Grottaminarda

In 1732 an earthquake with its epicentre a stone's throw away flattened half the town. Today Grottaminarda houses a branch of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, with a room that automatically locates tremors across the whole of Italy: the town that suffered the quake now listens on everyone else's behalf.

The name has nothing to do with Minerva, as an old fancy would have it: it comes from a cave and from Maynardus, a Germanic personal name, and settled into its present form only in the sixteenth century. The bell tower of the mother church, thirty-six metres tall, was built between 1712 and 1766 to a design by Vanvitelli. In 1860 the townsfolk stole two loads of weapons from the Bourbons and marched on Ariano.