This village has changed its name three times: first Muricello, then Casale nuovo, and finally Santo Mango. And the last name comes from far off: the feudatory Luigi d'Aquino wanted in this way to remember the fief that had been his father Tommaso's, prince of Santo Mango in the Cilento, before the family moved to Calabria. The saint behind the name is San Magno, a pagan of the third century who gave his goods to the poor and converted; having become bishop of Trani, he was persecuted, lived at Fondi, Aquino, Sora and Pico, and died a martyr. On the maps the confusion lasted a long time: until the Napoleonic age this village was marked «Savuto», while the place today called Savuto was marked «Pietra piana»; the present name appears in the Geographical Atlas of the Kingdom of Naples published in 1812. Then, once the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed, the government added «d'Aquino» to tell it apart from the other San Mango scattered through the provinces of the realm.
The founding is documented almost like a piece of paperwork. San Mango was born in the first half of the sixteen hundreds through a cadet branch of the d'Aquino, the family that had given the Church Thomas Aquinas: in 1646 the Capitoli were granted, which regulated relations between the inhabitants and the feudatory, and in 1648 the bishop of Tropea signed the decree erecting the church, a deed that can still be read in the episcopal archive of Tropea. The first houses went up around the old Fontana del Casale, then the settlement climbed: some families who had left their places of origin, destroyed by the earthquake of 1638, built the quarters of Serra and Carpanzano, and shortly afterwards came San Giuseppe and Castagnari. In 1717 the d'Aquino sold Savuto to baron Le Piane, and San Mango detached itself from the feudal lands on the right of the river and became an autonomous centre, with a parliament of its own; its people went from fewer than two hundred and fifty to more than a thousand within a century. In the mother church there is a statue of Saint Thomas Aquinas of that same year, and at its feet one can still read: Universitas Sancti Manghi.
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📅 Every year, on 28 January
On 28 January San Mango d'Aquino celebrates its patron Saint Thomas Aquinas, to whom the town's church is dedicated; the Castello Angioino di Savuto stands in the municipality.
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 San Mango d'Aquino, but an easy day trip away.
