Ceppaloni

Ceppaloni has 3,375 inhabitants between the valley of the Sabato and that of the Serretelle, and the eleventh-century Norman castle above it is not there by chance: it bordered Benevento, which was papal, and it controlled the ancient road that ran from Benevento to Avellino through the narrows of Barba. That is why Ceppaloni ended up in every war in the area, between papacy and empire first and then between Angevins and Aragonese — twice occupied by the papal troops, retaken by force by Frederick II — and it played host to Roger II, pope Honorius II and Alfonso of Aragon.

The narrows of Barba are a deep fracture in the rock that resembles a valva, a shell: from valva comes Balba, and from Balba, in the eighteenth century, Barba. Up there was a real village: at the end of the thirteenth century there were a hundred and seventy inhabitants, by 1320 more than a thousand. In 1447 the fief was recorded as uninhabited and the castle destroyed. Another hamlet, on the other hand, changed its name twice in three years: it was called Chianche, in 1923 it was renamed Aquilia and in 1926 Beltiglio — because with all the homonyms the post kept ending up somewhere else.