Villa San Giovanni is a town of 13,098 inhabitants in the metropolitan city of Reggio Calabria.
The city overlooks the Strait of Messina and its port is the main ferry terminal for Sicily. Punta Pezzo, in fact, located in the municipality of Villa, represents the point of closest proximity between the Calabrian and Sicilian shores: this has made the city the ideal location for crossing the strait.
The area on which the current town of Villa San Giovanni stands (in ancient times identified as Cenidéo, from Capo Cenide) covered a strategic role from an economic and military point of view for the populations who alternated in the dominion of the Mediterranean as early as the Magna Graecia era . In fact, the Trajectum Siciliæ (Passage to Sicily) was located here, at the site of the ancient Colonna Reggina, from where the Strait was crossed to reach the island.
Source: Villa San Giovanni. (January 27, 2021). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Taken on February 22, 2021, 1:15 pm from //it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Villa_San_Giovanni&oldid=118275751 .
The Reggina Column (Columna Rhegina in Latin) is the name of the site north of Reggio Calabria where in the Greco-Roman era the point of the continental coast closest to Sicily was indicated, as well as an important stopover station on the Via Popilia (Capua -Rhegium).
The exact location of the column that marked the ferry site has long been debated, however historians seem to agree in indicating a column-shaped turret, known as the Columna Rhegina, as the site's symbol.
From the calculations provided by Pliny the Elder and by Strabone it emerges that the shortest stretch of the Strait was once between Santa Trada and Cannitello and not between Punta Pezzo and Cannitello as today, therefore coming from the North it was necessary to reach the beach of Cannitello through Santa Trada, entering the Porticello area, and everything suggests that the site was located right in Cannitello, a hamlet of Villa San Giovanni.
Source: Reggina column. (January 26, 2021). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Taken on February 22, 2021, 1:19 pm from //it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Colonna_Reggina&oldid=118238468 .
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