COSENZA, a city of Italy, the seat of an archbishopric, and the capital of the province of Calabria Citra, is situated in a deep glen at the junction of the Busento with the Crati, twelve miles east of the Mediterranean. It is intersected by the Busento, which is there crossed by two bridges. The streets are generally narrow and crooked, and the lower part of the town is said to be unhealthy. The tribunate, or palace of justice, one of the finest edifices in the kingdom, is on the eastern bank; and an old castle, now used as barracks, crowns the summit of an eminence on the opposite side of the river. It has also a diocesan seminary, a royal college, a theatre, a foundling hospital, and academies of science and literature, manufactures earthenware and cutlery, and trades in silk, rice, wine, fruits, and flax. Population of the commune, 15,960; of the city, 12,613....
Cosenza is a place of great antiquity, having under the name of Consentia been the chief city of the Bruttii. It was possibly captured by Alexander of Epirus, and certainly became the place of his sepulture. After various vicissitudes during the Carthaginian war, it was finally reduced by the Romans about 204 b.c. ; and in the reign of Augustus it received a Roman colony. Alaric, king of the Goths, died while besieging the city in 410 a.d., and was buried in the bed of the Busento, which was turned from its course for his interment. During the Middle Ages the city retained its importance, and in the 11th century it was raised to the rank of an archbishopric. In 1461 it was taken by Roberto Orsini, and suffered severely; and in the beginning of the present century, it was the seat of the French commission which made itself so notorious by its sanguinary proceedings in Calabria. Among its celebrities may be mentioned the grammarian Parrhasius and the philosopher Telesio.
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