Melito Irpino, nestled in the heart of Irpinia, is a village that contains a rich historical and landscape heritage.

• 27 Aug 2024
• REPERTUR
• Borghi Antichi

A Samnite settlement, a medieval village, a baronial city. Nestled on the banks of the Ufita river, Melito Irpino has seen a thousand-year history flow before its eyes that the 1962 earthquake decided to raze to the ground, erasing many of its architectural and cultural testimonies.

After the earthquake, only a few places of identity survived, including the ruins of the Castle and the Old Church of Sant'Egidio, which continue to keep alive the historical memory of an ancient village nestled on a watercourse.

The birth of the medieval village, however, dates back to between 1142 and 1164, when the Norman domination persisted on the Ufitano territory. In all likelihood, the territory of Melito belonged to the baronial families of De Forgia, Landolfo di Grottaminarda and the Counts of Gesualdo, but before the abolition of feudalism in 1806, it was also a fiefdom of the Counts of Ariano, Della Marra, D'Aquino, Caracciolo and Pagano.

ANCIENT MELITO

The origins of the village are confirmed by the many archaeological finds from the Samnite period, first, and then the Roman period. Old Melito, crossed by the Ufita, gravitates around the remains of a Roman necropolis and a thermal complex that ranged where today the rural districts of Pezza, Difinsella and Ruocchio stand.

Here it is still possible to see mosaic floors, the remains of an aqueduct and a small pagan temple, to the left of which a marble wolf, without a head, was also found hugging a tree.

RUINS OF MELITO CASTLE

Symbol of ancient Melito, destroyed by the earthquake of 1962, the ruins of the Castle tell us of a territory dominated after the year 1000 by the Norman conquerors, first, and the Swabians, after they invaded the south of the Italian peninsula from the north.

But the fortress that dominates the ghost town of Melito Vecchia is probably of Lombard origin, but the many catastrophic events, above all the fire of 1779 and the earthquake of '62, have remodeled the structure that was made safe by demolishing the ancient circular tower and the square-plan bastion.

Today, the walls of that manor in local stone and the grooves in which the entrance portals and the moat were located remain intact.

THE CHURCH OF SANT’EGIDIO

Abandoned, along with the rest of the village, after the 1962 earthquake, the church of Sant’Egidio still stands today in the old settlement of Melito.

The ruins of the building have kept intact the stone facade and the bell tower that act as a backdrop to the ghost village.