Gagliano Aterno

Gagliano Aterno lies in the Subequana valley, and its date of birth has been pushed back thanks to a document: in 1073 the count of the Marsi and of Valva made over the castle of Gallianum to the monastery of Farfa, which means the village already existed before the Normans reached Abruzzo, to whom its foundation used to be credited. The place bears above all the mark of a woman, Isabella d'Acquaviva, mother of the count of Celano: from 1328 she had the castle rebuilt, fifteen years of work, and in 1344 she wanted the medieval fountain, three Gothic niches with their spouts and the stone brackets on which the water jars were rested, by now worn away with use.

The castle passed later to the Piccolomini, to the Barberini who turned it into a noble residence and finally to the Lazzaroni; in the monastery of Santa Chiara, built before the end of the thirteenth century and given to the Poor Clares, there is now the museum of the bear. The most recent history is that of the L'Aquila earthquake of 2009, which put Gagliano inside the disaster area: alongside the rebuilding of the houses the village has set repopulation, with a school that brings young researchers to live here for months, a renewable energy community among the first in Italy, and a village radio.