Patron saint festival In 95 days
Feast of Saint Anthony the Abbot
📅 Every year, on 17 January
On 17 January Mottafollone celebrates its patron Saint Anthony the Abbot, to whom the town's church is dedicated; the feudal castle also stands here.
The first half of the name is underfoot: a motta is a rise in the ground, and here the Motta is precisely the hill on which stand the ruins of the castle, built in the middle ages as the feudal lord's residence and to defend a rich territory. On the second half, instead, there is no agreement. Some bring it from the Latin fullo, the fuller, the man who beat and felted cloth; some from the Calabrian fuddune, the lair; and some from a personal or family name, Fullo, Falone or Folone, as happened when it was the masters who gave their name to the land. The village was born in the eleventh century beside a Basilian monastery at the foot of the Mula, but the area was inhabited long before: necropolises of the Hellenistic age have been found in the territory.
From the fourteenth century on the fief changes master continually: the Sangineto, the Sanseverino, the Arcella, the Pescara, the Firrao, the della Cava, the Telesio, the Van den Eynden. Only around 1750 does a family arrive that stays, the Carafa princes of Belvedere Marittimo, and it stays until the abolition of feudalism. Under the Parthenopean Republic Mottafollone was a comune of the canton of Acri and was raised to the seat of a government; since 1843 it has been separated from San Sosti. Of the churches, that of the Addolorata keeps precious sacred vestments, and the other two are dedicated to Saint John the Baptist and to Santa Maria della Purificazione. The village lies between the southern part of the Pollino park and the plain of Sybaris: mountain behind, plain in front.
🎉 Festivals and feasts in Mottafollone 1
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Near Mottafollone
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Mottafollone, but an easy day trip away.
Castello Sanfelice 📍 Bagnoli del Trigno · 4.1 km At 783 metres above Bagnoli, the fortress that guarded the Castel di Sangro-Lucera drove road. chiesa di San Silvestro 📍 Bagnoli del Trigno · 4.5 km A church with no façade, wedged between two rocks, and a crucifix with jointed arms. Castello d'Evoli 📍 Castropignano · 9.4 km Legend gives it 365 rooms: the d'Evoli stronghold above the Biferno valley Santuario italico di Pietrabbondante 📍 Pietrabbondante · 11 km The theatre and temples where the Pentri Samnites gathered their senate, above the Trigno. castello D'Alessandro 📍 Pescolanciano · 11 km A drawbridge finished in 1691, relics in the ducal chapel, German officers in 1943. torre di Oratino 📍 Oratino · 12 km A doorway high above the ground and a ladder to haul up: the Norman tower of Oratino.