Laviano

On 23 November 1980, with the Irpinia earthquake, Laviano lost about a fifth of its inhabitants: more than a thousand building units were destroyed or damaged, and the village was later rebuilt largely where it stood. It was not the first time: between 1400 and 2000 this territory has undergone twenty-two seismic events, and the national classification puts it in zone one, the one with the highest probability that a strong earthquake will happen. Laviano lies at four hundred and seventy-five metres, wedged between Lucania and Irpinia, in the highest part of the valley of the Sele, on the north-western slopes of Monte Eremita; its territory runs from the two hundred and sixty metres of the valley floor to the fifteen hundred and more of the summit.

The name appears in the Catalogus Baronum, the catalogue of the Norman barons, and some derive it from the Latin Abellio and some from a Sabine word, perhaps a country estate of the gens Lavia. It was Roger II the Norman who created the county of Laviano, on which various villages round about depended, and who gave it to count Guglielmo, who took from here his own surname: first de Laviano and then Laviano. To him the castle is traced. The forests of the upper Sele valley gave prized timber for carpentry and for shipyards, and the trunks were sent to the sea by floating, letting them come down the Sele and the Temete. The fief then passed to the D'Alemagna, to the Carafa and at last to the D'Anna, who held it about two centuries: Ernesto D'Anna was the last duke of Laviano. Today the village lives on farming, forestry and stock-raising, and to those who walk it offers the castle, the paths and a rope bridge.