Villaricca

Until 1871 the town was called Panicocoli, which means baker: from the Latin panicoculus, the one who bakes the bread. The new name, Villaricca, is one of those chosen at a desk, but older people still say Panecuócole. The plan of the old settlement is a clean quadrilateral, and historians believe a Roman military camp lies beneath it. In 1134 Roger the Norman laid siege to Panicocoli and was driven off by the Neapolitans and their Pisan mercenaries; once he had come to the throne, he made it the head of a district, governed by a count. The parish church of Santa Maria dell'Arco, which from 1407 took over from the older San Simplicio, keeps an icon of the Madonna and Child from the fourteenth century.

The town was a crown village, and it enjoyed the tax privileges that came with that until a Spanish viceroy short of money abolished them and put it up for sale: from there came a chain of owners, down to the dukes of Vastogirardi, who held it until feudal rights were abolished. Villaricca was once larger than it is now, because Qualiano was part of it: it broke away in 1836, when Ferdinand II granted it self-government. And to this day the town is cut in two, for between the centre and the hamlet of Torretta-Scalzapecora runs a tongue of Calvizzano land a few hundred metres wide. In the church of the Purgatory, consecrated at nine in the evening, the seventeenth century is still audible; and this is the birthplace of Sergio Bruni, one of the voices of Neapolitan song.