Bagnoli Irpino

Bagnoli Irpino has 3,274 inhabitants in the Picentini mountains, and in its territory are the lake of Laceno, which is karstic, and the Caliendo caves. From here come the black truffle and the pecorino bagnolese. On the coat of arms there is a swan bathing and drinking at a golden fountain. Castles it has two: one Lombard, put up around 870 when the principality of Benevento was divided, and one Norman, two centuries later.

The oldest core of the village is the Giudecca quarter, of Jewish origin, going back to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In 1450 the Cavaniglia arrived, and with them the crafts: the silk of Bagnoli was famous, and the palazzo della Tenta — which owes its name to dyeing — was built expressly for the textile works. But the thing to see is in the mother church: a choir of walnut carved in the seventeenth century by craftsmen almost all of them from Bagnoli, led by Iacopo Bonavita called il Capoccia, with the Old Testament sculpted in high relief on the little columns and the New in low relief in the panels of the 19 stalls. Since 1912 it has been a national monument.