ETIMOLOGY AND HISTORY

The village is located in a beautiful panoramic place. Your visit starts from the square, overlooked by a centuries-old Tilia, in a pleasant location articulated in narrow streets which end with Castrum Submontis, a Langobardic castle used as a defensive point for Avellino countship. Santa Maria del Proposito (also S.Maria “ad Submonte” ) is the most relevant element of the area, mentioned for the first time during the tenth century. It was sold to the Territorial Abbey of Montevergine in 1174 and became, from 1229, a reference point for the new hamlet of Verginiani confraternity in Fontanelle. A monastic center that promoted the progressive changes of the rural landscape in a rational productive system characterized by chestnut trees, grapevine, olive trees and hazel trees.

These cultivations were put side by side with that of flax and mulberry documented around 1307. The ecclesiastical foundations promoted the settlement on Normans, who took advantage of its position for the strategic control of the area. The Castrum was destroyed in 1334 by Ruggero II d’Altavilla and it was rebuilt in a balium militum turned (in 1300 under Leonessa family) in a sighting tower. The Medieval village, overlooked by the majestic Angevin Tower, runs along three directions: via Borgonuovo, via Varra and Via Arco San Nicola which reconnects to the Castle and create an enveloping streets system around the small hill of the Tower.