The name is a man: Roscio da Montechiaro, the first military commander of the tower the Normans used here as a bridgehead, built in the second half of the eleventh century at the wish of Achille Valignani, duke of Vacri. Around that tower, which later became a castle, the village took shape; it appears as «Castrum Rusciani» in a bull of Nicholas IV in 1288, and the castle gave shelter to captains of fortune such as Giovanni Caldora, Muzio Attendolo Sforza and his son Francesco, later duke of Milan. Before them a Lombard fara had settled here, on the southern border of the duchy of Spoleto, and the place names still say so: Piano Fara, Colle della Guardia.
In the frazione of Villa Badessa lives the only Arbëreshë community in Abruzzo. They came from the Morea, from Corfu and from the coasts of southern Epirus, fleeing Ottoman rule, and were settled on the lands of Rosciano in 1743 with the leave of king Charles III of Bourbon. The language has gone out of daily speech; the Greek-Byzantine rite has not. The church, of the second half of the eighteenth century, belongs to the Eparchy of Lungro in Calabria and keeps seventy-seven Byzantine and post-Byzantine icons.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Rosciano
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Rosciano, but an easy day trip away.