Inside the territory of Borrello the Verde stream drops in a series of falls that are the highest in the Apennines, now a nature reserve. Not far off there is a rock formation shaped like an arch that people call the Saracen Gate: from those clefts the movements of the Saracens were watched from above. The name of the village is that of its lords, the Borrello: Benedetto Croce said he had found a document of the year one thousand suggesting they were already masters here at the end of the tenth century, and he traced them to a French family, the Borel; the older sources, instead, said the founder was a Frankish captain descended from the counts of the Marsi.
In 1487, after the conspiracy of the Barons, the county was confiscated and king Ferrante of Aragon gave it to an ally whose name was Ludovico Sforza, il Moro: so this mountain village ended up among the properties of the duke of Milan and of his wife Beatrice d'Este, and on her death it passed to their second son, who held it until 1499. Much later the Mascitelli of Atessa were its barons, together with Gamberale, until feudalism was abolished in 1806. The village was bombed during the Second World War and afterwards rebuilt entirely.
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📅 Every year, on 13 June
On 13 June Borrello, a municipality of 368 inhabitants in the province of Chieti, celebrates its patron Saint Anthony of Padua, to whom one of the town's churches is dedicated.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Borrello, but an easy day trip away.
