Corbara

The name is a bird: Corbara comes from the Latin corvus, and the coat of arms does nothing but repeat it, a crow perched on the top of a mountain. The place appears for the first time in November 1010, written Corvara or Corbaru, in a deed of the Codex diplomaticus Cavensis. After Roger II destroyed Nocera in 1137, the surviving casali gathered into a confederation, and Corbara was part of it for centuries: every università elected each year its own sindaco particolare, with two eletti and the razionali who audited the accounts.

The village accounts can still be read. In 1732 the casale had a hundred and fifty-two hearths, about six hundred people; in 1740 the water was kept in two cisterns above the houses, fed by the Cifurno and Gragnana aqueducts. There was also a contract measured by the growth of the trees, the «fitto del legname di montagna a crescere»: it gave the right to cut the wood on a plot every twelve years, in exchange for a yearly rent and the care of the ground. In 1943 the village was destroyed by Allied bombing, because German troops had settled there, and it was rebuilt partly with money sent home by emigrants.