How Was Tropea Built

Tropea is built of the cliff it stands on, which is both convenient and a long-running problem.

Building on the edge

The houses on the seaward side sit flush with the drop, their rear walls doubling as the top of the cliff. There is no setback and no margin, which produces the town's famous profile and also means that erosion of the rock is directly a structural question for the buildings above it. Consolidation works on the cliff face have been going on, on and off, for a century.

Sandstone

The local stone is a soft yellow sandstone, easily cut and easily worn. It is used for everything and it weathers visibly, which is why detail survives better on the granite elements — the palace portals, imported from harder stone, are sharp while the walls around them are soft-edged.

Underneath

The rock is honeycombed with cellars, cisterns and storerooms cut down from the houses above, some of them reaching well into the cliff.

The stairs

The connection between the town on the cliff and the beach below is a set of long stone stairways cut and built down the face, some of them medieval in origin. They are the town's circulation system and its defining physical fact: everything that comes up or goes down does so on them.

The cathedral

Norman in foundation, rebuilt repeatedly after earthquakes, and given a deliberately medievalising restoration in the twentieth century — so what looks twelfth-century is partly an idea of the twelfth century.

Santa Maria dell'Isola

The sanctuary is built directly onto its rock, with the stair, terraces and garden carved and retained rather than constructed, and has itself been repaired after earthquake damage more than once.