The history of Cerreto Sannita includes a series of events that have affected the town's territory since the Neolithic age. The old Cerreto, built following the Saracen invasions and destroyed by the earthquake of June 5, 1688, was later replaced by the present Cerreto Sannita, built between 1688 and 1696 to the design of royal engineer Giovanni Battista Manni and at the behest of Count Marzio Carafa, his brother Marino Carafa and Bishop Giovanni Battista de Bellis. An episcopal see since the 16th century, it was a fief of the Sanframondo family from 1151 to 1460, later becoming a possession of the Carafa family. Flourishing wealth from industries and the wool cloth trade helped create a strong merchant class capable of resisting for centuries the constant abuse perpetrated by the feudal lords.
From Antiquity to the Middle Ages
Prehistoric finds and the village of Cominium Ocritum or Cerritum
The municipal territory of Cerreto Sannita was inhabited since prehistoric times, as evidenced by the results of some archaeological excavations carried out at the end of the 19th century near the Morgia Sant'Angelo or "Leonessa." In an early excavation a sarcophagus was found consisting of gray tuff slabs inside which were a bronze spear, pieces of burned wood, bone fragments, an axe, spear points and a cinerary vessel placed at one corner of the sarcophagus. In a subsequent excavation conducted by anthropologist Abele De Blasio in 1896, the following were found: a light-colored siliceous spearhead; a scraper; bone fragments of Bos taurus, Ovis aries and Sus scrofa; and fragments of handmade but poorly fired pottery shards. The remains of an archaic kiln were also discovered, confirming the thesis that the Neolithic man knew how to prepare, manipulate and bake clay.
The Roman historian Livy in his writings mentioned the Samnite village of Cominium Ocritum, visited by Hannibal's general Hanno during the Second Punic War. Later the name Cominium Ocritum was vulgarized into Cominium Cerritum.Livy, Ab urbe condita, XXV.14 According to another classical historian, Polybius, it was Hannibal who reached these lands. The Carthaginian leader, after crossing the snowy Alps and defeating the Romans near Lake Trasimeno, was already in the Apennines in 216 B.C. and, after arriving in Samnium, "crossed the gorges of the mountain known as Eribiano, setting up camp near the Volturno River, which divides the plain in two."Polybius, Histories, Lib. III, 91, I. Then Polybius narrates that Hannibal, after crossing the gorge of the Titerno River that still exists today between Mount Erbano and Mount Swan in Cerreto Sannita, settled in the plain where he attacked the Roman city of Telesia.
The village of Cominium was located on the summit of Mount Swan and probably extended to the present location of Madonna della Libera where the remains of the base of the temple of Flora, goddess of the harvest, can still be seen.
A written document that corroborates the thesis of a Samnite-Roman settlement existing in the area where the temple ruins are located comes from a document by the Cerretan notary Mario Cappella dated 1593, which points out that at that time the people of Cerreto still retained the memory of a "village of the Swan Rock," corresponding to the Samnite-Roman village that was located precisely in the area between the temple and the "Rock" of Mount Swan (the terminal part of the mountain).
In the 1930s local historian Silvestro Mastrobuoni carried out a reconnaissance on Mount Swan in search of archaeological remains. On the mount he found and photographed "pieces of tuff that must have formed the vault of some room," and on the northern side of the mount, "where a kind of square can be seen we noticed a cistern and traces of ancient walls."
Other evidence of Roman times include some ancient silver coins found in the mid-20th century on Mount Swan and the so-called Hannibal Bridge where, according to legend, the Carthaginian leader passed by with his elephants to hide one of his spoils of war.
Cominium, at the fall of the Western Roman Empire, became a colony of neighboring Telesia and was part of its gastaldate. The Lombards around the year 700 transformed the cave of the Morgia Sant'Angelo into a chapel dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel. According to some historians, the cave of the lioness "must have originally constituted a pole of ritual aggregation, centered on the Michaelic cult after the antidolatrous work carried out by the bishops of Benevento Barbato, and of Capua Decoro."
The birth of ancient Cerreto
It is widely believed among historians that Cominium was razed to the ground by the Saracens - who between 846 and 847 destroyed nearby Telesia - and that the survivors of Cominium together with some Telesinians founded a new town in a better defendable location.
The new town, initially called Cerrito, is now referred to by historians as Old Cerreto to distinguish it from New Cerreto, the current one, rebuilt after the June 5, 1688 earthquake.
The earliest document mentioning the village is a diploma dating back to the 10th century. In this diploma from the year 972, Emperor Otto II of Saxony confirmed the possession of the church of San Martino of Cerreto to Abbot Gregory of Santa Sofia in Benevento. This donation was later ratified in 1022 and 1038 by Emperors Henry II the Holy and Conrad II the Salic, respectively, and in 1088 by Pope Gregory VII.
