The former Gymnasium building (19th century)
The historic home of the Royal Nicastrian Gymnasium, from which the street in which it is located also takes its name, and over time of other schools of various types and levels, the building in question was built in its current architectural form by Alessandro Cimino, originally from Conflenti, and Davide Mauro, from Scigliano, both well-known merchants who had purchased the pre-existing building owned by the Stella family and previously belonging to the Mazza family at the end of the 19th century.
Davide Mauro ran a courier service between Soveria Mannelli, Nicastro, and Sant'Eufemia Marina and was the first immigrant from Nicastro to have an internal telephone in his home.
The palace was inhabited at least until the mid-nineteenth century by the Mazza family (as shown in the 1851 State of Souls).
A presence, that of the Mazzas, of which traces still remain today in the toponymy of the adjacent areas: “Orto di Mazza” in fact indicates the free land later used as a school gym, while “'a Ruga 'i Mazza” indicates the district of houses around it.
The building then passed into the ownership of the Stella family who, as already mentioned, finally sold it to Cimino and Mauro.
The historian from Nicastro, Pietro Ardito, in his 1889 work Spigolature storiche sulla città di Nicastro, mentions the origins of the district that developed around the Orto di Mazza, tracing it back to yet another flooding of the Piazza river that occurred in 1823. According to Ardito, following this event, three new clusters of houses were formed, including the Vignola Statti, the Vignola Stella and the Orto or Ruga di Mazza, which Ardito located "to the east of the old Casa Mazza palace in the place called the Belvedere", meaning the Palazzo Caracciolo-Mazza (S. Tarcisio) of which the aforementioned space is located to the east.
Acquired by the municipality and restored, the building more recently served for a time as the headquarters of the Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Catanzaro. It is currently home to the Culture Med Hub, a new cultural center promoted by the International Culture Foundation and the Academy of Fine Arts of Catanzaro for higher education, research, and Euro-Mediterranean cooperation.
INSERT PHOTOS OF THE BUILDING
Caption:
The former Gymnasium building (19th century), Via Ginnasio, Belvedere district.
Is Palazzo Blasco a fake?
Certainly curious and worthy of further investigation is the story why, starting in the mid-2000s, following the restoration of the former Gymnasium by the Municipal Administration, institutional communications relating to the building began referring to it as “Palazzo Blasco”.
Rightly described in official brochures as an "unexpected window onto Lamezia, a terrace overlooking the gulf, a new glimpse of the Norman castle," the palace is in fact also traced back to and associated with the Blasco family, "of Spanish origin, who arrived in Calabria in the 16th century following the Aragonese conquest of the Kingdom of Naples. Ferrante Blasco was mayor of the nobles of Nicastro in 1608 and governor general of the Bailiwick of Sant'Eufemia in 1611." This is what the Municipal Administration's information brochure states, which also attributes the wrought-iron coat of arms above the door to the Blascos.
However, the connection between the Blascos and the construction of the building in question is not supported by any documentation to date, nor do local historians report this circumstance.
Conversely, in another area of the historic center, the so-called "Ruga dei Blaschi" still exists, now Via Enrico Colosimo, the street that leads from the S. Francesco district toward Piazza d'Armi. It was also here that the painter Francesco Colelli was born in 1734, and the Blascos themselves were his patrons and patrons. In this regard, it's worth noting that the Blasco coat of arms, appearing on two of Colelli's works, is different from the wrought-iron one on the building attributed to them.
It is therefore the historical toponymy that indicates that this is the location of the Blasco family palace, probably damaged by the 1638 earthquake but of which some architectural elements remain visible, such as the corbels and above all the ancient portal.
IF YOU WISH, YOU CAN INSERT PHOTOS OF THE WROUGHT IRON COAT OF ARMS OF THE EX GYMNASIO OR OF VIA COLOSIMO
Caption:
The “Ruga dei Blaschi”, Via Enrico Colosimo, S. Francesco District