Morano is one of the most characteristic and suggestive centers of Calabria, City of Art of the Region and of the Pollino National Park. The village stands on a hill at about 700 meters above sea level and has as its natural background the Calabrian side of the Pollino massif (m.2248), the peaks of Dolcedorme (m.2267) and Serra del Prete (m.2186).
The inhabited area is a very unique panoramic view, on the wide valley of the river Coscile (the ancient Sybaris), once a strategic outpost, a cultural and commercial crossroads, where over the centuries it has meandered since the Magno-Greek age (6th century BC), one of the istimic routes between the Ionian and the Tyrrhenian seas. The Roman toponyms Muranum and Summuranum date back to Roman times, from which the current denomination of the town derives.
The first, the oldest, appears in an ancient milestone of the second century BC found in Polla, in the Vallo of Diano. In the "Lapis Pollae", Muranum is the 'station' of the Regio-Capuam, an ancient Roman consular road, commonly known as Popilia-Annia, which was the only access to Calabria along the mainland. Summuranum, which instead appears in the Itinerary of Antoninus (2nd century AD) and in the Tabula Peutingeriana (3rd century AD), presumably designated another 'statio' on the same Regio-Capuam, that is on an alternative road route that ran to valley, near the town of Morano and Castrovillari, near the Fauciglia district. The remains of an ancient fort date back to Roman times, on which in the Norman age the original nucleus of the first fortifications rose on top of the hill on which Morano stands.
Suspended between the sky and the mountains, the Castle, for centuries in defense of the access of Calabria, was renovated and enlarged in the first half of the 16th century by Pietro Antonio Sanseverino, prince of Bisignano, feudal lord of Morano; during the seventeenth century the fortress passed to the Spinelli princes of Scalea, new lords of Morano until 1806. The vast residential complex (the Palazzo) also belonged to the feudal lords, located in the lower part of the town, in the vicinity of the arch that surmounts the ancient Statale delle Calabrie. Aggregated in three districts, around the castle and the most important churches, the attractive and monumental town of Morano develops towards the valley, from the Middle Ages to the modern age, within a system of walls. The urban, urban, dense and intricate mesh makes the locality one of the most intact historical centers of medieval origin in Calabria.
The name of Calabro, for the center of the upper Cosentino, is an addition of 1863, to distinguish it from Morano sul Po.
