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Calvi (Municipality, Haute-Corse, France)

by Ivan Sache

Presentation of Calvi
Description of the flag of Calvi

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Presentation of Calvi

Calvi is a port of c. 6,000 inhabitants located on the gulf of Calvi, on the Mediterranean Sea, and protected by a fortified citadell built on a rocky promontory. Because of its strategic location, Calvi was involved in most of the events of the complicated history of Corsica.

The Roman times

The oldest human remains in the area of Calvi date back to the Neolithic. After several expeditions, the Romans settled in Corsica around 100 BP and developed agriculture. The Greeks brought olive-trees and the techniques of olive oil production. The region around Calvi is called Balagne, form a Greek word meaning "olive grove".
The Romans called the gulf of Calvi sinus caesia or sinus casalvi, which is a possible origin of the name of Calvi. Another theory links Calvi to the root cal-, which gave calanque in Provencal and calanche in Corsican, associated with the suffix -bili to form Calbili. There are other toponyms in the area bearing a name built on cal-, for instance Calenzana, Moncale, Calacuccia. It is also possible that Calvi was named after the Latin adjective calvus, bold, recalling that the city was built on a barren rocky promontory.

During the Pax Romana, Calvi was an important port of commerce: copper and lead from Spain, as well as curved tiles and oil lamps from Gaul were traded for olive oil, wine, honey and salt meat produced in the hinterland of Calvi. The city housed also an important military post, with a garrison of 14 centuries, that is 1,400 men. The civil population was ruled by a prefet. The famous geographer Ptolemeus wrote in the second century that "Calvi was the most famous port of Corsica".
Christianism reached Calvi via the commerce port. A first, paleo-Christian basilica Santa Maria Vecchia (Old St. Mary) was the seat of a small bishopric. An apocryphal legend from the XIIth century tells the martyre of Restituta, a rich Roman patrician, during Diocletian's great persecutions (303-305). Restituta's relics are kept in the parochial church of the neighbouring village of Calenzana.

In the Vth century, the Roman Empire collapsed and the island was invaded by the Vandals, the Wisigoths, the Sarracens and the Lombards. Pépin le Bref, king of the Franks and Charlemagne's father, expelled the invaders and granted Corsica to pope Stephen II through the exarchate of Ravenna (756), which was the starting point of the temporal power of the papacy. Nearly nothing is known on the history of Calvi during the papal administration.

The Genoese rule

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