At eight hundred metres in the Apennines the chestnut usually rules; here instead beeches and silver firs grow, some two hundred metres below their usual altitude, because it rains a great deal and the summers stay cool. Inside that wood, in 1095, Saint Bruno obtained from the Norman count Roger I of Hauteville the land for the charterhouse of Santo Stefano and for the hermitage of Santa Maria, and the first houses of the town were built to lodge the workmen employed there. Bruno died here in 1101. The patron saint, however, remained san Biagio for centuries, and the present name arrived only with a decree of Victor Emmanuel II on 22 January 1863.
The earthquake of 1783 destroyed the town and the charterhouse together. The old centre then took the name Terravecchia, and on the other bank of the Ancinale torrent a new one was built, called Spinetto after the brambles that covered the site. Rebuilding was possible because there was wood, iron and granite there, and the church of the Assunta at Terravecchia was raised again with granite blocks taken from the ruined charterhouse. The two churches of the Assunta, one per quarter, have carried a bitter rivalry between their confraternities ever since. The façade of the one at Spinetto was signed in 1878 by the stonecutter Biagio Pelaggi, and one of the drawings was presented in August 1883 by master Bruno Pelaggi, stonecutter and poet.
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📅 Every year, on 6 October
On 6 October Serra San Bruno celebrates its patron Saint Bruno of Cologne, with a procession of his silver bust; the town, which bears the saint's name, hosts the Charterhouse dedicated to him within the Parco naturale delle Serre.
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 Serra San Bruno, but an easy day trip away.
