Savelli

Savelli was born of an earthquake. On Palm Sunday of 1638, the twenty-seventh of March, with its epicentre at Belsito, a group of survivors from Scigliano and its hamlet Carpanzano found themselves without houses; a Roman noblewoman, princess Carlotta Savelli, leased them the locality of Scalzaporri. The place was chosen because it was sheltered from the winds, because there was a spring of good water, which is today's Fontana Vecchia, and because the shelters of the shepherds of prince Rota of Cerenzia already stood there. Refugees and shepherds joined together and named the community after their benefactress. The surnames of both groups are still known, and marriages mixed them within a few generations. Until 1812 the village depended on Verzino: it was Joachim Murat who recognised its autonomy.

The water that made them stop here has remained the mark of the village: in its streets and alleys thirty-one fountains can be counted, from the Fontana Vecchia to the Fontana Nuova, from the Fonte Pitinella to the Fontana degli Elfi at Ortica, down to the Pozzo delle Anime and the washing place. The first settlers terraced with dry-stone walls all the land around the springs and put in orchards, olive groves, vines and gardens; by the Lese they set up the mills and the silk works, and on the hill the wine presses, the oil presses, the ovens and the kilns. Then the village emptied: there were five thousand of them in 1881, and from that year ten thousand savellesi have left for Latin America, the United States, Australia, Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland and northern Italy.