There are two readings of the name, and both speak of stone. The first says the earliest houses were built in stone by people who had come from different places and were here fused into a single community, Pietra de' Fusi; the second says there was first a stone fortification on a limestone outcrop, used by the people of Montefusco above to control the passage of goods and collect tolls. On that outcrop the tower still stands, eleven metres high, built in 1431 by Giacomo de Tocco and called Aragonese after the Acquaviva d'Aragona dukes who held the fief. In the wall of a house in the old centre Roman fragments are embedded: a couple in half-bust and a child.
The village owes a great deal, however, to a road. The link between Naples and Puglia passed through here, and in 1591 it was merged into the via regia delle Puglie. Tradition tells that Charles of Bourbon, accompanied by Vanvitelli, stopped at Dentecane to trace its route and had to settle a quarrel among his courtiers: the prince of Montemiletto wanted the road brought closer to his own town, pleading the difficulty of the Serra climb. The king closed the matter thus: I have gone this way twice, and after me others will go. The road will be the one I have traced. At the end of the nineteen forties three hamlets left to form the new municipality of Venticano.
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📅 Every year, on 15 February, with the civil observance on the second Sunday of August
Pietradefusi celebrates Saint Faustinus the Martyr on 15 February; the civil observance instead takes place on the second Sunday of August.
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 Pietradefusi, but an easy day trip away.
