Rocchetta a Volturno

At the end of the nineteenth century the slope below the village was stripped of trees, and from 1890 the mountain began to slide: layers of clay and sandstone slipping over one another. In 1905, after more collapses, almost everyone moved down to the valley, to a district called Case Sparse, today's Rocchetta Nuova. The upper one, on its rocky ridge, was left empty, the 1,064 residents all live below.

At the bottom of the valley stands the rock sanctuary of Santa Maria delle Grotte, twelfth-century, with frescoes among the oldest in Molise. There was one of a bagpiper too, among the oldest in central Italy: what is left of it is a photograph from the 1970s, in the museum at Scapoli, the village of bagpipes.