San Giorgio La Molara

San Giorgio La Molara has 3,050 inhabitants on a height on the left bank of the Tammaro, in the province of Benevento, between two streams: the Tamaricchio to the north and the Drago to the south. Until the nineteenth century the town was called San Giorgio della Molinara. On the coat of arms is the saint on horseback killing the dragon, and the coincidence with the name of the stream raises a smile, but a coincidence is what it is. In pre-Roman times the Samnites were here: probably the Hirpini, because the border with the Pentri must have run along the Tammaro, and this town is on the wrong bank to be Pentrian.

The most interesting story is that of a place that no longer exists. Pietramaggiore was a fortified site documented from 1137, and the documents suggest it was of a fair size; the earthquake of 1456 damaged it so badly that it shrank first to a hamlet and then to an uninhabited fief, and at the beginning of the sixteenth century it was absorbed by San Giorgio, which thus greatly enlarged its territory. Of the castle very few ruins are left, but the rock it stood on is still perfectly recognisable from a distance, among the hills. Among the many feudal lords who followed one another, the last was cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo, who got the town in 1801, five years before feudalism came to an end.