Castello del Matese

Castello took its autonomy and gave it back. The village depended on Piedimonte, and its citizens elected six councillors every year to represent them in the Universitas of the county town; on 12 February 1752 it finally obtained administrative autonomy, but it had not the means to stand alone and in 1762 it asked to be joined to Piedimonte again. It became independent once more in 1803, under the name Castello di Piedimonte; it became Castello d'Alife in 1862, and only on 13 August 1970 did it take the name of the mountains it stands on. It has changed province too: from 1927 to 1945, that of Caserta having been suppressed, it belonged to Benevento. The entry says it was cited as early as Livy, and in the thirteenth century the stronghold was besieged by the Guelph forces against Tommaso d'Aquino, the Ghibelline lord of the place; a second siege, in 1460, was the work of the baronial army in revolt against Ferdinand I of Aragon.

Between 1890 and 1920 the village had its good years, and it owed them to those who had left: the men of Castello who had emigrated abroad sent home money and gold, and so much of it came that the place earned the nickname of «bank of the circondario». The carriage road was built in 1912, the power line arrived in 1920. Above the houses the ruins of the medieval castle remain, of local stone, with a few round towers on a battered base and stretches of wall; the parish church of Santa Croce, of the tenth century, was rebuilt after the earthquake of 5 June 1688 and is baroque, with carved icons and the finest stucco work. And the old paths, reopened, have been given Dante's names: you set out from the valley of the Inferno, pass the chapel of the Purgatorio, dated 1755, at the mouth of the old mule track to Piedimonte, and come up to the terrace of Castello, which is the Paradiso.