Manoppello has 7,008 inhabitants on the hills at the foot of the Maiella, and the name is an agricultural fact: it comes from manus and plere, "full hand", or from the manoppio, the sheaf of ears of corn that fits in one hand. That is exactly what the town put on its coat of arms, a sheaf of ripe ears. On the hill of the old centre stood the Italic settlement of Pollitium, conquered by the Romans and destroyed in 538 during the Gothic war; the Lombards repopulated it three centuries later. In 1391 the fief belonged to Pardo Orsini, who minted his own money here: on one side the crowned shield of France, on the other the Orsini arms with the legend Pardus Ursini Comes Manuppelli.
What the town is known for, though, is inside a basilica. It is the Holy Face: a veil of byssus, the sea silk spun from the filaments of a mollusc, with a face impressed on it, which tradition identifies with the Veil of Veronica. Not far away stands the abbey of Santa Maria Arabona, thirteenth-century Cistercian Gothic, worth looking at for what it lacks: the bell tower, which should have stood at the centre, ended up on the west front and pushed the rose window off axis, while the main entrance on the south side was never completed and has a plain oculus where the rose should be.
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📅 Every year, on the Monday after the third Sunday of May, in the historic centre
Manoppello celebrates the Holy Face on the Monday after the third Sunday of May, in the historic centre, with the patronal feast in the basilica that keeps the relic.
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 Manoppello, but an easy day trip away.
