radda in chianti
 
Access is easiest from the Tyrrhenian side, from Bagnara or Gállico, from which frequent buses leave for Delianuova or Gambarie. The most scenic route is the SS184 from Gállico, which winds through profusely terraced groves of vine and citrus to the village of SANTO STEFANO , famous as the birthplace and final resting-place of the last of the great brigands who roamed these parts, Giuseppe Musolino (1875-1956). Occupying a sort of Robin Hood role in the popular imagination, Musolino was a legend in his own lifetime, the last thirty years of which he spent in jail and, finally, a lunatic asylum - the penalty for having led the Carabinieri on a long and humiliating dance up and down the slopes of Aspromonte during his profitable career.

While he was alive, he was warmly regarded by all who might otherwise have paled at the mention of brigandage, and even now he is seen as a local hero - described even by a village policeman as " una persona onestissima ", the most honest of people. Musolino's victims were rich, or corrupt, or informers, and he was never known to refuse a plea for help from those in need. It is hard to know how much is myth, but the romantic aura that surrounds him is partly due to the fact that brigandage, with which the region was rife during the Bourbon period and for which the tormented mountainscape of Aspromonte provided a natural refuge, was also a political gesture of rebellion and little to do with the organized crime that has succeeded it. Just above the village, in the cemetery, you can see Musolino's grave, now renovated but until recently daubed with the signatures of people come to pay their respects.