Vitulano

Vitulano is not a village but a collection of hamlets scattered under the Camposauro, and for centuries it was not even a single comune. In 1595 the State of Vitulano was formed, twenty hamlets divided between two università: twelve under Santa Maria Maggiore and eight under Santa Croce. Exactly halfway between the two churches a third one was built, the collegiate church of the Santissima Trinità, as a sign of unity; but the two università only came together into one comune, the one that carries today's name, in 1832.

Here the boundaries were drawn with the dead as well. The convent of the Santissima Annunziata, which tradition says was founded by Saint Bernardino of Siena in 1440, belonged to a parish of Foglianise until 1852; to consolidate their hold on the area, in 1884 the administrators of Vitulano planted the municipal cemetery in the convent garden, and in 1991 John Paul II made its church a minor basilica. Higher up, in the cleft in the mountain towards Solopaca, the ruins of the abbey of Santa Maria de Grupta, founded by a Lombard prince of Benevento around 940 and deconsecrated in 1705 by cardinal Orsini because of its decay and the constant raids of brigands, remain by the land division of 1853 the property of Foglianise although they stand on Vitulano's ground. From these mountains comes the lumachella too, the red-veined marble that went to the royal palace of Caserta and to the Kremlin.