Guardia Sanframondi

The name is the sum of two things. Warda meant lookout post, and from this hill you can keep an eye on the whole valley of the middle and lower Calore as far as the plain of Maddaloni; the Sanframondo, on the other hand, were the French family who from the twelfth century held in fief Cerreto and the villages around it, Guardia among them. An older explanation derived the name from a Vicus de Tremundi named in a document of the year 856, but a recent study, re-examining the original document, has set it aside. The Sanframondo gave the town a powerful castle, which saw two sieges: on 11 June 1440 count Guglielmo IV had to submit to Alfonso V of Aragon under threat of destruction, and in 1461 the family paid in full for its loyalty to France, losing its fiefs and going into exile after a siege by the troops of Ferdinand I of Naples.

On 5 June 1688 an earthquake almost completely destroyed Guardia and killed about twelve hundred people: it was rebuilt on the same spot. In the eighteenth century it became a flourishing centre of leather tanning, so much so that it was called Guardia of the soles. In October 1943 it was shelled by the Americans, and after the earthquake of 1980 the historic centre was largely abandoned; only in recent years has it slowly begun to be lived in again, partly thanks to people who have come from elsewhere to buy back and restore the houses. Every seven years, meanwhile, the town holds the seven-yearly rites of penitence in honour of the Assumption, which together with its wine are what it is known for.