I Borghi

	Although the ancient villages offer little in the way of monuments, they are incredibly rich in history, legends, tradition and folklore; the smallest, Ciaramiti, is perhaps the most charming.
	Santa Domenica is framed by citrus groves and takes its name from the saint who was martyred at the time of Diocleziano, a native of this village. In 1977, in the area of Bagneria di S. Domenica, a necropolis was discovered dating from the sixteenth century BC. In the grotto-like tombs, remains of those objects needed by the dead for their journey have been found. It has been possible to reconstruct the form, which consists of a rounded dome-shaped room with access through a narrow underground passage opening up at the foot of a vertical shaft.
	Along the walls were niches where the dead were arranged in a foetal position. The remains can be found in the archaeological museum of Reggio Calabria. A few hundred metres away, in the Conte area, a Byzantine necropolis can be visited with tombs dug out of the limestone rock.
	nland we can find S. Nicolò, Brivadi and Orsigliadi with its little quadrangular square and the hill in cobbled stone which is all that remains of the ancient village. Ricadi, which has given its name to the whole commune, is situated on a higher area, on a plain.
	I Lampazzone and Basrbaslaconi, with a row of modest houses built in “breste” (blocks of mud mixed with the husk of the grain), where a language of poverty and simplicity is spoken. In all these villages, mainly made up of a few houses around a bell-tower, it is still possible today to admire portals of ancient houses, external staircases with wrought-iron balconies and open galleries. The origin of these villages dates from the Byzantine period around the tenth century and, as G. Rholfs explains when referring to the patronymic, their names are typical of the Greek-Byzantine language.
	Their development takes place over many centuries, initially with a scattered population and later, during the Roman period, concentrated in a system of “villae” and finally, during the Byzantine period, assembled in “choria” which are the present-day villages; this system of housing has remained virtually unchanged.
	In the thirties in Barblaconi a “little treasure” of coins was found belonging to the Bretti – the ancient inhabitants of Calabria.