People came to these hills to be healed. The territory was rich in traditions tied to the cult of Saint Cyprian and to the cure of certain nervous illnesses — convulsions, epilepsy — of the bites and stings of animals, vipers, spiders, scorpions and dogs, and of the disorders connected with childbearing. It is thought that those cults were born in pagan times on the slopes of the Montagna dei Fiori and then came down the valley, and that Christianisation absorbed them into Saint Cyprian, a saint the common people held to be magical. From all the Ascoli country they came here to be cured by a touch, a contact that was meant to pass the saint's healing spirit into the sick; the methods were red-hot irons — nails, keys, horseshoes — twigs of vine and the indispensable magic formulas, which served to drive out the devil, held to be the author of the trouble. The most regular patients were the women afflicted by what they called lu mali matrò, that is the whole set of disorders tied to birth, pregnancy and the menstrual cycle.
Folignano is, together with neighbouring Maltignano, the only comune of the Piceno that lies entirely south of the river Tronto: a Marche village on the far bank, bordering Abruzzo. The name has never been explained with certainty: perhaps it comes from the Latin fu lignum, for the woods that surrounded it, perhaps from the castrum whose ruins remain and which is still called Castel Folignano, cited from 996. When that castle declined, in the sixteenth century, the centre moved to what was then called Sancti Jennari de Folignano; and not even that was a single village, but four separate nuclei — Piedi la Villa, Spiazzo, Colle Pasquale and Capo la Villa — which merged into today's single settlement only after the war, with the demographic expansion. The coat of arms too has never been granted by any decree: there is a mountain, which is the height of Villa San Gennaro, a castle, which is the fortifications of Castel Folignano, and six golden bezants taken from the arms of the Tibaldeschi, which can be seen on a Renaissance house of 1557, because the village had been given to a captain of that family as a reward for services rendered against the duke of Atri.
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📅 Every year, on 19 September
On 19 September Folignano celebrates Saint Januarius; every year a delegation of the village, in historical costume, takes part in the parade of the Quintana di Ascoli Piceno.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
