Sant'Andrea di Conza

In 1161 count Gionata di Balvano donated to the archiepiscopal Mensa of Conza the church and the territory of the hamlet with all its inhabitants. The formula is the usual one for documents of that age, but it is worth reading in full, because it says exactly what a village was: a property complete with people. From then on the history of Sant'Andrea is the history of whoever owned it — the Mensa of Conza, then the Gesualdo from 1389, then the Sinerchia, who held it with the title of count until 1485, when they were stripped of it for taking part in the conspiracy of the barons; then the Royal Chamber, then again the archiepiscopal Mensa, until the abolition of feudalism in 1806. And even after unification the village was not left in peace: in 1861, at the height of the brigandage, it was occupied by the men of Carmine Crocco.

There is, however, a curious reversal. The archbishops of Conza, instead of staying at Conza, chose to come and live here, because living conditions were better, and had the episcopal palace and the seminary built: the subject village became the residence of its lord, and today that sixteenth-century palace, restored after the earthquake of 1980, is the seat of the town council. The earthquake, for that matter, is not an accident but a constant: the town was struck in 1456, in 1694, in 1732 and in 1980. The village stands at six hundred and sixty metres, on the spur that forms the boundary between Campania and Basilicata, along the valley of the Ofanto. Before the present coat of arms it used another one, which stuck in the memory: the cross of Saint Andrew with two fish hanging from its arms, against a background of mountains. Wool was once woven here, and the ferlandina was prized throughout the kingdom of Naples; what remains is the Arco della Terra of 1753, an eighteenth-century watermill and an old kiln, a rare piece of industrial archaeology.