Cleto

Cleto is called the comune of the two castles, and the second of the two exists because of a fear. The first, the castle of Petramala, is Norman and stands on top of Monte Sant'Angelo, with two cylindrical towers: one defended the drawbridge, the other held the defence above and the baronial dwelling below; inside there was a cistern for rainwater and underground another for the stores. The second was built by Charles I of Anjou when the war of the Vespers broke out, on the northern bank of the Savuto, to watch the valley down to the sea: a landing of the Sicilian and Aragonese ships was expected from there. The landing never came, and in 1285, the danger past, the two castles went in fief to the Sersale, who held them until 1452.

Until the years of Italian unification the village was called Pietramala, a name it has carried since Norman times and over which there has been much argument. Vincenzo Padula explained it by the bad stone, hard, as unclimbable as a pyramid, where only ants can go up; and he also set down the version they tell in the village, that of the bishop who broke a leg there and wanted the place called so. Then the old name came back, Cleto, which is the name of Cleta, nurse of the Amazon queen Penthesilea: according to the legend she set out by sea to give her burial and founded the town here. All around stand the olive trees, some two hundred thousand plants, ninety per cent of them of the Carolea variety, and the citrus groves along the banks of the Savuto.