Buonabitacolo

Buonabitacolo has a birth certificate. On the second of November 1333 Guglielmo Sanseverino, lord of Padula, founded it by a notarial deed drawn up in the Palazzo San Giacomo at Padula, before a judge, a notary and witnesses: the land was granted to three men of Casalbuono willing to settle there for themselves and their descendants, and the same terms held for anyone else who wished to come. He gave it the name himself, for the healthiness of the air and because the place lay far from the infected marshes of the Vallo di Diano.

The deed also carried the pacts and conditions that were to govern the life of the new casale and its relations with the neighbouring villages, and it was written in two copies: one stayed with the Sanseverino, the other went to the three founders and their heirs. The village then changed hands several times, until on the twenty-third of September 1645 Diego d'Avalos sold Padula and Buonabitacolo to the Charterhouse of Padula. Between 1940 and 1943 the fascist authorities assigned it to receive Jewish refugees in civil internment: they were freed when the Allies arrived, in September 1943.