Until the first decades of the twentieth century there was a lake here. It was called Lacus Pensilis, it was of Pleistocene origin, in the eighteenth century the Doria Pamphili princes enlarged it with an earth dam, and between 1923 and 1925 the same Doria drained it by cutting a drainage channel. The I Pisconi anthropological nature reserve covers that ground: 148 hectares established by ministerial decree of 29 March 1972, thick woodland, heavily cemented sandstone and, under one of those rocks, the very reason for the protection.
What to see
That reason is called Riparo Ranaldi, a rock shelter the archaeologist Francesco Ranaldi identified in 1965 and left his name to. It holds rock paintings with no equal in Basilicata, along with stone tools and pottery fragments that record a long use of the place, from the Mesolithic through the Neolithic to the early Copper Age. The declaration of cultural interest came only some years after the discovery.
The rest is coppice woodland between roughly 700 and 1000 metres: Turkey oak, ash, downy oak and field maple, with hawthorn, bramble and cornelian cherry in the undergrowth. The perimeter runs from the confluence of the Bradanello stream and the Vallone delle Volpi, at 620 metres, up to the 1030 metres of Serra Carriero. Wolf, wildcat, weasel, stone marten, badger, fox and wild boar live here; overhead pass red kite, buzzard, green woodpecker, wood pigeon and jay.
Visiting
The 1972 decree is blunt: entry on foot only, and only for educational, study, administrative or surveillance purposes, following set rules of conduct. This is not a Sunday walk but an access to be arranged in advance, and the same rules apply to the painted shelter. Until the nineteen-seventies the whole area belonged to the Lagopesole state forest complex, run by the national board for state forests.
Our editors' tip
Ask to go down to the confluence of the Bradanello and the Vallone delle Volpi: those 620 metres are the lowest point of the reserve, and it is there that you grasp what the valley-floor road argued over for years would mean, a project held to be incompatible with protection. Seeing this valley floor untouched is, for now, still possible.