Prata di Principato Ultra

The village stands on a spur that drops sheer to the river Sabato, little more than three hundred metres up, and from there it kept an eye on the roads between Naples and Puglia and between Benevento and Salerno. A document of 1070 names it for the first time. Its coat of arms is a small declaration of identity: a silver fess with the letter P, the initial of the comune, three gold stars above it and, at the base, three hills topped by three flower buds.

The surname, on the other hand, keeps alive a province that no longer exists. The Principato Ultra was created in 1287, when Charles II of Anjou split the old justiciarate in two: this side of and beyond the mountains of Montoro, with the ridge of the Picentini as the border. Its capital, from 1581 to 1806, was Montefusco, which in the census of 1622 counted three hundred hearths against Ariano's nearly two thousand: the seat was chosen for geography and for the balance between feudal lords, not for the number of inhabitants. Then everything moved to Avellino, and of the Principato Ultra there remains, among other things, the second half of this village's name.