Comunanza

For a long time Comunanza believed it was another city. It was identified with ancient Interamnia Poletina Piceni, Picene in origin and later Roman; the most recent archaeological finds have moved that identification into the territory of Amandola, and the campaigns of the University of Pisa of 2014 and 2015 showed that here, on the left bank of the Aso, there stood another important city, Novana. It lies under the new quarter, not under the old centre, which is on the other bank. Of Novana a Roman temple also remains, above which in the ninth century the church of Santa Maria a Terme was built in sandstone. In 232 before Christ the Lex Flaminia had the territory of Novana centuriated, and part of it became ager publicus. The present village dates from 1294.

Its name, on the other hand, was changed only once: from 1932 to 1945 the comune was called Comunanza del Littorio. What keeps coming back is the earthquake. The valley has been shaken for centuries, and the source lists the shocks from 1639 onwards, with epicentres between Amatrice and Arquata del Tronto, at Norcia, at Camerino, at San Ginesio; but Comunanza's own earthquake is that of 26 November 1972: the epicentre fell exactly on the boundary between Comunanza and Montefalcone Appennino, the hypocentre one kilometre deep, the intensity at the eighth degree of the Mercalli scale. It damaged buildings and killed no one. Today the village is the third industrial centre of the province of Ascoli Piceno, and the Aso that crosses it has been dammed twice, at Villa Pera and at Gerosa, forming the lake of Belloca and that of Gerosa.