Roccabernarda

Roccabernarda has 3,467 inhabitants on the river Tacina, with the old centre on the hill and the rest come down into the plain. In dialect it is simply "la Rocca", and it was once called Rocca i Tacina; the present name is traced, by legend, to the Spanish knight Bernardo del Carpio, who is said to have taken the place and then had it walled. Outside the town are the ruins of the convent of San Francesco da Paola, founded by Giovanni Cadurio when he came back from the court of Louis XI of France, where he had accompanied the saint, and along the river are the caves called of Vitale, thought to be the hermitage where Saint Vitalis of Castronovo spent two years on his way home from a pilgrimage to Rome.

The patronal feast has grown over time: first three days, then four, then seven, around the last Sunday of May, with the torchlight procession from the convent to the church and the singing of the faithful; with the offerings collected, a singer known throughout Italy is hired for the final evening. Then there is the fair of Mulerà, held where the place is still called "E Fere". Today it lasts half a day, on the first of September. It was once the largest fair in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies: cattle above all were bought and sold, people came from everywhere, and in the season that prepared it the town filled with Roma families going from door to door selling what they made.