On the left bank of the Orta, inside a rock face, opens the Grotta dei Piccioni. Towards the back the excavations found a floor of smoothed stones and, over it, a layer of ash and soil bearing eleven concentric circles drawn with worked stones, some of which still keep traces of bitumen; further in, human remains came to light, and it is on that material that the hypotheses of a ritual use of the site rest. The cave was recognised as important in 1957 by its discoverer, Giovanbattista Leopardi of Penne; the finds are in Chieti, at the national archaeological museum of Abruzzo, and in Pescara.
The written village begins later. The Chronicon Casauriense records the fortification of Bolonianum in 943, after Louis II had given it to the abbey of San Clemente a Casauria; between 1020 and 1064 seven private donors gave property to the monks, and the last two deeds name the church of Santa Maria, which still stands. In 1140 Roger II granted the abbot the castles of Colleodoni, Casaleplano and Bolognano: they had been seized years earlier by the Normans, and the king was handing them back to steady the monastery's position. Bolognano appears among the castles taxed by Charles I of Anjou in 1268, and still as abbey property in 1316. Today the largest centre of the comune is the hamlet of Piano d'Orta.
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📅 Every year, on 17 January
On 17 January Bolognano celebrates its patron Saint Anthony the Abbot; on Monte Crocetta stands the Cappella dell'Iconicella, a devotional destination every Friday of March and on 18, 19 and 20 September.
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 Bolognano, but an easy day trip away.
