Cervinara is a town and ''

comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces ('' province''). The can ...

'' in the

province of Avellino The Province of Avellino ( it, Provincia di Avellino) is a province in the Campania region of Southern Italy. The area is characterized by numerous small towns and villages scattered across the province; only two towns have a population over 20,0 ...

Campania (man), it, Campana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demog ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

History

According to the legend, the name "Cervinara" comes from an altar dedicated by the Romans to Ceres, goddess of the harvest. The name appears for the first time in 837 AD document, describing the donation of "castrum quod dicitur in Cerbinaria Caudetanis" to Sicard, Prince of Benevento, by the monks of

San Vincenzo al Volturno San Vincenzo al Volturno is a historic Benedictine monastery located in the territories of the Comunes of Castel San Vincenzo and Rocchetta a Volturno, in the Province of Isernia, near the source of the river Volturno in Italy. The current mona ...

. The village probably formed between the 9th and 10th centuries AD, when populations concentrated from the countryside around the fortified castle. Cervinara was held by several feudal families, including the Filangieri, the Carafa, the Caracciolo and the Sant'Eramo. Until the early 19th century, it saw a distinctive agricultural development, mainly due to the particularly fertile soil. During the

Italian unification The unification of Italy ( it, Unità d'Italia ), also known as the ''Risorgimento'' (, ; ), was the 19th-century political and social movement that resulted in the consolidation of different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single ...

, the Cervinaresi contributed to the liberal movements of 1820 and 1848, when the conspirators decided to start from Cervinara to march on

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

and establish a Republic. However, the revolutionary ferment never managed to involve the majority of the population, and on 29/30 November 1860, Cervinara sided with the

Bourbons The House of Bourbon (, also ; ) is a European dynasty of French origin, a branch of the Capetian dynasty, the royal House of France. Bourbon kings first ruled France and Navarre in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Spanish ...

against the Italian troops which had occupied the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. In the 19th century, during the Brigandage in the Two Sicilies, the bands of Cipriano and Giona La Gala chose as a refuge the mountains above the village to fight against the Italian troops. Cervinara-Castello

Main sights

The Cervinarese artistic heritage include the Lombard

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

tower, now partially demolished, the Abbey of San Gennaro, built around 1100 and now dedicated to the Shrine of

Our Lady of Sorrows Our Lady of Sorrows ( la, Beata Maria Virgo Perdolens), Our Lady of Dolours, the Sorrowful Mother or Mother of Sorrows ( la, Mater Dolorosa, link=no), and Our Lady of Piety, Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows or Our Lady of the Seven Dolours are names ...

, and the Palace Marchesale, dating from the late 16th century. In 2017, the city installed a 20-meter-tall public art sculpture, "La chiave di Cervinara", by the artist Milot Alfred Mirashi.

References

Cities and towns in Campania {{Campania-geo-stub