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 closest point 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 (formerly identified as Cenidéo, from Capo Cenide) played a strategic role from an economic and military point of view for the populations that alternated in the dominion of the Mediterranean already from 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 one crossed the Strait to reach the island.
Source: Villa San Giovanni. (27 gennaio 2021). Wikipedia, L’enciclopedia libera. Tratto il 22 febbraio 2021, 13:15 da //it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Villa_San_Giovanni&oldid=118275751.
The Colonna Reggina (in Latin Columna Rhegina) is the name of the site north of Reggio Calabria in which in the Greco-Roman era the point on the continental coast closest to Sicily was indicated, as well as an important stopping point on the Via Popilia (Capua-Rhegium).
The exact location of the column that marked the ferry site has been debated for a long time, however historians seem to agree in indicating a column-shaped tower, known as Columna Rhegina, as a symbol of the site.
From the calculations provided by Pliny the Elder and by Strabone it emerges that the shortest stretch of the Strait was in ancient times between Santa Trada and Cannitello and not like today between Punta Pezzo and Cannitello, so coming from the North it was necessary to reach the beach of Cannitello through Santa Trada, entering the Porticello area, and everything indicates that the site was located in Cannitello, a hamlet of Villa San Giovanni.
Source: Colonna Reggina. (26 gennaio 2021). Wikipedia, L’enciclopedia libera. Tratto il 22 febbraio 2021, 13:19 da //it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Colonna_Reggina&oldid=118238468.