Ateleta is a village made on purpose. In the 18th century the crisis of sheep-farming pushed a few families from Pescocostanzo down to this bank of the Sangro, and by the end of the century the inhabitants were a little over six hundred; then Giuseppe de Thomasis persuaded Joachim Murat, who abolished the land tax to attract settlers and on 14 February 1811 established the comune. The arms keep the count of that beginning: an oak, for the commonest tree in the territory, and nine ears of wheat, as many as the families that tradition says arrived first.
The name reads the same in both directions, as happens only with Ala, Onano, Orero and Siris. Of the castle that stood in the Carceri district, and of the first settlements of Roccapizzi and Asinella, nothing remains but the base perimeter fused with the rock: the 1456 earthquake brought them down. The parish church was dedicated to Saint Joachim in memory of the king of Naples, and was rebuilt after the Germans mined it; the village, which lay on the Gustav Line, came out of the war with almost ninety per cent of its territory devastated.
No events match these filters.
📅 Every year, on 5 April
On 5 April Ateleta, a municipality of 1,153 inhabitants in the province of L'Aquila, celebrates its patron Saint Vincent Ferrer; the Castello di Carceres and the Museo della Civiltà Contadina are in its territory.
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.
