Fiamignano

Fiamignano stands at almost a thousand metres and is the highest of the four comuni of the Salto valley, but for six centuries it was in another region: until 1927 it belonged to the province of L'Aquila, and from 1233 to 1861 it had been part of the Abruzzo justiciarship and of the province of Abruzzo Ulteriore Secondo, in the district of Cittaducale. The first nucleus formed in the 9th century around the fortress of Poggio Poponesco, a kilometre above today's centre, raised against Saracen raids; in 1283 rebel troops destroyed it completely, and the people gathered lower down: from that Fiamignano was born. Below, the hamlet of Mercato, with its curtis and its old forum, was until the 19th century the place where Umbrians, Sabines and Abruzzesi traded.

On Monte Aquilente, at 1350 metres, a terrace in polygonal masonry about 35 by 14 metres held a sanctuary that looked out over the whole ager Aequiculanus; an inscription found lower down, at Sant'Agapito, suggests Jupiter Optimus Maximus, together with other gods and goddesses left unnamed. In 1966, while an alpine chapel was being built up there beside the vanished medieval church of Sant'Angelo in Cacumine, an inscribed limestone cippus came to light: at the end of the 2nd century before Christ four vicus communities had given the sanctuary 135 silver nummi. At Marmosedio the medieval church of San Lorenzo in Fano stands on another polygonal terrace, thirty-two metres of it preserved, and the name Fano says what was there before: inside the church are columns from the temple, and a column drum holds up the holy water stoup.