Vacri

In 1650 Vacri belonged to the Torricelli for one thousand nine hundred ducats; they sold it to the Valignani of Chieti, and in 1698 the village became the seat of a duchy — in fact a puppet state, which depended directly on the principality of Chieti and served its lords so that they could proclaim themselves, among other titles, marquises of Cepagatti and dukes of Vacri and Villanova. Two centuries later, at the plebiscite of 1860, the two hundred and thirty-seven people who went to vote all chose annexation to the Kingdom of Italy.

The building of the mother church, on the other hand, is written down in the parish register of the dead: on 5 January 1762 master Pietro and master Giosuè Mammarella of Bucchianico and master Benigno de Luca of Vacri began the digging of the foundations, and on the 22nd, a Friday, at about the twenty-second hour, the archpriest blessed the first stone. Out in the country, in the districts of Serre and Sant'Agata, the pajare still stand, the low rough shepherds' houses made of raw earth, and in the district of San Vincenzo a water mill. The name perhaps comes from lavacrum, the ridge that the waters wash away, or from the Greek akros, a pointed hill; and people passed through here along the drove road, where at Porcareccia a village of Samnites left statuettes of Hercules.