A sixth-century Gospel on purple parchment in Rossano
In Rossano, an ancient town on the hills above the Ionian coast, today part of the municipality of Corigliano-Rossano, the Museo Diocesano e del Codice preserves one of the oldest and most precious illuminated manuscripts in the world: the Codex Purpureus Rossanensis, a Gospel book written in Greek in the sixth century, probably in the eastern Mediterranean, perhaps in Syria or Constantinople. Its pages are made of very fine parchment dyed purple, the colour reserved for emperors, and the text is written in letters of silver and gold. It contains the Gospels of Matthew and almost all of Mark, and it is famous above all for its miniatures, illustrations of the life of Christ of extraordinary vivacity, among the oldest Christian miniatures to have survived. In 2015, the codex was included by UNESCO in the Memory of the World register.
Rossano, called the "Byzantine" town for its long history as a centre of Greek culture and monasticism in the Middle Ages, also preserves the Cathedral, with the venerated image of the Madonna Achiropita, "not made by human hands", and the tiny church of San Marco, Byzantine, with five domes, on the edge of a cliff. Rossano is also famous for its liquorice: the Amarelli family has been producing it here since the eighteenth century, and the company's Museo della Liquirizia "Giorgio Amarelli" tells the history of this root and of its processing, with a shop where you can taste its many variations.
Tip: book the visit to the Codex in advance; combine it with San Marco, the Patirion and the Amarelli liquorice museum.
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