment from the end of the fifth to the eighth or ninth century; it is probably of Alexandrine origin.

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In the cathedral there is an ancient image of the "Madonna acheropita" (i.e. the "Madonna not made by hands"). Rossano was the birthplace of Pope John VII, and so called antipope John VII Palaeologus. Rossano is also the birthplace of Saint Nilus the younger, who founded the Abbey of Grottaferrata, and whose life is a valuable source of information about southern Italy in the 10th century.

Related Topics:
Pope John VII - Antipope - John VII Palaeologus - Nilus the younger

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