San Lorenzello

Legend has it that San Lorenzello was founded in 864 by Filippo Lavorgna, a survivor of the Saracen destruction of Telesia who took refuge in a cave on Monte Erbano, and to whom a gypsy woman foretold that he would found a city; he founded it, the story says, together with Rosita, on the night of the tenth of August, which is the night of Saint Lawrence. The sources say plainly that this is a myth, but two things remain true: certain ruins of old walls are still called the walls of Filippo, and Lavorgna is to this day the commonest surname in the village. Historically the place really was born of refugees from Telesia, who fortified themselves at the foot of the mountain; the first document naming it is of 1151.

In 1541 the feudal lords granted the Statutes, which recognised the Universitas: it was governed by three Eletti and a Council renewed by half each year, and on the gravest questions the Concilium totius popoli was called, the assembly of the heads of household. Then came the earthquake of the fifth of June 1688, which killed six hundred people out of a thousand inhabitants. Along the Titerno one can still see the remains of the mill and of the tanks where clay was treated: with neighbouring Cerreto Sannita, this has been a ceramics town since the seventeenth century.