Vibo Valentia is a city dominated by the imposing Norman-Swabian castle built between 1055 and 1057 by Roger the Norman, that today houses the Archaeological Museum named after Vito Capialbi, a famous scholar of Vibo Valentia. The city preserves an old town and important noble buildings, such as palaces of the Capialbi and the Marquis of France. Vibo is the heir of the ancient Hipponion, among the most important colonies of Magna Graecia, that in 182 BC became a Roman municipality with the name of Valentia. The first inhabitants of Vibo Valentia were the Italics Osci that called it Veip due to its position on the Gulf of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Only later, in the 7th century BC, Greek migratory flows on the Calabrian Ionian coast gave birth to other new and important cities such as Sibari, Crotone, Caulonia, Reggio and Locri. And it was Locri, that around 650 BC, founded Hipponion on the Tyrrhenian coast, where there is now Vibo Valentia. Under the rule of the Bruttians, the name was replaced with Hipponion Osco Veipunium that was subsequently changed again in 194 BC, when the Romans expelled the Bruttians, and founded a Latin colony called Valentia, they added the term Veip, which then was Latinized in Vibo Under the Roman rule, the city recovered its former glory and around 90 BC it became a Roman municipality with its present name. 

Duomo Santa Maria Maggiore in Vibo Valentia - Calabria - Italy