Rotondi

Rotondi has 3,580 inhabitants in the Valle Caudina, at the foot of the Partenio mountains, and the name comes from no round shape at all: it comes from the De Rotundis, the family that received the fief in 1245 and lived in the castrum Rotondorum, the fortification that stood where the sanctuary of the Madonna della Stella stands today. In 1524 the lords came down to the valley and let the castle turn into a church, held by the Capuchins until raids by brigands drove them away.

In piazza Vittorio Emanuele the Cradle for children is still there: a stone slab with a revolving door which, when pushed, brought out a platform where abandoned newborns were laid. On the same square stands the eighteenth-century clock tower, standing only because the people of Rotondi filled a petition with signatures to stop it being pulled down. On 20 January 1799, after yet another sacking, the inhabitants of six villages of the valley chased the French who were returning to Naples and caught up with them at Campizze: in the clash they left a great many of their own dead.