Ancient Cerreto was located not far from the present town, on a wide hill lapped on two sides by the Turio and Cappuccini streams. Surrounded by mighty walls, it had four gates distributed three (gates Sant'Antonio, di Suso and dell'Ulmo) to the southeast and one (gate Gaudiana) to the southwest. At its summit was the castle of the Sanframondo family, surrounded by a moat, and on whose front widening were two churches, one dedicated to St. Anthony and the other to the Mother of God with the convent of the Conventual fathers and the monastery of the Poor Clares attached, respectively. In the belly of the city were the collegiate church of St. Martin and the church of Santa Maria in Capite Foris, which overlooked a large square that was the seat of economic activities and public offices. Near the Suso gate, on the other hand, stood the keep, the ruins of which still remain today, and which served as a prison.Renato Pescitelli, La Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta in Cerreto Sannita, estratto da Rivista Storica del Sannio, II-2004, p. 10.
One road, the Via Telesina, connected ancient Cerreto to Telesia.
In 1325 Old Cerreto was one of the most populated villages in the district counting 105 fires (families) and 525 inhabitants. The neighboring towns of Guardia Sanframondi and Cusano Mutri had 120 and 150 inhabitants, respectively.Pacifico Cofrancesco, Massa, l'inizio di una storia, in Annuario 2012, A.S.M.V. editrice, Piedimonte Matese, p. 67.
The Sanframondo Counts In the 12th century, with the Norman conquest of southern Italy, the town along with neighboring towns became the possession of Raone, the first count of Cerreto Sannita of the Sanframondo (or Sanframondi) lineage, who ruled these lands until the mid-15th century. In a diploma of 1151 William I Sanframondo, son of Raone, was count of Cerreto, succeeded by his son William II, who in the second half of the 12th century made numerous donations to churches and monasteries in the area.
It was due to the slow decline of Telesia and especially the earthquake of 1349 that Cerreto gained an increasing role in the area economically, commercially and demographically. Indeed, the 1349 earthquake devastated its Telesian soil, giving rise to asphyxiating mofettes. The survivors, to avoid death from malaria and other deadly diseases, moved to the nearest towns such as Cerreto, Solopaca and San Salvatore Telesino. The bishops also abandoned Telesia and wandered the diocese in search of a permanent home, which they found only in the 16th century in Cerreto.
In 1369 Francesca Sanframondi founded the monastery of the Poor Clares. According to RotondiNicola Rotondi, Del monastero di S. Maria Madre di Cristo di Cerreto: ragionamento, manoscritto inedito del 1844 conservato presso gli archivi del dr. Renato Pescitelli e della Curia Vescovile (sez. Monache, vol. VI). Francesca was the daughter of Giovanni III, count of Cerreto from 1285 to 1319 while according to MarroccoDante Marrocco, Sulla genealogia dei Sanframondo, Grafiche Grillo, 1971. she was the sister of Count Giovanni and daughter of Leonardo Sanframondi.
In 1480 Cerreto gained the title of city granted by the King of Naples:
Sanframondo rule came to an end in 1460 when Count Giovanni unsuccessfully rebelled against the Aragonese.
Modern Age
The Carafa counts and the Statutes of 1541 Having handed over the Cerreto fiefdom to the Royal Court, King Ferdinand I of Naples donated it on January 9, 1483, to Diomede I Carafa, whose work and that of his father Antonio, nicknamed Malizia, had contributed to the Aragonese conquests in southern Italy. Diomede was thus the first count of Cerreto Sannita from the Carafa lineage.
The Counts Carafa, who held the town and its fiefs for more than three centuries, that is, until the abolition of feudalism in 1806, proclaimed Cerreto CIVITAS TOTIUS SUPERIORIS STATE METROPOLIS (chief town of the upper county). The lower county of the Carafa family, on the other hand, had Maddaloni as its capital.
Notable among the Carafa counts are Diomede V who was involved in Masaniello's revolt, and his sons Marzio Carafa and Marino Carafa who were instrumental in rebuilding the town after the 1688 earthquake.
The numerous disputes that existed between the Carafa feudal lords and the citizens prompted Count Diomede III Carafa in 1541 to grant the Statutes, a collection of rules that included provisions on criminal, civil, procedural, administrative, hygiene, taxation and annona law. They were written in Latin, while the subsequent graces or placets were written in the vernacular with several phrases in Neapolitan.
With the approval of the Statutes, the inhabitants of Cerreto were granted the right to administer themselves independently within the Universitas (municipal administration of the time). It was administered and represented by four elected members (including at least one licteratus) and twelve councilors, half of whom were renewed each year following election by the pleno concilio formed by all heads of families, without difference of class.
Instead, the count was represented - since he resided in Naples - by a governor-general or viscount who defended his interests, administered justice and commanded a police squad.
Some of the rules of the Statutes dealt with the conjugal society, stipulating that the dowry consisted of one part of dowry property and two other parts in coin, to be paid half on the wedding day and the other half in the following three years. It was also stipulated that blood relatives and friends could only make gifts in money and not exceeding half a gold scudo. Nuptial robes were regarded as gifts, and in case of dissolution they became the property of the wife, who was excluded from the succession of family property unless there was no other male blood relative living.
Crimes were divided between those against persons (insults, threats, injuries) and those against property (usurpation, water detour, damages). The penalties imposed were in most cases pecuniary in nature and only a few times included imprisonment. Women who had participated in brawls or fights turned out to be immune from punishment.