The site is old — a Greek sculpted head was found in contrada Salvi, a smooth granite column of the Roman imperial period turned up around the turn of the nineteenth century, probably from a Roman estate villa in contrada Randazzo, and tombs and ancient objects have been recovered near the Novito torrent. But there is no precise information about the settlement before 1220 , when the name enters the Swabian documents.

The town's modern development has a clear starting point: the battle of Lepanto in 1571 . With the danger of Turkish piracy pushed back, Siderno grew considerably under the government of Fabrizio Carafa . The buildings of that expansion sat at the centre of the agricultural estates worked by the labourers who had always lived in the agro — which is why the comune's twenty hamlets exist at all.

Then the ground moved. Ten serious earthquakes struck in the course of the seventeenth century, and the catastrophe of 1783 damaged or destroyed much of what remained; the hill town's present appearance is largely the reconstruction that followed.

The most important local event, though, happened at the shore. In 1660 , in the time of Bishop Vincenzo Vincentini, Scipione Crupi — owner of merchant sailing vessels and of Greek descent — bought a small plot beside the medieval watchtower and obtained authorisation from the Curia to build a chapel to Maria Santissima di Porto Salvo , Our Lady of the Good Landing. That dedication is documentary evidence in itself: landings were frequent there for commercial purposes, and the seaward half of Siderno was already a working port.

The chapel grew with the trade. In 1808 the fishermen's chapel by the sea was demolished and rebuilt on a larger scale, on the ground of today's Piazza Portosalvo. In 1819 the wooden statue was commissioned from the Neapolitan sculptor Francesco Verzella , and in the same year Ferdinand IV granted the Marina di Siderno, by royal decree, the right to hold the patronal fair from 4 to 8 September . In 1858 the parish was formally instituted. In the nineteenth century the Scarricaturi , the goods landing, drew entrepreneurs from across Calabria.

The twentieth century was hard on the building and kind to the town. The church was damaged in the earthquake of 1908 and again by fire in 1921 ; the old church was demolished, work on a new one began in 1929 , and it came into use in 1944 . In 1923 , after a solemn eucharistic congress, the statue was crowned with gold given by the people at the initiative of the archpriest Monsignor Vincenzo Raschellà — a measure of the commercial and economic weight Siderno had reached between the wars.

On the hill, San Nicola di Bari goes back to the eleventh century and holds a Baroque altar by Trinchese and a treasury of silver; Santa Maria dell'Arco of 1536 keeps a wooden Madonna della Pace, with a feast on 31 May .