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One of the most beautiful towns in Calabria comes into view in the south of the Tyrrhenian coast. Austere and majestic, Tropea rises out of the promontory of Monte Poro which lies between the two gulfs of Sant’Eufemia and Gioa. It overlooks a mirror of sky-blue, crystal-clear sea, with its incredible rocks: “La Pizzuta”, “Formicoli”, “San Leonardo” and “Isola Bella”.

The wild, white, sandy beaches which snake their way into little grottoes and creeks are interrupted by valleys and fertile, rippling hills full of fruit and citrus fruit trees, onion and vegetable fields, bougainvillaea, verbenas, lime trees, jasmine and other sweet-smelling Mediterranean plants.

Apart from the limpid, unpolluted sea, the city itself offers a fascinating historical and artistic profile, thanks to its patrician houses with their impressive entrances adorned by capitals with frescoes by important artists and to the numerous, ancient churches rich in sacred images recalling singular legends. Its typical little, deserted squares reachable only by way of narrow alleyways and populated by mythical ghosts, take us back to the days of the Saracen invasions.

The Cathedral - a sixteenth century Norman temple - where all the faithful of the town gather, was probably built on the ruins of an ancient church of Greek rite. According to a citizen of Tropea and the author of “Il Crocifisso nero dei Vescovado di Tropea” (1922), marquis Felice Toraldo, the cathedral was built in the fifteenth century and inaugurated on 20 November 1496. It was seriously damaged during the 1905 earthquake, which destroyed the greater part and was restored between the years 1927-1931 with various alterations to the structure and the Baroque decorations and thus brought back almost to its traditional artistic form, apart from the floor. The silver-framed painting of the dark-skinned Madonna of Romania is exhibited on the high altar. The eighth century Byzantine-style Madonna, painted on a cedar panel was, according to tradition, saved from the wrath of the iconoclastic heresy and she is, to this day, venerated by the entire Catholic population of the city.

Following a Vatican decree of 9 September 1877, the sacred image wears a gold crown which was donated by the citizens. The famous “Black Crucifix” can be found in the second chapel but there is no reference to the author of this interesting, wood-carved, almost life-sized crucifix.