Abstract

Saint Marina is one of the first Italo-Greek monasteries that has been excavated. It was supposed to be a dependent monastery (metochion) and it was probably mentioned by written sources of the middle of the 11th century. Its ruins are located on the top of a hill above the village (chorion) of Pedavoli in the present municipality of Delianuova (Southern Calabria).

The excavated buildings are: a church in the Eastern part of the hill; a probable tower or bell tower on the Southern side of the church façade; a long, narrow building that closes off the Southern hillslope. At the center of the hilltop there was a kind of "cloister" or inner courtyard that seems to have been used for domestic and manufacturing activities. The monastic cells (caves or huts made of perishable material) should be located outside the central core.

The frescos of the dome and the floor plan suggest for the church a date immediately after the Byzantine Reconquest of Southern Italy under the emperor Basil I. Archaeological evidence and radiocarbon dating allow us to date the building on the Southern side to the second half of the 13th century.