Ari

The village grew up around a monastery. The first mention is from 870, when among the possessions of Montecassino appears a sancti Petri in loco qui dicitur Ari, and the community, later supported by the Normans, reached its height between the 10th and 11th centuries: it had a library, an oratory, churches, lands and mills. Two bulls, of Alexander III in 1173 and Innocent III in 1208, confirmed it to the diocese of Chieti. Then came the decline, between 1400 and 1464, and on the death of the last chaplain the area passed for good to the bishop's table; in the San Pietro district ruins remain that country tradition has always tied to that community.

What the village calls the castle is in fact a noble mansion, and the crenellated tower beside the gateway was raised in the 18th century, perhaps on older remains. The Carafa lived there, from 1577 the Ramignani, chamberlains of Chieti, and finally the Nolli, who kept it as a summer residence: it was baroness Frances Picton Warlow Nolli who made it a salon, where English and Dutch artists passed through along with Gabriele D'Annunzio, Francesco Paolo Michetti, Guglielmo Marconi and Luigi Pirandello, who in 1908 chaired the state examination board of the classical liceo of Lanciano. The war closed that season too: on 11 January 1944, at San Pietro, four foreign Jewish refugees were killed, arrested in nearby Orsogna where they had been confined as civilian internees.