Martone

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Martone
Comune
Comune di Martone
Coat of arms
Location of Martone
Martone Location of Martone in Italy Show map of Italy Martone Martone (Calabria) Show map of Calabria
Coordinates: 38°21′N 16°17′E / 38.350°N 16.283°E / 38.350; 16.283
Country	Italy
Region	Calabria
Metropolitan city	Reggio Calabria (RC)
Frazioni	Poligori
Area [1]
• Total	8 km2 (3 sq mi)
Population  (2001)[2]
• Total	597
• Density	75/km2 (190/sq mi)
Demonym	Martonesi (Martunisi)
Time zone	UTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (CEST)
Postal code	89040
Dialing code	0964
Patron saint	Saint George (Santu San Giorgi)
Saint day	23 April
Website	Official website

Martone (in Calabrian also referred as Màrtuni) is a comune in the province of Reggio Calabria, Calabria, in the south of Italy. It originated in the 7th and 8th centuries. The comune was founded by Greek monks from the Byzantine Orient who travelled from regions of the Aegean-Levantine to escape Syrian persecution.

Martone, like all the Locride area, was part of Greek monasticism; it is known that "the monks were living solitarily in grottos or in convents bound by the oath of chastity in the communal bond of prayer and work. The emaciated Christ which the Byzantine iconography had perpetuated for centuries, the suave darkish face of the Mother of God in the icons and frescos and the vast series of Saints, did make their solitude quite serene, did alleviate the heavy toils, and were reawakening the sign of the Orient in the peace of the ascetic dwellings and in the squalor of the grottos".^[3]

Also in the Grotto Territory, which included the municipalities of Mammola, Martone and St. Giovanni di Gerace, there were "small monastic churches, which though not competing in historic artefacts with those of Stilo and of the Paterion di Rossano, nevertheless they still preserve traces of Byzantine art".^[4]

"These monasteries were not only intended to preserve the relicts of antiquity, as in Vico's expressions but also a school of agriculture and trades, reforesting, land-reclaiming, cultivating, ploughing, sowing, intensifying the cultivation of olive trees, of vines and chestnuts, building aqueducts and mills, opening the way to the first artisan activities and representing the heralds of the protection of the rural population, in a calamitous and decentralized age which was the Byzantine".^[5]