Monterosso Calabro

Monterosso, set above a rugged hillside offshoot, is characterized by a spindle-shaped urban layout, sloping toward the valley floor, between the Capana, Monastero and Borgo districts, in which there are: still-preserved minor architecture; a tower of medieval origins, located at the apex of the town, rebuilt after the 1905 earthquake; notable eighteenth- and nineteenth-century aristocratic palaces and mansions, with fine granite portals, including those of Massara, Amoroso-Aceti, Basile and La Grotteria; religious buildings, of five-seventeenth-century origins, albeit recomposed after the 1783 earthquake, enriched with important statuary works created by Serrese artists, such as the parish of S. Nicola, the Rosario and Carmine churches, and the ruins of Condolima; remains of industrial archaeology, including a hydraulic “street of mills and crushers,” with some buildings and related stone canalizations with an arched structure; a former 19th-century spinning mill, broken down on its facade by large windows, which illuminate a wide ground floor crossed longitudinally by large arches, recently become the site of the museum hub of the same name; preserved sections of a graphite mine outside the town.