BELCASTRO. - Former episcopal city of Calabria, on the southeastern slopes of the Sila, between Catanzaro and S. Severina.
The old Calabrian chroniclers made it the birthplace of S. Tommaso d'Aquino, whose father, Landolfo, bore the title of count of B.; but their arguments are far from solid. Barrio attributes its foundation to Filottete; it appears only during Byzantine rule, under the name Καλλέπολις, in Latin Bellicastrum or also Genococastrum. The Byzantines raised it to a diocese in the second half of the 9th century, as is shown by Notitia III of the Diatiposi of Leone VI il Filosofo, who made it a suffragan of S. Severina; it cannot in any way be maintained that the Καλλέπολις mentioned there corresponds to Callipoli di Puglia. It was a diocese of little importance, because, besides the small 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.