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PAUL
WELLS pictures made in RoccaPia '2000 |
Ever since earliest times the high level plains, and the Piano di Cinquemiglia in particular, have exerted an enormous influence on the development of the Rocca Pia area. The landscape has created a natural passageway between Central and Southern Italy, but the mountains and their harsh climate (the area is around 1000m above sea level) meant that no settlements developed until the Middle Ages. The earliest remains date back to Palaeolithic times, showing that nomadic hunters regularly crossed the upland areas in search of food. It seems that they often reached high altitudes, stopping at the many water courses and pools that characterised the landscape in those remote times, but from prehistory down to the post-Roman era, there is no evidence of any dwelling places. The first archaeological finds were stone implements, tools and weapons and they point to a sporadic and seasonal presence, which the large pastures and rich animal life would have attracted. It must have been an important route through the mountains for the Peligni, Careceni, Samnite and other peoples, and later sheep were driven this way every year on their way to warmer winter pastures. In the third century BC the Via Numcia (also known as Via Minucia) was built to link Corfinium and the valley of the Peligni with the Sannio. Modern day scholars are none too sure of the exact route taken by the Roman road, but the existence of a less-ancient thoroughfare has been demonstrated near Rocca Pia and on the Cinquemiglia plain, and this must have followed the older way, linking all of the important sites in the vicinity. Although the settlements of Aufidena, Corfinium and Sulmo became important at the time of the Roman Empire, here there was nothing more than farming activity linked with summer grazing. In the Seventh and Eighth centuries AD the lands became the property of the Duchy of Spoleto and took on a certain strategic importance. We know that the Longobard people reached the south of the peninsula in the early Middle Ages via inland routes such as this one, and later kings and invading armies were to follow their example and pass the same way. There is no historical evidence predating the ninth century, but we can imagine that small villages were now beginning to spring up along the roadside. In areas that were not feudal, such as the northern edge of the plain, a number of settlements appeared. The first written evidence we have is from 876 AD when Guido of Spoleto gave the church of San Marcello in Florina and all of its lands to the monks of San Vincenzo al Volturno. Florina or Forma (deriving possibly from the nearby Fura Valley) is the first name ever given to the present-day Rocca Pia. To be accurate it stood where the cemetery can now be seen - at the foot of Macchialunga - and the walls of the old San Marcello are still visible in places. Surviving documents from the following century show that the village of Florina had spread out in the direction of the valley and had even become subject of some dispute between the monks of the Volturno and those of the Valva diocese who owned considerable lands in the nearby area. In 1173 Gualtiero of Girardo received Valle Oscura "formerly part of the property belonging to the Counts of Valva" from Oddone of Pettorano. From this we can deduce that, despite the comparative wealth of the monastery, the town was already in the hands of the local laymen. By the twelfth century the name Valle Oscura begins to appear in written records. The Arab geographer mentions it in his eponymously titled "Book of Ruggiero" and it is also cited in the Catalogues Baronum of 1200. The old name Florinum only disappeared in the thirteenth century, and so for a while two separate settlements must have existed side by side. The Normans reopened the drove road and undertook an enormous territorial and political reorganisation of the country. Defences were built on the plain wherever a site was judged to be of strategic value and the road that cut across Abruzzo and through the mountains became famous as the Via degli Abruzzi or the Royal Road of Abruzzo, the highway linking mediaeval Florence with Naples. It was the most important trade link during the reign of the Angevin kings and was also on the sheep route connecting Foggia and Celano, as confirmed by the construction of a castle in the twelfth century on the high ground located to the south-east of the modern town with defensive walls and a look out tower to communicate with the forts in the Valle Peligna below. It meant that the inhabitants and their masters could keep watch and take shelter in the fortification if necessary. Subsequent documents talk of Rocca Valle Oscura which adopted its new name when the castle was built. In the fourteenth century the fiefdom was bought by Restaino Cantelmo, whose family had come from Provence with Charles of Anjou. They ruled practically all of Rocca Valle Oscura until 1724. In the fifteenth century the disputes between the families Caldora, Cantelmo and Braccio da Montone led to the arrival of many refugees from the three towns located on the plain: Casale di San Nicola, Casal Guidone and Roccaduno. In fact a number of historians have claimed that Rocca Valle Oscura only came into being after this episode. However the various documents that we have would appear to contradict this view since they testify to the existence of Rocca Pia as early as the thirteenth century. In any case the people from these three villages probably contributed to the expansion of the town in the Norman era and certainly left the plain uninhabited. Only the church of Madonna del Casale remained on the ancient site of Casal Guidone. Sadly the lords of Cantelmo took little care of Rocca Valle Oscura and a succession of natural calamities, including an outbreak of the plague and several earthquakes, must have caused great suffering. It is recorded for example that the terrible earthquake of December 14th 1456 "totally destroyed" Roccaraso and Rocca Valle Oscura. In 1724 the lands were taken over by the Tocco di Montemiletto family who held them until the abolition of the feudal system in 1806. During the brief reign of Murat, the Via Napoleonica was inaugurated and this meant the improvement of the stretch of road from Pettorano to Rocca Pia and up to the plain. In 1815 Murat also issued a decree changing the name of the town to Rocca Letizia in honour of Napoleon's mother, but Ferdinand II immediately opposed it and the name was never used. In 1860, as Victor Emanuel II was passing through the area, residents begged him to change the name Rocca Valle Oscura that seemed so unfortunate to them. Thus he decided to dedicate it to his daughter Maria Pia and, after the decree of 1865, that the town finally became known as Rocca Pia. |
