REGGIO, an ancient and considerable town of Italy, in the kingdom of Naples, and in the Farther Calabria, with an archbishop's see, and a woollen manufactory. It is seated in a delightful country, which produces plenty of oranges, and all their kindred fruits. The olives are exquisite, and high-flavoured. The town, however, can boast of neither beautiful buildings nor strong fortifications. Of its edifices the Gothic cathedral is the only striking one, but it affords nothing curious in architecture. The citadel is far from formidable, according to the present system of tactics; nor could the city walls make a long resistance against any enemy but Barbary corsairs; and even these they have not always been able to repel, for in 1543 it was laid in ashes by Barbarossa. Mustapha sacked it 15 years after, and the desolation was renewed in 1593 by another set of Turks. Its exposed situation, on the very threshold of Italy, and fronting Sicily, has from the earliest period rendered it liable to attacks and devastation. The Chalcidians seized upon it, or, according to the usual Greek phrase, founded it, and called the colony Rhegion, from a word that means a break or crack, alluding to its position on the point where Sicily broke off from the continent. Anaxilas oppressed its liberties. Dionysius the Elder took it, and put many of the principal citizens to death, in revenge for their having refused his alliance. The Campanian legion, sent to protect the Rhegians, turned its sword against them, massacred many inhabitants, and tyrannized over the remainder, till the Roman senate thought proper to punish these traitors with exemplary severity, though at the same time it entered into league with the revolted garrison of Messina. This union with a set of villains guilty of the same crime, proved that no love of justice, but political reasons alone, drew down its vengeance on the Campanians.—It is about 12 miles S. E. of Messina, and 190 S. by E. of Naples. E. Long. 16. 0. N. Lat. 38. 4.