Mangiatorella

Mangiatorella’s story traces back to 1904, when Italian Garibaldian General Achille Fazzari first decided to bottle the water drawn from a secluded tract of forested land in Calabria. The area—once a Bourbon-era industrial zone—had been transformed into a private estate after Fazzari acquired more than 6,000 hectares from the State. Within this vast terrain lay the Mangiatorella spring, situated only a short distance from Ferdinandea, the summer residence of King Ferdinand II. Convinced by his own recovery and by the doctors who were already using the water for therapeutic purposes, Fazzari commissioned Professor Vincenzo Gauthier of the University of Naples to conduct formal analyses and soon established a bottling facility near the source. Through his political and social connections, he succeeded in drawing attention to the water’s qualities among prominent cultural and scientific figures of his time.

Rising through a quartz vein at roughly 9°C and with a remarkably steady flow, the water reflects the depth and stability of its subterranean basin. It is bottled directly at the point of emergence, with its natural characteristics preserved exactly as they appear at the source. Its oligomineral profile—distinguished by notably low nitrate levels and the presence of trace geological elements—remains consistent throughout the year, a testament to the integrity of its environment and the geological strata that guide its ascent.

The spring sits at an altitude of about 1,200 meters within the centuries-old forests of Calabria’s Serre Park, a landscape shaped by silence, height, and an almost suspended sense of time. Nearby Stilo, one of Italy’s most historic villages, anchors the region with Byzantine and Norman heritage, visible in the ninth-century Cattolica church and the medieval fortress dominating the valley where philosopher Tommaso Campanella was born. Long before Fazzari’s intervention, pilgrims had sought out the spring for relief, and over the following century its reputation grew far beyond regional borders. With exceptionally low mineral residue and minimal hardness, Mangiatorella has come to be regarded as a water of distinctive finesse—light on the palate and shaped by an environment that remains deeply protected and remarkably unchanged.

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