The church of San Vito al Sele stands in the middle of the Sele plain, in the Santa Cecilia district of Eboli. It was built in the tenth century, probably near the place where tradition sets the martyrdom of Saints Vitus, Modestus and Crescentia, killed on 15 June 303 under Diocletian. It is first mentioned in 1042 among the properties of the Church of Salerno. In 1067 the Norman William of Hauteville, excommunicated for having seized the property of Archbishop Alfanus I, gave it back together with other possessions to be reconciled with Pope Alexander II; in 1080 Robert Guiscard, at the intercession of his wife Sichelgaita, confirmed to the archbishop «ecclesiam S. Viti de Silare cum corte et silvis», the church with its court and woods.
What to see
It is a plain church: a rectangular plan, a single nave and a wide apse, with a vaulted roof. The interior walls are plastered white and the vault of the apse is sky blue; the floor is of square terracotta tiles. The façade is simple, with a solid wooden door in the centre and, above it, a small rectangular window. The altar seen today was built in 1929.
The records note repairs between 1632 and 1636, in 1715 and again in 1846, when the Decurionate of Eboli decided to convert into money, to redo the roof, walls and high altar, the gifts made at the time of the cholera of 1837.
Visiting
Since 1974 the seat of the parish has no longer been here but in the centre of Santa Cecilia: the opening of the old church should be checked with the parish.
Our editors' tip
15 June is Saint Vitus's day, the date of the martyrdom that tradition ties to this spot on the plain. The church was the seat of a parish for only a few years, from 1957, when Archbishop Demetrio Moscato transferred to it the parish of San Nicola de Schola Graeca.
