SANT’ANGELO DEI LOMBARDI

 - THE TOWN OF SANT'ANGELO DEI LOMBARDI

Town in the Avellino province situated on a hill 870 meters above sea level near the Italico watershed. It is the seat of a bishopric and small center for the milling industry, bell foundries and manufacturing of macaroni. The town has narrow, winding streets, with a population of 1,751 in 1931. It has a railroad station on the Rocchetta Sant'Antonio - Avellino line with a highway to the station (8 Km.), to Avellino (57 Km.), and Rocchetta Sant'Antonio (58 Km.).

The area of the comune covers 54.76 sq. Km. of which 70% is used for crops, 10% for pasture, 10% for woods and chestnut trees and 3% for fruit orchards. The main agricultural products are grain, oats, potatoes, grapes, fruit and chestnuts.

The total population of the comune is 6,499 (1931) of which 63% live in scattered houses, the remainder in the town and the "frazione" of San Vito and Sant'Antuono. In 1881 there were 6,804 inhabitants; 7,343 in 1911; 5,683 in 1921. 

- MONUMENTS

Traces of the Renaissance are found in the cathedral, the church of Sant'Antonio and in typical civil buildings of the 1500's, but the monument most important is in the outskirts in a lone valley not far from the source of the Ofanto river, the Abbey of San Guglielmo (St. William) al Goleto, where until 1807, San Guglielmo da Vercelli was buried in a tomb signed by the sculptor Urso, perhaps from Canosa.

The sanctuary, sleekly elegant, has two floors, superimposed. The lower church, attributed to around 1200, is the oldest, with a double nave with two columns in the middle apse, supported by half columns in the walls and covering of the transept. The same layout repeats in the upper church with ogive vaults and pointed arches built, as an inscription on the portal of the facade says, by Abbess Marina between 1247 and 1250. There are as many structural elements inside as there are forms of corbelled, pointed-arch archivolts in the entrance portal. These are capitals with octagonal volutes on top of the column and decorations of tree leaves showing the influence in the upper church of French Cistercian architecture and, especially, the imitation of the lower rooms of Castel del Monte in Puglia.

Also the nearby belltower has carved on the entrance the date 1152 and in the masonry one can see interested Roman reliefs incorporated. In 1212 a tower was built by the Abbess Febronia. 

- HISTORY

Founded according to tradition by the Lombards (hence the name), it became a bishopric in the 12th century. The Queen of Naples, Giovanna II (1432) gave it various privileges: free use of ovens and mills, free market on Saturdays and Sundays, exemptions from tariffs on butchering, taverns and above all the commitment that she would never make the town a feud.

However, one finds the town a feud in 1559, as a countship awarded to Leonardo Caracciolo. It then passed to the Carafa family and finally to the Imperiale family (1633).

Destroyed by an earthquake in 1664 and rebuilt, the city had a seminary and hospital. The nearby Abbey of San Guglielmo al Goleto, founded 1138 by San Guglielmo di Vercelli, grew in importance.