In 1460, while putting back up the cathedral knocked down by the 1456 earthquake, bishop Jacopo added a Holy Door: it is one of the few outside Rome, and it opens once a year for the feast of San Gaudenzio — but not in jubilee years, when the doors in Rome are open. The saint's relics arrived in 1751 from the catacombs of Priscilla, carried by two Capuchins.
Between 1976 and 1977 the Liscione dam flooded the Biferno valley, and a bridge went under the lake as well, rebuilt by the Angevins around 1200 on a Roman one: that way, tradition says, went Hannibal. The village, 1,120 residents, sits on the hill looking down at the water.
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📅 Every year, on 1 and 2 June
Guardialfiera celebrates Saint Gaudentius on 1 and 2 June; his relics, donated in 1751 by Pope Benedict XIV, are kept in the cathedral of Santa Maria dell'Assunta, which opens with one of the few Holy Doors existing outside Rome, thrown open once a year precisely during the patronal feast.
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.
Outside Guardialfiera, but an easy day trip away.
