Colosimi is a town and comune

Comune

In Italy, the comune is the basic administrative division, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township or municipality.-Importance and function:...

in the province of Cosenza

Cosenza

Cosenza is a city in southern Italy, located at the confluence of two historic rivers: the Busento and the Crathis. The municipal population is of around 70,000; the urban area, however, counts over 260,000 inhabitants...

 in the Calabria

Calabria

Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....

 region of southern Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. Gangster James Colosimo

James Colosimo

Giacomo Colosimo , better known as Big Jim Colosimo, was an Italian-American Mafia crime boss who built a criminal empire in Chicago based on prostitution, gambling, and racketeering. Immigrating from Italy in 1895, he gained power through petty crime and the heading of a chain of brothels...

 was born here in 1878.

History

The region is presented as a set of eleven small villages, including the capital, whose population existed here from the seventeenth century. The etymology is related to the Colosimo surname, which is widespread in the area. It is believed that until the early decades of the 7th century Colosimi was inhabited only in summer and that the first permanent inhabitants suffered disasters in the seventeenth century, such as famines and earthquakes. An especially the large earthquake occurred on 27 March 1638.

The first Colosimi administrative autonomy (1811) was related to the political strength of the city-owned University of Scigliano. Until 1820, the municipality of Colosimi belonged as a territory of the town of Bianchi, Calabria. It became autonomous in that year.

In 1813, Colosimi became home to the oldest Masonic Workshop, namely the Mamertini lodge, which, together with the Ginnosofisti silani di Carlopoli and the La Sila di Decollatura, can be called the cultural forges of these upland moors in the nineteenth century.