Pietrapaola lies on the Ionian Sea in Calabria. The town is probably of Byzantine origin dating from the 7th century or earlier. Records of the town appear first in 1269 when it was part of the Angevin domain.

Early economic prosperity was based on agricultural and pastoral products and the production of textiles. However, the movement of economic power from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic combined with Turkish raids in the 16th and 17th centuries led to a decline. Most of all perhaps, the region as a whole suffered from being the subject of foreign powers (Norman, Angevin, Aragonese, Spanish, Austrian, Boubon and Piedmontese), many of whom exploited rather than supported them.

Following the second World War the population of Pietrapaola (and of Calabria as a whole) declined as people moved to cities in Northern Europe such as Warstein to work