San Luca


San Luca is a comune in the Province of Reggio Calabria in the Italian region Calabria, located about southwest of Catanzaro and about east of Reggio Calabria. The town is situated on the eastern slopes of the Aspromonte mountain, in the valley of the Bonamico river. At about from San Luca up the mountain lies the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Polsi.
The Italian author Corrado Alvaro was born in San Luca in 1895. His hand-written notes and other personal belongings are now kept in the house where he was born by the Corrado Alvaro Foundation.

History

San Luca was founded on October 18, 1592, by the Prince Sigismund Loffredo and named after the saint of that particular day, Luke the Evangelist, who became the patron saint of the town. It was populated by refugees from the old town of Potamia, which was destroyed by landslides. San Luca became a comune in 1811, and was hit by floods and landslides in 1951, 1953 and December 1972.
Around 1900, at the time the young Corrado Alvaro grew up in San Luca, illiteracy was near 100 percent and the town had no drinking water. The women went to fetch water with the casks on their heads at a well nearby. The town was pretty much isolated; there was no road to the coast and the only way to get there was on foot. Many inhabitants joined the Italian diaspora to escape the extreme poverty.

Stronghold of the 'Ndrangheta

San Luca is considered to be the stronghold of the 'Ndrangheta, a Mafia-type criminal organisation based in Calabria. According to a former 'ndranghetista, "almost all the male inhabitants belong to the 'Ndrangheta, and the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Polsi has long been the meeting place of the affiliates, known as the Crimine." At least since the 1950s, the chiefs of the 'Ndrangheta locali have met regularly near the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Polsi during the September Feast. In 1969 the police raided a meeting near the sanctuary and captured more than 70 'ndranghetisti, while others managed to escape.
The historical preeminence of the San Luca family is such that every new group or locale must obtain its authorization to operate and every group belonging to the 'Ndrangheta "still has to deposit a small percentage of illicit proceeds to the principale of San Luca in recognition of the latter’s primordial supremacy." San Luca, in the words of a study published in 2005 by Italy's domestic intelligence service, is "the cradle of and its epicentre".
The San Luca feud, a war between the two 'Ndrangheta clans Pelle-Vottari-Romeo and Strangio-Nirta from San Luca that had started in 1991 and resulted in several deaths carried into Germany in 2007; six men were shot to death in front of an Italian restaurant in Duisburg on 15 August 2007.

Demographic evolution


Colors=
id:lightgrey value:gray
id:darkgrey value:gray
id:sfondo value:rgb
id:barra value:rgb
ImageSize = width:500 height:400
PlotArea = left:50 bottom:50 top:30 right:30
DateFormat = x.y
Period = from:0 till:5000
TimeAxis = orientation:vertical
AlignBars = justify
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:1000 start:0
ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:200 start:0
BackgroundColors = canvas:sfondo
BarData=
bar:1861 text:1861
bar:1871 text:1871
bar:1881 text:1881
bar:1901 text:1901
bar:1911 text:1911
bar:1921 text:1921
bar:1931 text:1931
bar:1936 text:1936
bar:1951 text:1951
bar:1961 text:1961
bar:1971 text:1971
bar:1981 text:1981
bar:1991 text:1991
bar:2001 text:2001
PlotData=
color:barra width:20 align:left
bar:1861 from: 0 till:1536
bar:1871 from: 0 till:1628
bar:1881 from: 0 till:1767
bar:1901 from: 0 till:2029
bar:1911 from: 0 till:2169
bar:1921 from: 0 till:2288
bar:1931 from: 0 till:2657
bar:1936 from: 0 till:2916
bar:1951 from: 0 till:2728
bar:1961 from: 0 till:4072
bar:1971 from: 0 till:4300
bar:1981 from: 0 till:4400
bar:1991 from: 0 till:4413
bar:2001 from: 0 till:4106
PlotData=
bar:1861 at: 1536 fontsize:XS text: 1536 shift:
bar:1871 at: 1628 fontsize:XS text: 1628 shift:
bar:1881 at: 1767 fontsize:XS text: 1767 shift:
bar:1901 at: 2029 fontsize:XS text: 2029 shift:
bar:1911 at: 2169 fontsize:XS text: 2169 shift:
bar:1921 at: 2288 fontsize:XS text: 2288 shift:
bar:1931 at: 2657 fontsize:XS text: 2657 shift:
bar:1936 at: 2916 fontsize:XS text: 2916 shift:
bar:1951 at: 2728 fontsize:XS text: 2728 shift:
bar:1961 at: 4072 fontsize:XS text: 4072 shift:
bar:1971 at: 4300 fontsize:XS text: 3518 shift:
bar:1981 at: 4400 fontsize:XS text: 4400 shift:
bar:1991 at: 4413 fontsize:XS text: 4413 shift:
bar:2001 at: 4106 fontsize:XS text: 4106 shift:
TextData=
fontsize:S pos:
text:Data from ISTAT

Notable people