Grottolella

The town is called Grottolella today, but its arms go on carrying the name it had before. The first mention is of 1134, in the chronicle of Falco of Benevento, which lists among the castles taken by Roger II of Sicily that of Grotta; from the following century the name becomes Grotta Castagnara, the chestnut grotto, and it stays so until 1646, when Philip IV of Spain makes the feudatory Scipione Macedonio duke of Grotta Castagnara. On the arms, under a crowned double-headed eagle, there is a chestnut tree rooted in the ground, and at its sides two capital letters: G and C. They stand for Grotta Castagnara. The town changed its name, the arms did not.

Local history, for want of anything else, is read in the line of the feudal lords, and it is a long line: the fief was already divided in two in Lombard times; in 1239 Frederick II handed over a prisoner of war to Guerriero de Crypta; Charles I of Anjou confiscated it from the judge of Avellino who had sided with Conradin; and a third of it went to a Leonardo nicknamed «Trink-à-la boire», who gave it up shortly after. The Macedonio bought it in 1617 and held it with the title of dukes until the abolition of feudality in 1806; to them is due the chapel of San Giovanni Battista, set against a tower of the castle, made by Lorenzo Vaccaro and once adorned with maiolica by the Neapolitan tile-maker Ignazio Chiaiese: it became the family tomb. There is also a hamlet called Pozzo del Sale, the salt well, and the name says why: there was a well of salt water there, and people went to take their salt for free.