Corleto Monforte

Corleto Monforte stands at the foot of the Alburni, its old centre looking out from a ravine above the Fasanella valley. The name comes, on the current view, from the Latin coryletum, a hazel grove; but the older forms are Cornito and Corneto, and a book of 1893 by Francesco Torre lists the explanations that circulated in the village: cor nitidum, horned animals, or the dogwood groves. Torre preferred the last, because the Lucanians named places after what grew there. As for why Corneto became Corleto, he admitted he did not know: he proposed cor laetum, a joyful heart, and offered as proof the fact that Corleto has a heart on its arms.

The second name is more recent and has a precise date. To tell itself apart from its namesakes the village had called itself Corleto a Fasanella; then, following a ministerial instruction of 30 June 1862, the council resolved on 18 November of that same year to replace that qualifier with Monforte, after the local feudal family. Meanwhile the village has emptied: since the first census of 1861 it has lost about four fifths of its inhabitants, and it now has one of the lowest population densities in Campania. What remains is the tip of the ravine called Capodarmi, the first bulwark against anyone coming up, the piazza Diana with its temple later turned into Santa Maria dell'Elice, and the church of Santa Barbara of 1762, the largest in the village.