Patron saint festival In 267 days
Feast of Saint Felicity and Her Sons
📅 Every year, on 9 and 10 July
On 9 and 10 July Collarmele, a municipality of 950 inhabitants in the province of L'Aquila, celebrates its patrons Saint Felicity and her sons.
Beneath Collarmele there was Cerfennia, one of the oppida of the Marsi along the original line of the via Valeria, with a territory that reached as far as the gorge of Opi. Today's name is said to come from collis and from a first name, Armellus or Armelius, which originally marked two separate estates; but here another story is told as well, namely that Marsyas, the god of the Lydian river, came to Italy as far as the Fucino and, considering the Marsi his subjects, founded villages and gave them eastern names: Celene would be Celano, Licia is Lecce nei Marsi, Corico is Corcumello, Cappadocia has stayed Cappadocia, and the medieval Collis Armelis would come from Armenia. Of the Middle Ages there remains the cylindrical tower of the thirteenth century, of the Norman period, more than eighteen metres high and almost ten wide: it stands south of the village, and not by chance, because it is in visual alignment with the tower of Aielli, with the Piccolomini castle of Celano and with the other cylindrical towers around the Fucino, those of Ortona dei Marsi, Sperone and Venere. They were made to see one another.
The rest of the old village is gone: the Marsica earthquake of the thirteenth of January 1915 destroyed it almost entirely, with many victims, and only a few houses and part of the tower were left standing. The rebuilding went on through the whole twentieth century, and the central square of the village today bears the date of that day, with a sculpture by Diego Mostacci called La speranza in grembo, hope in the lap. The church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, to the north along the Celano-Foggia drove road, has a sixteenth-century front with polychrome maiolica by Bernardino de' Gentili of Anversa degli Abruzzi, and inside the Piccolomini arms of 1561 and those of the comune with the words Collis Armelis. Towards Forca Caruso are the ruins of the monastery of San Nicola, built in the twelfth century at the wish of Berardo, bishop of the Marsi, as a refuge for the faithful and for travellers. On monte Coppetella, finally, there is a wind farm: with what it yields, the comune has been able to remake services and public works.
🎉 Festivals and feasts in Collarmele 1
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Near Collarmele
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Collarmele, but an easy day trip away.
Castello Visconteo 📍 Legnano · 2.1 km Medieval castle on an Olona island, once the convent of San Giorgio, with the Lampugnani keep of 1437-1445. Chiesa di Sant'Ambrogio 📍 Legnano · 2.6 km Legnano's oldest church, rebuilt in 1590 and enlarged in 1740, with paintings by the Lampugnani. Basilica di San Magno 📍 Legnano · 2.8 km Renaissance basilica of the Bramante school built from 1504 to 1513, with Bernardino Luini's polyptych. Chiesa di Santa Rita 📍 Legnano · 3.2 km Church of the Purification, later Santa Rita, annexed to the Melzi institute, with Lampugnani frescoes. Museo civico Guido Sutermeister 📍 Legnano · 3.4 km Legnano's archaeological museum, set up in 1929, with finds from the Copper Age to the Lombards and the Sala collection. Chiesa del Santissimo Redentore 📍 Legnano · 3.4 km Lombard Romanesque church of 1902 at Legnanello, with a Byzantine altar of Carrara marble and mosaics of 1923.