Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi

The Irpinia earthquake of 23 November 1980 struck Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi harder than any other town: 482 victims were counted here, the highest number anywhere, and for that reason it was called the capital of the earthquake. Four places have remained to mark that evening: the hospital, of which an entire wing came down; the Japicca building, home to twenty-five families, with a bar on the ground floor where, a little after half past seven, many people were watching a football match on television together; the recreation club, where the young mayor Guglielmo Castellano died; and the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, where the nuns were looking after some thirty orphaned children.

The castle, by contrast, got its own face back from the earthquake. Founded by the Lombards in the tenth century to guard the frontier and fortified in 1076, it had been turned inside into a noble residence, first by the Caracciolo and then by the Imperiale in 1768: with those additions brought down, the restoration gave it back the look of a medieval fortified structure, and today it houses the museum and the archive. A little way out stands the abbey of Goleto, built in 1133 by William of Vercelli with two monasteries, one for men and one for women; the women's order died out in 1515, but the tower of abbess Febronia, of 1152, is still there.