Cosenza
Discover Cosenza
A concise introduction to Cosenza, its geography, history and culture.
Introduction
Cosenza is a city of about 65,000 people in northern Calabria, at the confluence of the Crati and Busento rivers, with a much larger urban area around it.
It is two cities. The centro storico climbs a steep hill on the south bank, medieval in plan, with the cathedral, the Norman-Swabian castle on top and a dense grid of stepped lanes. Across the Busento the modern city spreads over flat ground, built up from the nineteenth century and dominated by Corso Mazzini.
The cathedral holds the Gothic tomb of Isabella, queen of France, and, in its treasury, a Byzantine reliquary cross given to the city by Frederick II in 1222.
Corso Mazzini is an open-air sculpture museum, the MAB, with work by De Chirico, Dalí and others along its length.
East of the city rises the Sila, a granite plateau of pine and beech forest and lakes, and one of Italy's national parks.