BELCASTRO. - A former episcopal city of Calabria, on the south-eastern slopes of the Sila, between Catenzano and S. Severina.
The old Calabrian chroniclers made it the birthplace of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose father, Landolfo, bore the title of Count of B.; but their arguments are far from solid. Barrio assigns its foundation to Philoctetes; it appears only during the Byzantine domination, under the name of Καλλιπολίς, Latinized as *Bellicastrum* or also *Genecocastrum*. By the Byzantines it was raised to the rank of a diocese in the second half of the 9th century, as is evident from the *Notitia III* of the *Diatiposi* of Leo VI the Philosopher, who made it a suffragan of S. Severina, since in no way can the Καλλιπολίς mentioned there correspond to Callipoli in Apulia. It was a diocese of modest size, for apart from the town of B., which never exceeded 3,000 inhabitants, it had only the village of Villa Aragona, also called Andali, later inhabited by Albanians. In 1818 it was suppressed by the bull *De utiliori* and its territory incorporated into S. Severina.