ROSSANO a city of Italy, in the province of Cosenza, most picturesquely situated on a precipitous spur of the great mountain mass of Sila (geologically the oldest part of Italy) overlooking the Gulf of Taranto. The railway station, 93 miles from Taranto, is about an hour from the town. Rossano is the seat of an archbishop and the centre of a circondario; marble and alabaster quarries are worked in the neighbourhood; and the inhabitants numbered 14,688 in 1881 (17,979 in the commune). In the cathedral is preserved the Godex Rossanensis, an uncial MS. of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark (6th century) in silver characters on purple vellum, with twelve miniatures, of great interest in the history of Byzantine art....
Mentioned in the Itineraries, Rossano ORoscianum) appears under the Latin empire as one of the important fortresses of Calabria. Totila took it in 548. The people showed great attachment to the Byzantine empire, and the Greek rite was maintained in the cathedral till the time of the Angevins. In the 14th century Rossano was made a principality for the great family of De Baux. Passing to the Sforza, and thus to Sigismund of Poland, it was ultimately in 1558 united to the crown of Naples by Philip II. of Spain in virtue of a doubtful will by Bona of Poland in favour of Giovanni Lorenzo Pappacoda. Under Isabella of Aragon and Bona of Poland the town had been a centre of literary culture; but under the Spaniards it rapidly declined even in the matter of population (2256 households in 1561, 1177 in 1669). The crown sold the lordship in 1612 to the Aldobrandini, and from them it passed to the Borghesi and the Caraffa. Rossano is best known as the birthplace of St Nilus the younger, whose life is the most valuable source of information extant in regard to the state of matters in southern Italy in the IOth century. Pope John VlL (705-707) was also a native of the town.
See Lenonnant, La Grande-Grèce, vol. i.
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